Then the break came. The river was perfectly empty from tower to tower. At twenty-five past eleven, from the archway on the New York tower, Martin shouted up to Farrington, “Go ahead!” Farrington had Brown signal to the hoisting engine. The cannon was fired a second time—to signal the men on the Brooklyn side to cut loose their lashings and as a warning to approaching ships.
“In a few seconds the rope began to move,” Farrington wrote later; “there was a ripple around it in the water; it began to draw away from the dock toward Brooklyn, and soon we could see the other part coming from Brooklyn towards us. Faster and faster the space of clear water between the two parts narrowed, and in four minutes from the time of starting, it swung clear of the surface of the water, with a sparkling swish, amid the cheers of spectators, on the wharves and ferryboats, and the shouts of our own workmen.”
This time the drum in the yard was wound by a thirty-horsepower engine that made 150 revolutions per minute (the engine used to pull the wire over the tower had been only half as powerful). As a result it took just two and a half minutes to pull the wire free from the water, and five minutes, all told, to get it into proper position for the time being, stretched from tower to tower at an elevation above the water of two hundred feet more or less. Almost immediately a boat passed by below, a lighter called Comet carrying a load of pig iron, and at least one reporter took the opportunity to go up on the Brooklyn tower to take a look at the view.
“When it is considered that one has to climb upward of thirty flights of winding stairway, the toil of the ascent on a close August day can be readily imagined,” wrote the young man from the Herald, “but all this is instantly forgotten when the picture from the summit spreads out at one’s feet.” The buildings of both cities, he said, looked dwarfed beneath the overtopping height of the tower; the streets seemed narrowed down to lanes in Brooklyn and to mere pathways in New York. The view of the river and the bay, with their islands and with tiny ships moving restlessly this way and that, all looked extremely fine, he said. “What a splendid set of photographs could be obtained from this point!…Doubtless some enterprising photographer will seize the chance.”*
With the first half of the working rope thus in place, the drum and hoisting engine in the New York yard had to be freed to haul over the second half. So a huge iron clamp was bolted to the end, near the enginehouse, about ten feet from the ground. A pulley block was made fast to the wharf close to the drum, another to the clamp, and a rope passed between them several times made a lashing strong enough to withstand the pull of the wire rope, the end of which was immediately cast loose from the drum.
The tugs and the scow, in the meantime, had returned to the Brooklyn tower and about noon they started back with the second rope. By half past three it too had been hoisted out of the river, everything going even more smoothly than the first time. The next step would be to take the ends of the two ropes back to the New York anchorage, splice them, and thereby form one immense loop, or endless “traveler,” over the towers, reaching all the way from anchorage to anchorage. The entire length of the traveler when completed would be 6,800 feet, or considerably more than a mile, making it easily the longest belt connecting machinery anywhere on earth.
“WEDDED” was the one-word headline in the evening edition of the Eagle. “The thing is done,” the article began. New York and Brooklyn had been joined at last. But no New York paper was willing to go quite that far. The Herald, for example, described the great endless rope draped over the river as only “the engagement ring in the marriage preparations of the two cities.” All the same the event was an enormous popular success and talk of the bridge was everywhere as the papers reported that the next step would be to send a man across on the rope.
More than a hundred people appeared at the bridge offices to apply for the job, including a twelve-year-old boy who wanted to go hand over hand and a Long Island acrobat who considered it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Nearly all of them volunteered to make the trip without pay and C. C. Martin told reporters there were at least a dozen of his own men who would give a month’s wages to be the first one to cross the river.
To quiet things down some it was announced that the man picked to make the trip would be one of the most trusted employees and probably one of the engineers. The rope would first be run back and forth a number of times. Then the man would go over in a boatswain’s chair, a seat and a sling made fast to the rope. He would start from the Brooklyn anchorage, the announcement said. (Henry Murphy wanted the historic journey to originate in Brooklyn.) He would ride up to the tower, climb out, cross over to the other edge, get back in his seat, and start across the river. “The object of this journey will be to see how the thing works.”
All the machinery for running the rope was at the Brooklyn anchorage. At the foot of the great stone mass stood a thirty-horsepower steam hoisting engine that would drive the wheels. It was completely enclosed, as was its boiler nearby. Up above, across the face of the anchorage, secured just over the arches, was a line of shafting with several pulleys. A sixteen-inch-wide belt, ninety feet long, connected the pulleys on the shafting with the gears and cogwheels that turned the enormous twelve-foot wheel that carried the working rope. The arrangement of cogwheels was such that the direction of the rope could be reversed without reversing the engine, an important feature since the rope was not to be revolved continuously, but worked back and forth.
On the New York anchorage the framework of the main pulley was adjustable, so it could be moved forward or back in order to give the rope the prescribed deflection, or sag. (At one deflection the rope would bear greater weight than at another, and thus adjusting the deflection just so would be a vital part of the work to come.) Had there not been some trouble with the delivery of one or two essential belts, the much heralded first crossing would have taken place almost immediately after the traveler was in place, but there were numerous other matters to attend to in any event, and the Eagle, ever the ardent champion of the bridge, wrote, “It is refreshing to see how the work is pushed forward, and yet the thoroughness with which everything is done, in these days of slighted work and ill-performed operations…”
To the surprise of almost no one who had had anything to do with building the bridge, the man chosen to make the first trip over the river was Master Mechanic E. F. Farrington.
