The boundary between the cities of Newburyport and Amesbury, Massachusetts, runs through Deer Island, so Chain Bridge connects the two communities.

Crossing from the island to the left bank of the Merrimack requires traversing the Derek S. Hines Memorial Bridge, formerly the Essex-Merrimack Drawbridge, which was reconstructed and reopened in August 2012.

[citation needed] The first timber-arch truss bridge was constructed in 1792 to designs by Timothy Palmer, a local architect, using an arch he designed to mimic stone voussoir construction in wood, which he patented as "Palmer's arch".

[6] James Finley, a Pennsylvania engineer, patented the chain construction in 1808.

Using his designs, he built a bridge, since destroyed, over the Schuylkill River that year.