That such outsize, unprecedented efforts frequently involved watered stock, political jobbery, kickbacks for contractors, and not a little human suffering was either not altogether apparent as yet or of minor concern. So much good was going to come out of so comparatively little evil, it was generally felt, that the evil seemed a reasonable price to pay, and probably inevitable in any event. What really counted was that things were being accomplished at last on a scale in keeping with the commonly held vision of the future. Man the killer, man the destroyer, would be man the builder for now—now and here, on the infinite, seemingly inexhaustible landscape of America. It was the time and place to be intensely, boldly constructive.
In less than a month, when a much publicized golden spike would be driven with humorous difficulty at Promontory, Utah, the completion of the transcontinental railroad would be hailed as “one of the victories of peace.” In his way Slocum was saying the same thing. The real glory of American achievement lay ahead, as always. But the true heroes now would be those who made possible such victories of peace—the builders. One of the greatest of them, the architect Louis Sullivan, would later write of his own feelings as a boy at about this same time: “The chief engineers became his heroes; they loomed above other men…he dreamed to be a great engineer. The idea of spanning a void appealed to him as masterful in thought and deed. For he had begun to discern that among men of the past and of his day, there were those that stood forth solitary, each in a world of his own.”
4
Father and Son
Nothing lasts forever. The most unforeseen circumstances will swamp you and baffle the wisest calculations. Only vitality and plenty of it helps you.
—WASHINGTON A. ROBELING
THE BRIDGE tour ended on April 20. “The parties left for the east,” reported the Niagara Falls Gazette, “…traveling in a special car well furnished with refreshments.” All, apparently, were still on the friendliest of terms.
In the temporary offices overlooking Fulton Street, work picked up about where it had left off, and with renewed vigor. Directors and stockholders came and went. Orders were placed for drawing tables and filing cabinets and there was a steady tramp of feet on the stairs as inventors came to show patents of tools and machinery, as salesmen arrived with samples of granite or promises of speedy delivery and the best possible price for coal, lumber, sand, or nails. And whenever the senior Roebling was in town and conducting interviews for jobs, the applicants could be seen in the outer office, waiting their turn to go in and sit before the old Prussian and tell him about their special attributes.
A man named William Lane, carpenter, mason, and all-around mechanic, came highly recommended by the Army engineers, Generals Wright and Newton. (“Looks like an energetic good man,” Roebling noted.) Charles Kinkel was a German who told Roebling he had had experience with foundations. John Morgan, an English draftsman, wanted employment badly, he said, while William McNamee looked like a “tolerably good man.”
And so it went. J. W. Jenkins, a diver, said that if he was hired by the month he would work for twenty-five dollars a day, do whatever blasting was wanted, and provide his own tools. Otherwise his regular day rate was a hundred dollars. Two experienced surveyors, Rudolph Rosa and Colonel William Paine, each wanted ten dollars a day and both were hired on the spot.
Paine in particular seemed exactly the sort of man Roebling was looking for. Self-taught in engineering, he had surveyed the so-called Johnson Route of the Union Pacific, across the Sierra Nevada. During the war, wearing civilian clothes, he had slipped through Confederate lines and worked his way from Washington to Richmond, mapping the location of every destroyed bridge along the way. Lincoln had personally made him a captain of engineers for this and Paine was put on the staff of a major general, a position customarily held only by a West Pointer. By the time the war had ended, he was reputedly the leading topographical engineer in the Union Army. It was said he could prop a drawing board on the pommel of his saddle and as he rode along sketch a map of the surrounding terrain that would be accurate enough to go right to the engraver. He was also well read in chemistry, geology, the natural sciences, and he enjoyed literature, he told Roebling. He was from New Hampshire originally, and he was modest, but very firm and sure of himself. His most notable physical feature was a great sweeping handle-bar mustache. Finding him so early was taken as a good sign.
The one technical chore to be finished up before actual construction could begin was the final survey. A center line had to be located and the responsibility for this Roebling had turned over to his son, to whom Paine was assigned forthwith.
The two worked extremely well together and became a familiar sight in Brooklyn that spring. They took their sightings, hammered down their little iron pins, and worked their way steadily inland from the river, through a neighborhood of narrow shops and warehouses and a terrible tangle of waterfront traffic. As each iron pin went in, young Roebling recorded its location, making a small diagram in the black leather notebook he carried. To show where the center line crossed through the juncture of Fulton, Dock, and James Streets, for instance, he drew the basic outline of the intersection—no easy thing, since the streets, like most in the vicinity, did not join at right angles—then the center line, cutting across the intersection at its own angle. Along this he marked points A, B, C, and D. Point A was a notch he and Paine had cut into the belt course of a yellow house on the corner of Dock Street; B was a crow’s-foot chiseled into the curbstone just up from the yellow house; C was an iron pin driven into the crosswalk on Fulton; D was another pin in the middle of the crosswalk, on the opposite side of the street.
St. Ann’s Church was their most conspicuous landmark. The historic old building would have to come down eventually. It was one of those numerous pieces of property the value of which had not been included in the engineer’s original cost estimate and there were those among its parishioners, as there were elsewhere in Brooklyn, who did not view the two intent surveyors with their brass instruments as necessarily the harbingers of progress.
