James Finley (engineer)

Born in Ireland,[1] Finley moved to a 287-acre (1.16 km2) farm in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, near Uniontown.

[2] Elected a justice of the peace in 1784, he went on to become county commissioner in 1789, and a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Senate.

Finley is also credited with designing and constructing a chain suspension bridge across Dunlap's Creek in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, in 1809.

In 1820, however, the bridge collapsed under a heavy snow combined with the loads from a six-horse wagon team.

Finley patented his system in 1808 and also published a paper on the principles of the deck-stiffened suspension bridge.

"View of the Chain Bridge invented by James Finley Esqr." (1810), wood engraving, William Strickland , delineator, The Port Folio [ Magazine ], June 1810. The 200-foot span shown in this image makes it almost certainly the Chain Bridge at Falls of Schuylkill .