In 1859 an article appeared in the Monmouth Weekly Register and was confirmed in the New York Herald.
William Reid was plowing fields near the Wreck Pond inlet when an object floated down from the sky. At first, it looked like a small corn basket, but then he realized, as it passed overhead, it was the size of a large haystack before it crashed and dragged on the ground.
It headed toward the ocean, bouncing along. Dozens of people gathered on the shoreline down to Manasquan and watched the 100-foot-wide oiled silk blob drift out to sea. Soon a yawl out of Manasquan sent two men in a rowboat to pick it up. But the men became entangled in the netting around the structure and their boat was dragged for over an hour by the wind. Finally, the Boston, a packet steamer out of Philadelphia came up alongside and helped the men. They cut the silks and after letting out the hydrogen gas and water took the object aboard.
Painted on the side was “Joshua Pussey, Philadelphia. 1857”.
1850s Vauxhall airship similar to Pussey’s
Pussey an 18- year-old aeronaut on his 49th balloon flight had gone up in West Chester PA. The Quaker was a curious practical scientist who loved to tinker. This time, the wind proved too fast for his balloon and he tried to bring it down after traveling over 35 miles in just over an hour.
Joshua tossed his anchor, dragging through a forest for over 400 yards, tearing at the anchor line. Two men saw his plight, and knowing if the rope broke, Pussey would be subjected to the whims of the wind, adrift without an anchor. They grabbed hold of the rope, which allowed Pussey to climb out of the basket, and slide down from the balloon. He suffered some bruises, rope burn, and torn clothes, and the two men released the line and the balloon sailed off to the northeast with the wind.
While people in the New Jersey countryside would have never seen a balloon, Philadelphia was the site of the first American Balloon flight in 1793 by Jean-Pierre Blanchard. George Washington attended the display in what was the new nation’s capital. Frenchman Blanchard had been the first to cross the English Channel in a Balloon and on this trip, he crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey. By the 1850s, Balloons were novelties at expositions and fairs.
Joshua Pussey was injured in the Civil War and made his living afterward as a lawyer. But he continued to tinker and invent. He is credited with two surviving inventions. The joy of snow riders, an improvement to the toboggan to allow for a seat and steel runners, and something to help him light his cigars. He patented the flexible matchbook, a cardboard foldable set of matches with a built-in striker.
The Diamond Match Company paid Pussey 4,000 in 1896 for his invention, and it became one of the most universally recognized products of the 1900’s.
It’s a good thing the line held so he could get out. Otherwise, he might have crashed at Wreck Pond with his balloon.
Joshua Pussey in the 1890s