Within a decade of Taft's arrival, he and his brother had established a number of mills and the increasingly busy settlement required a bridge over the Ottauquechee River.

When the third bridge at the site was again washed away during an 1828 flood, a distinguished local by the name of Solomon Emmons III was contracted to build a more resilient crossing.

[1] The Taftsville Bridge was extensively damaged by flooding caused by Hurricane Irene in 2011, and was closed for two years while repairs took place.

While the incorporation of laminated arches in the bridge structure is generally indicative of the well-known Burr arch-truss, which was patented in the United States in 1817, the resemblance is purely superficial.

Instead, the unusual design of the Taftsville Bridge is better described as a "modified multiple kingpost truss with semi-independent arches".