He lingered on for two more months. The only thing he had left, he said, was his brain and for that, he added, he was extremely grateful.
He died peacefully at age eighty-nine, on July 21, 1926, with his wife, son, and several others at his bedside. There is no record of any last words being said. The end came at three thirty in the afternoon.
All of the bridges built by John A. Roebling are gone now except two—the Cincinnati Bridge and an aqueduct over the Delaware built in 1848 above Port Jervis, New York, which has been converted into an automobile bridge and is the oldest suspension bridge in America. His house at Saxonburg still stands, however, as does the church he built there and a small shed in which the first reels of iron wire were stored. John A. Roebling’s Sons has since been sold to the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.
Washington Roebling’s house on West State Street was offered to the state of New Jersey to be used as the governor’s mansion, but the offer was declined because it was felt that the upkeep would be too costly. The house was torn down in 1946 to make room for a parking lot. The house at 110 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn has also been torn down. His mineral collection, which numbered some sixteen thousand pieces and included all but four of the known minerals on earth, was given by his son to the Smithsonian Institution.
As he had requested, Roebling was buried at Cold Spring, beside Emily. No statues were put up in his honor. The graves were very plainly marked.
In 1948 D. B. Steinman and his New York engineering firm were retained by the city to prepare plans to increase the highway capacity of the Brooklyn Bridge. With some fifty men assigned to the project, an extensive remodeling was carried out over a number of years. The trolley and el tracks were removed, the roadways were widened to three lanes in each direction, and additional trusswork was built. The changes, which cost more than nine million dollars, altered the over-all appearance of the bridge very little.
In 1964 the bridge was officially declared a National Historic Landmark. It now carries more than 121,000 trucks and automobiles a day and on the average Sunday, in good weather, more than a thousand people go walking or bicycling on the promenade, which is still the only one of its kind. There are bronze plaques on both towers, beside the promenade, listing the names of John A. and Washington A. Roebling, the trustees, the assistant engineers, and the master mechanic. The plaques were put up when the bridge was first completed. In the time since, two more plaques, one for each tower, have been added to honor Emily Roebling.
The towers themselves, though long since dwarfed by the skyline of downtown Manhattan, remain unique. Nothing to compare to them has been built in America. Since the towers of the mammoth suspension bridges built in the twentieth century are of steel, the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge are both the first and the last monumental stone gateways on the North American continent.
A combined force of some thirty men looks after the bridge. It gets a new coat of paint every five years or so and according to the engineers at the New York Department of Public Works, of all the bridges on the East River, it is the one that gives them the least trouble. With normal maintenance, say the engineers, the bridge will last another hundred years. If parts are replaced from time to time—even entire cables if necessary, which would be perfectly possible—then, “As far as we are concerned, it will last forever.” Perhaps it will.
Appendix
Brooklyn Bridge Vital Statistics*
Chronology of Construction
Notes
The following abbreviations have been used throughout these notes:
JAR: John A. Roebling
WAR: Washington A. Roebling
EWR: Emily Warren Roebling
JAR II: John A. Roebling II
HCM: Henry Cruse Murphy
LER: Laws and Engineer’s Reports
RUL: Rutgers University Library
RPI: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
LIH: Long Island Historical Society
ASCE: American Society of Civil Engineers
For further details on the books cited, the reader is referred to the Bibliography.
PART ONE
1 The Plan
“The shapes arise!”: Whitman, Sound of the Broad-Axe.
Meetings with the consultants: Minutes kept by WAR. RPI.
Biographical sketches of the consultants: National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Dictionary of American Biography, and memorial tributes published by the ASCE.
“If there is to be a bridge”: Barnard, “The Brooklyn Bridge.”
1867 charter: An Act to incorporate the New York Bridge Company. Chapter 399. Passed April 16, 1867. LER, pp. 3-7.
JAR’s formal proposal of 1867 was officially titled Report of John A. Roebling, C.E., to the President and Directors of the New York Bridge Company, on the Proposed East River Bridge. LER. Most of the descriptive material concerning the proposed bridge has been drawn from this report, which was published in 1870 but which appeared first in the Eagle, September 10, 1867.
Brooklyn interest in the bridge: Virtually every Brooklyn publication had something good to say for the bridge. The new and short-lived Brooklyn Monthly, for example, was nearly as enthusiastic as Roebling, saying in its issue for May 1869, “When it is finished, the East River Bridge will, without comparison, be the grandest monument of its kind on this continent, if not in the world…”
“As the great flow of civilization”: JAR, Report of John A. Roebling, C.E. LER.