Through most of this time John Roebling remained in Trenton. He would make an occasional visit of a few days, stopping at the Mansion House on Hicks Street, but the rest of the time he was content to leave things to his son, who by this time had apparently become greatly concerned over the possible verdict of the consultants, and who, like Charles Swan, was expected to keep Roebling regularly posted…
Brooklyn, May 21, 1869
DEAR FATHER,
Your Turkish Bath tickets came today.
Maj. King arrived yesterday. The Commission have made their report and sent it to Washington today. I think that if their report was at all favorable, they would not be so quiet about it.
Kingsley proposes to send Genl. Slocum to Washington next week in order to hurry up Humphreys…
Yours, Aff.
WASH.
Genl. Wright sent back the map for correction, to have the span put back to 1600 which I did.
Also to cables whether of steel and what diameter.
I said steel with 15” diam.
WASH.
That he could write so matter-of-factly of Kingsley, the contractor, proposing to “send” Slocum, the United States Congressman, on such an errand suggests that the engineering department had no doubts about how things stood among the Kings County Democrats and that possibly the bridge tour had been something of an education for the Roeblings as well. The P.S. concerning steel for the cables also suggests that Roebling senior had at last made up his mind on this crucial matter and, moreover, that the son felt at perfect liberty to speak for the father on just about everything concerning the bridge.
In any event Slocum did go to Washington and was doubtless a good choice for the mission, since both A. A. Humphreys, Chief of the Army Engineers, and John A. Rawlins, the Secretary of War, happened also to be prominent Civil War figures and were both well known by Slocum. Rawlins was the one who counted. Grant’s right-hand man through the war,
he was generally respected in Washington for being both candid and decisive. That he was also dying of tuberculosis that spring was not generally known. Rawlins told Slocum not to concern himself, he could expect to see everything approved within a week. Kingsley was elated when Slocum returned with the news, as Washington Roebling dutifully informed his father. But by the end of the week nothing more had happened.
On June 12 John Roebling came on from Trenton to meet with his consultants still one final time, to receive their formal approval in writing. Washington Roebling ordered five hundred copies printed, then wrote to his father, who had immediately returned to Trenton, that General G. K. Warren, his wife Emily’s famous brother, was going to Washington and would report back privately “how the matter stands down there.”
On June 15 Slocum again saw Rawlins, this time at the sumptuous Brooklyn home of J. Carson Brevoort, where Rawlins was a guest briefly. Rawlins said Grant had told him to do whatever he liked about the bridge—the subject did not much interest the President, one would gather—and Rawlins guaranteed the whole business would be settled as soon as he got back to Washington. Taking no chances, Slocum once more was on his way to the capital, accompanied this time by Henry Murphy. “When Mr. Murphy returns we will have an authentic report,” Washington Roebling wrote to his father, which might be taken to mean there was some skepticism between them concerning Henry Slocum or that they simply thought very well of Henry Murphy.
Rawlins was as good as his word. On June 21 General Humphreys informed Murphy by letter that Rawlins had approved both the plan and the location of the bridge so long as it conformed to certain basic conditions stipulated by the Army Engineers.
The center of the river span was “under no conditions of temperature or load” to be less than 135 feet “in the clear above the mean high water of spring tides.” Nothing could be added that might project out from the towers and no guy wires were to be attached that might hang below the river span. (At both Niagara and Cincinnati Roebling had strung such wires below the bridge floor.) The river was to be kept perfectly clear, in other words, and the roadway of the bridge would have to be raised five feet higher than Roebling had intended.
Such seemingly small changes called for some rather serious revisions, however. The increased elevation would mean an increase in the grade of the approaches and land spans, which right away meant an additional cost of some $300,000, as near as the Roeblings could figure. To avoid all this it was decided to change the iron superstructure of the bridge floor. The stiffening trusswork would be built entirely above the roadway, instead of partly above and partly below as in the original design. And just to be certain that nothing projected beyond the pier lines, the length of the river span was extended from 1,600 to 1,616 feet. It was also decided to widen the bridge floor by five feet, to make room for two double roadways for vehicles, instead of single roadways as the elder Roebling had originally planned.
Such alterations were of little or no interest to the general public, but they were no trifling matter for the engineers and they would alter the looks of the finished structure.
Humphreys’ letter was not a very long or impressive document, but it signaled the conclusion of bureaucratic red tape and was big news in Brooklyn. “THE ROBELING PLANS FULLY ENDROSED” ran the headline in the Eagle the evening of June 25. The paper carried the complete text of the final report by the consulting engineers and concluded that now, with all obstacles at last out of the way, the work could commence.
