Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-12
AN 0LD-TIME HOAX.
How Ten Thousand People We're Sold,
More Than Forty Years Ago.
THE CELEBRATED FLYING GOOSE,
And the Amusement it Caused at the Hand
Street Bridge.
THE BITERs ALSO AMONG THE BIT

The old Hand street bridge, in recent
years called tine Ninth xreet bridge, is
rapidly disappearing, one timber after an
other giving place to iron beams and rods.
It is the oldest bridge across either of the
rivers here, and is therefore the patriarch
deserving respect. Two other bridges were
built before it was, but they have been long
torn down and replaced by suspension
structures.
The first bridge at Pittsburg was COW
cred wooden one at the foot of Smithfeld
street, built in 1918. Two years later q
bridge very much like it was thrown across
the Allegheny river from st. Clair street,
now Sixth, to Federal street. When the
Smithfeld street bridge was ID years old, its
two spans toward the Pittsburg bank fell
down one night and dropped coal wagon,
the driver and four horses into the river.
In 1845, when the First ward was purified
by fire, the bridge went up in flames and
smoke, and was succeeded by Mr.. Roebling's s
suspension bridge. The wooden bridge over
the Allegheny lasted 40 years, when the
present Sixth street bridge took its place.
The Hand street bridge was begun in 1887
and completed in 1889, so that it is at least
if it be sensitive on that subject.
STORY OF A BIG HOAX.
The Hand street bridge was the scene Of a
celebrated fying machine hoax, of which
many people still talk, but of which very
few now know the facts. When built there
was promenade on top of the bridge, from
which there was an excellent view up and
down stream. The story Of the flying
IL Tlrer,
yesterday by Mr.. L. D. McCandless.
The affair occurred on Monday, August
81, 1876. 1t originated from an article
written by J. Heron Foster, then the editor
of the DISPATCH, describing a flying ma
chine invented and nearly completed by a
Mr.. Trouberg, of Birmingham, which was
to be exhibited in public in very short
time. The machine and its inventor, ii they
ever existed, disappeared, and Mr.. Foster
and the fying machine became the objects
OF jokes by his friends and ridicule by his
cotemporaries. At a printers dinner, in
the Old Bank Exchange, he was toasted and
roasted over the promised exhibition.
This put an idea into the heads of some of
Mr.. Fosters printers, and on the Saturday
night following the dinner three of THE
DISPATCH compositors, Oscar McCleIland,
Dave McCreary and Hen Balsley printed
and posted about the city handbills an
nouncing that Mr.. Trouberg, having COM
pleted his flying machine, would give
public display of its powers from the top of
the Hand street bridge on the following
Monday.
THOUSANDS WERE SOLD.
On that day the three printers went to the
river to see the crowd and enjoy the result
of their sell. The impression that none but
the inventor and his intimate friends would
be permitted on the promenade lett that de-
sirable position comparatively free. Every
available point on both banks of the river
was occupied, and the surface of the stream
swarmed with rowboats. The crowd was
estimated at nearly 10000.
While the three printers were enjoying
the affair hugely laughing at the anxiety of
the multitude, they were surprised to see a
commotion among the people on the prom
enade, and to distinguish two men carrying
q coffee sack. They were contounded when
the sack was opened and live goose flew
from the top of the bridge to the water be-
low. The printers had no knowledge of
this appropriate climax. but they Joined in
the yells of the multitude as the goose went
Tapping into the water. Ralph jackson, a
we,l-known citizen, and John Plankerton,
a steamboat pilot, feeling certain that the
thing was a hoax, had bought the goose on
their way to the bridge. When it reached
the water it was chased by a number of
boats. Little Alec Murray, a steamboat
captured the bewildered bird. On
the next trip of the Clipper No. he gave
the goose to j. 81. Green, the reformed gam
bier. He took it with him to his home in
Kentucky, where it may vet be alive.
Green took good care of it, and several years
aftsrward said he still had the goose at his
home in Bowling Green