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Foss Fondly Recalls the Singing Bridge
Entering or exiting
Hancock used to be a musical experience along the fondly remembered
Hancock-Sullivan Bridge—better known and remembered by locals as the
Singing
Bridge.
The old Hancock-Sullivan Bridge, built in 1924, was
architecturally unforgettable. Locals fondly called it the
Singing Bridge.
staff photo by allyson brehm |
Now it is known as
“the Silent
Bridge,”
announced by small green signs posted at each end. The new bridge,
which spans the Taunton River, no longer makes music.
The
Hancock-Sullivan Bridge separates Hancock from its next door
neighbor Sullivan, both on Route 1.
Hancock native
Maynard Foss has been present at both the original opening (1924)
and the reopening (1999) of the bridge.
Foss remembers the
day the bridge opened. He was 13 and his father had been on the
board that helped get the bridge built.
Before the bridge
was built in 1923-24, travelers would take ferries across the bay
for the quick trip. Otherwise, they would have to take the long way
around through Franklin.
Foss rode across
the bridge in his father’s Model T Ford on the day it opened. Foss
also remembers a small dedication ceremony on the Sullivan side.
At the time it was
first bridge that had a concrete deck, said Bob Potter a board
member of the Sullivan-Sorrento Historical Society. But when that
began to erode, the steel grating was put in.
That is when the
bridge started “singing”—the sound was caused by rubber tires
zooming over the steel-grated lanes.
Foss described the
sound as more of a humming than a singing.
“It was a hum, a
loud hum,” he said.
There was a
drawbridge section in the middle of the bridge that turned and
rested on two piers instead of being lifted, said Foss. This allowed
larger boats, some of which were being built in
Franklin,
to come down the river.
The singing
continued until 1999 when the bridge was redone because it had been
judged unsafe.
This time, Foss was
the grand marshal, with Sullivan resident Lynn Dunbar, at the
bridge’s dedication.
“I cut the ribbon
in the middle of the bridge,” he said. “Yes, I miss the sound when I
go over the bridge. But it’s a big improvement.” —Allyson Brehm
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