Farrington, who would so soon become a subject of great public interest, was nearing sixty in 1876, but still agile, tough, and, of course, exceedingly knowledgeable about working with wire rope. Subsequent newspaper articles would reveal also that he came from Massachusetts originally, where he had been put to work in a woolen mill at age nine, that he had been a farmer, a carpenter, a machinist in England, a seaman, a gasworks superintendent, and was considered the best bridge mechanic in the country. On the morning of Friday, August 25, when he arrived at the Brooklyn anchorage ready to make his historic journey, he appeared “perfectly cool and collected”—a spare man of medium height, with gray beard and blue eyes, turned out quite formally for the occasion in a fresh suit of unbleached linen and a new straw hat.
An announcement that a man was to make the crossing that day had been published in the Eagle the previous afternoon. As a result the crowds had begun gathering since well before nine in the morning. Seen from Brooklyn, the piers adjacent to the New York tower looked black with people, and the gates to the Brooklyn anchorage and tower yard were jammed with spectators.
Up on the anchorage itself workmen were busy adjusting belts and pulleys, with Martin, McNulty, and Farrington supervising everything. By eleven all looked in order. The machinery was set in motion and the rope began moving across the river. To get every twist and kink out, it had to be worked back and forth several times. Otherwise anything attached to it, including a human passenger, would have been turned over and over. A stick tied to the rope as a marker and sent from the Brooklyn anchorage up to the Brooklyn tower twisted completely around several times while making its slow ascent. But a
fter half an hour of working the rope to and fro, it moved along perfectly.
There was a break for the noon meal. The day was bright and very hot by then. Up on the Brooklyn tower, a small crowd of privileged spectators had gathered, including Senator Murphy and several ladies. The sun beat down on the exposed stonework and at one point some of the reporters in the group sent a note over the rope to their compatriots on the opposite tower asking for cold beer and sandwiches. An answer was returned by the same route, “Send the money and we will send the beer,” but no money was sent.
Presently, about twenty past one, the huge American flag was again unfurled from the Brooklyn tower and minutes later another went up the flagstaff on the New York tower. Then two men with red signal flags were seen to wave to each other from the tops of either tower. Everything was set to go. Estimates were that more than ten thousand people were watching.
Farrington, all this time, had been supervising the preparation of his boatswain’s chair, a simple board seat, two feet long and two inches thick, with rope holes drilled in each corner, like an ordinary swing, and with four ropes drawn through and tied to the wire rope just as they might be for a swing. The board itself had been placed so that only one end rested on the rim of the anchorage, while most of it hung out over the edge, eighty feet above the street. So when Farrington proceeded to take his seat, it was, in the words of one bystander, a somewhat delicate operation.
The men assisting him next passed a rope across his back, to form a rest of sorts, then brought it around, across his chest, and tied it securely to one of the corner ropes. All these precautions, however, appeared to make “the daring voyager” feel only more uncomfortable.
At thirty-two minutes past one o’clock, Farrington said he was ready. “Timothy McCarthy ran the engine,” Farrington would write later, “and John D. Smallfield handled the starting lever most carefully, according to a system of signals previously agreed upon.” Martin, who was standing close by, dipped a signal flag, John D. Smallfield in the yard below shifted his lever, and in an instant the master mechanic was on his way.
There was great shouting from down below, and up ahead, on top of the tower, people were waving hats and handkerchiefs. Then all at once, as he went swinging out over the housetops between the anchorage and the tower, Farrington freed himself from the rope about his chest and stood up on the seat. Holding on first with one hand, then the other, he lifted his hat in response to the continuing ovation. Then he sat down again. People were running through the streets beneath him now, shouting and cheering as they ran. He waved, he blew them kisses. Sailing steadily along all the while, his course was nearly horizontal at first, like that of a heavy bird taking flight, because of the sag in the rope. His light coat blew open and began fluttering in the wind. And then he was beyond the sag and climbing sharply, almost straight up, a coat-flapping, gently twirling form that looked very small, fragile, and very birdlike now against the granite face of the tower.
The rope had to be operated with the greatest of care at this stage, as Farrington neared the top of the tower, for if he were drawn suddenly against the coping, he might be knocked right out of his seat. A reporter described the moment this way:
One of the most experienced engineers in the place held the lever [McNulty most likely], and as Mr. Farrington was seen to approach the top of the tower the engine was slowed. All eyes were now strained to discern the movements of the voyager. That he appreciated the danger was evident, as was also the reason for freeing himself from the restraints of the encircling rope, for he stood upright again with his feet upon the board and his hands ready to save himself by grasping the coping of the tower in case the wire was not stopped in time. The red flag was seen to drop, and simultaneously the wire was stopped. Two men stood by ready to help Mr. Farrington upon the tower, but he was still a little too low down to be reached. The red flag was held aloft, and the engineer, interpreting that signal to mean “go ahead,” started the wire again very cautiously. It had moved but a few feet when the flag dropped again, and the engine was stopped instantaneously. Mr. Farrington was now nearly level with the top of the tower, and strong hands grasping his, he was upon his feet and surrounded by an excited crowd of friends in a second.