Three nights later, at the Brooklyn Athenaeum, Congressman Demas Barnes delivered a lecture on the bridge before an audience “notable for its large representation of solid businessmen,” who listened “with the most evident interest and attention.” Barnes, who had made a fortune in patent medicines, had been the strongest voice for the bridge on the floor of the House. This night he began his talk with an impassioned description of Brooklyn and its future, from which he moved to the bridge itself, speaking with equal ardor. Then, for his grand finale, he proclaimed the following, summing up, it would seem, all that was so fervently felt, all the common expectations, concerning the Great Bridge:
This bridge is to be built, appealing as it does to our pride, our gratitude and prosperity. When complete, let it illustrate the grandeur of our age; let it be the Mecca to which foreign peoples shall come. Let Brooklyn now take up the pen of progress. Babylon had her hanging gardens, Nineveh her towers, and Rome her Coliseum; let us have this great monument to progress.
But that same day, Monday, June 28, 1869, beside the Fulton Ferry slip, John A. Roebling had been involved in an accident, which, though extremely painful, seemed of no serious consequence.
The mental torture after the accident had been nearly as severe as the physical, according to his son, who had been with him almost constantly. “He felt at his age he could ill afford to lose any time: this circumstance, combined with the prospect of being crippled to some extent, had a most depressing influence on his spirits.”
To have been struck down by such a foolish mishap did his spirits no good either. It was the sort of slip a new man might make, or one of the politicians or moneymen who invariably had to be conducted about bridge jobs. When he thought of the risks he had taken, the countless dangers he had exposed himself to over the years, to be felled this way was positively infuriating.
The afternoon of the accident had been clear and pleasantly warm in Brooklyn. He and Washington had been working since morning at the foot of Fulton Street, beside the ferry slip, where the Brooklyn tower was to go. He had come down to the waterfront to assist Washington and Colonel Paine in fixing the precise location of the tower. Paine had been over on the other side of the river, signaling to them.
At one point Roebling was standing as far out on the ferry slip as he could get, atop a cluster of piles. Seeing one of the boats approaching, he stepped back off the piles and onto a stringpiece, or beam, that was wide enough to get a footing and where, he supposed, he would be clear of the piles should they be forced against the beam by the docking boat. But there had been a knot—or something he had not noticed—sticking out from one of the piles and it had caught his right foot as the boat ground against the rack, crushing the tip of his boot and his toes.
The pain must have been excruciating, but he gave no sign of it. He went right on shouting directions until he toppled over, unable to stand any longer.
Washington rushed him to a doctor’s office close by, where his father was no sooner in the door than he was telling the doctor what to do. He demanded a tub of cold water and plunged his foot into it to staunch the flow of blood. Other doctors were called in for an opinion and it was agreed that his toes would have to be amputated. To this Roebling promptly consented and requested that the operation be performed without anesthetic. When it was over, he insisted on binding the wound himself and in his own fashion. Then he was taken to his son’s house on Hicks Street.
For several days there were no public announcements as to how he was getting along. But on July 8 the Brooklyn Eagle reported that he was busily engaged on his plans and drawings for the bridge, and that the injured foot had been so placed that a steady stream of cold water poured over it night and day. “The distinguished engineer has his notions about surgical treatment, and seems to be very stoic in regard to physical pain,” the article said. “He thinks and talks of the bridge as incessantly as ever, and seems unwilling to have the conversation of his professional assistants diverted for a moment to his own accident.” In another ten days, it was claimed, he would be out surveying again.
Dr. Brinkman, the family physician, came up from Philadelphia, and a Reverend John C. Brown from Trenton made a special trip. It seemed strange luck, the preacher told Roebling, that he should be laid up at the start of so great a work. “There is no such thing as chance,” Roebling is supposed to have replied. “All is wisely ordered.”
But in another week reports were he had taken a turn for the worse, though there was no mention of what wa
s by then known inside the Hicks Street house.
Roebling, predictably, perhaps inevitably, had taken charge of his own case. He had fired one Brooklyn doctor, then another, much against his son’s wishes, and though he seems to have tolerated the presence of Brinkman, he never paid any attention to him. Now things were not going at all well. Signs of tetanus had been detected. It would be commonly said later that had he obeyed the doctors, he would have recovered. “But Mr. Roebling was a man of indomitable will and perseverance,” the Eagle would explain, “and the counsels of his friends were as naught.”
For eight days, from July 13 on, Roebling suffered intensely. Medical experts would agree when it was all over that only a very tough and determined man could have endured what he did that long.
At first he had become extremely restless, complaining of savage headaches. But presently he began having trouble swallowing. After that there was no mistaking what was wrong with him. The muscles around his face, neck, and jaws grew rigid as iron. Within a day or so his eyebrows were permanently fixed in a raised position and his mouth was pulled back in a terrible grimace, the teeth all showing and locked tight. He was unable to eat anything solid, or to talk, but he kept scribbling notes to Washington and the others attending him, instructing them on his proper care.
Then the hideous seizures began, set off by the slightest disturbance. His room was kept dark, the long shades drawn against the July sun, and everyone who had reason to go in or out did so as softly as humanly possible. But then a window shade would rattle in the breeze or someone would inadvertently brush against the side of his bed, a door would squeak or there would be a noise from the street below, and he would go into a convulsion, the sight of which was something they would all live with the rest of their lives. All at once his whole body would lift off the bed and double backward with a fierce, awful jerk, his every muscle clenched in violent contraction. Sweat streamed from his body, but he made no sound, not even a groan, because during the spasm his whole chest wall was frozen hard.
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