A tremendous cheer went up from the streets and rooftops, followed quickly by a salute from the little cannon across the river. His time from anchorage to tower was three and three-quarter minutes. (Quite a number of those gentlemen with privileged vantage points on the towers and anchorages had their watches out through the whole of Farrington’s aerial journey and the time he took from point to point would be a subject of the greatest interest among them and duly noted for the historical record.)
Farrington told those clustered about him on the Brooklyn tower that the trip thus far had been nothing at all. Murphy shook him heartily by the hand and asked how he felt. It was an exhilarating moment for the Senator. Farrington said he felt just fine.
The little sling seat was then carried across to the opposite rim and Farrington climbed down and seated himself once again for the long ride over the river. The rope he was traveling on did not look very big even up close. It was about as thick as a man’s thumb. But to those who stood with him at the tower’s edge, the rope appeared to trail off to no more than a thread, then to vanish altogether somewhere out beyond the middle of the river. It was all very well to know its tensile strength and the rest (it could carry the weight of ten men and more). Every instinct was still to pull back and shudder at the prospect of stepping off into such a void.
Again the signal flag waved and the rope started and the minute he swung away from the tower there was another outburst of cheering. This time all those crowded along the wharves were joined by thousands more on board the innumerable boats and ferries that had gathered for the occasion. All normal traffic on the river had stopped. From the towers it looked almost as though one could walk across just by stepping from boat to boat.
Farrington went sailing over the river, waving, lifting his hat, very obviously having a glorious time, but he stayed seated. Then a steam tug directly beneath him let loose with its shrill whistle. Instantly a dozen others joined in. In seconds every boat on the river was sounding its approval as the tiny figure of a man went soaring overhead, “to all appearances self-propelled,” spinning around every now and then, the rope he dangled from all but invisible against the sky.
As he passed the center of the river and began his ascent to the New York tower, the reception from shore was louder even than his Brooklyn send-off had been. And a little less than seven minutes after leaving the Brooklyn tower, he made a flawless landing on top of the New York tower. Then with no delay whatever he was across the summit of the tower, back in his seat again, and on his way on the last leg of the trip, down to the New York anchorage.
Now the great mass of spectators along the river front surged inland toward the anchorage. Church bells were ringing, factory whistles screaming, along with all the boat horns, bells, and whistles that were still sounding forth from the water—“a perfect pandemonium” the Times called it. Indeed, Master Mechanic Farrington seemed the only one not carried away by the moment. It was as though he might be having second thoughts about the commotion he was causing, or that he was sorry the ride was over. “Despite the shouting and confusion that went on beneath him,” wrote one onlooker, “he sat quiet with his hands folded, save when he waved them in response and showed every sign of perfect self-possession.”
Then Farrington stepped lightly onto the New York anchorage, the first passenger to cross over from Brooklyn by way of the Great Bridge. The entire trip had taken twenty-two minutes.
After that, when Farrington climbed down from the anchorage, something close to a riot broke out. The crowd wanted to carry him through the streets in triumph. At first he had tried to make his way through, thinking naïvely that he could walk over to the ferry back to Brooklyn, but people were pressing about him so, reaching out to touch him with such fervor,
that he was “obliged to seek refuge from their attentions” in an office in the bridge yard. The hope was that things might settle down if he kept out of sight. But an hour later the crowds had grown greater if anything. A rowboat was brought to the wharf under the tower. Farrington slipped out a back door and was rowed to the other side.
Farrington declared afterward, “The ride gave me a magnificent view, and such pleasing sensations as probably I shall never experience again. But he thought much too much fuss had been made over the episode and told Roebling he was quite put out by the publicity he had received. He had had a natural desire to be the first man over, he said, but his real objective had been to demonstrate to his workmen, who would be doing the same thing under more hazardous conditions, his own complete confidence in the safety of the rope. He would ask no man to do anything he would not do himself.
Moreover, he allowed that he and the assistant engineers had been getting too much praise lately. Roebling was the hardest worker of them all, he told one reporter. “He does most of the brain work,” Farrington said.
Be that as it may, Farrington had done something neither Roebling nor anyone else had. In the eyes of the public, for the very first time, he had transformed years of talk and expense and several million tons of granite into a bridge over the East River. He had shown the thing could work. And like it or not, he himself had been transformed by the act.
He said he had simply gone along for the ride. Anyone could have done it was what he told people; the only thing necessary was to sit there, all of which was perfectly true to a very large extent. But the more he went on that way, deprecating his own part in the spectacle, the more he seemed to be saying something else—that this bridge was a more miraculous affair than one might imagine. It had not only taken him over the river with perfect safety, it had transformed him into a hero. And, of course, the fact that he was a plain mechanic, but a man of natural good sense and courage, did nothing to diminish his popular appeal.
David McCullough Library E-book Box Set Page 117