“Lines of steamers, such as the world never saw before”: Ibid.
“Lo, Soul, seest thou not God’s purpose”: Whitman, Passage to India.
“Singing my days”: Ibid.
“The completed work, when constructed in accordance with my designs”: JAR in a covering letter for his report, addressed to the President and Directors of the New York Bridge Company, September 1, 1867. LER.
Navy engineer’s plan for East River dam: Brooklyn Union, January 7, 1869.
New York Polytechnic Society sessions: Reported in various issues of the Eagle, February 1869.
Another bridge and a tunnel besides: Brooklyn Union, December 22, 1869.
“A force at rest”: Scientific American, Vol. XII, 1865.
Congressional legislation: An Act to establish a bridge across the East River. Public, No. 53. Approved by Congress March 3, 1869. LER.
The make-up of the Bridge Party: Thomas Kinsella in the Eagle, April 16, 1869; also a reminder book kept by WAR, RUL.
2 Man of Iron
“We may affirm absolutely…without passion”: Bartlett, Familiar Quotations.
“A wet bandage around the neck”; “A full cold bath every day”: Two small JAR notebooks on the water cure, dated 1852. RPI.
Man of iron…poised…confident: Various obituaries and contemporary biographical sketches; also a speech delivered by Henry D. Estabrook at the unveiling of JAR’s statue, June 30, 1908, RUL.
“…Never known to give in”: Eagle, July 26, 1869.
“One of his strongest moral traits”: Stuart, Lives and Works of Civil and Military Engineers of America, p. 325.
“Sir, you are keeping me waiting”: Ibid., p. 81.
Christoph Polycarpus and Friederike Dorothea Roebling: Ibid., p. 9.
Hegel’s favorite pupil: Ibid., p. 12.
“It is a land of hope”: Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, London, 1890.
“…the heart of him into cold storage”: Henry D. Estabrook at the unveiling of JAR’s statue, June 30, 1908. RUL. Estabrook was uncommonly candid about his long-deceased subject. His source appears to have been WAR.
Nothing could be accomplished without an army of functionaries: JAR, Diary of My Journey from Muehlhausen in Thuringia via Bremen to the United States of America in the Year 1831, p. 113.
Cash gift for Mühlhausen: Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 15.
The description for JAR’s voyage to America is drawn entirely from his Diary of My Journey.
Six thousand dollars in cash: WAR, Early
History of Saxonburg, p. 7.
Trunkful of books: Most of these volumes are in the RPI collection.
“If one earnestly desires it”: JAR, Diary of My Journey, pp. 18—19.
“…a cheerful carefree disposition”: Ibid., p. 54.
“…the one perceives in the foam”: Ibid., p. 57.
The founding of Saxonburg: WAR, Early History of Saxonburg; JAR, “Letters to Ferdinand Baehr, 1831.”
Saxonburg as “the future center of the universe”: WAR to JAR II, winter 1893-94. RUL.
“My father would have made a good advertising agent”: WAR, Early History of Saxonburg, p. 11.
“…no unbearable taxes”: JAR “Letters to Ferdinand Baehr, 1831.”
“…valuable attribute of industry…They have made good farmers”: History of Butler County, Pennsylvania, p. 289.
“I cannot reconcile myself”: Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 44.
“So he took to engineering again”: WAR to JAR II, winter 1893-94. RUL.
“The iron ore on Laurel Hill”: JAR, RUL; also quoted in Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, p. 53.
German periodical the source of the wire rope idea: Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 50.
“His ambition now became boundless”: WAR to JAR II, winter 1893-94. RUL.
“…farmers were metamorphosed into mechanics”: Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 60.
WAR’s description of wire rope making: WAR, Early History of Saxonburg, pp. 13—14.
“…benefactors to mankind who employ science”: Quoted in Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, p. 73.
“As this work is the first of the kind”: Craig, The Olden Time, Vol. 1, pp. 45-48.
“The progress of the fire”: Pittsburgh Gazette reporter quoted in Lorant, Pittsburgh; The Story of an American City, p. 110.
“Great Central Railroad” speech: American Railroad Journal, Special Edition, 1847; also quoted in part in Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 65-71.
Never home in springtime: Elvira Roebling to JAR, March 14, 1860. RUL.
JAR’s letters to Charles Swan are in the RUL; also quoted at length in Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 93-114.
“I for my part wish the blacks all good fortune”: JAR, Diary of My Journey, p. 118.
“…legs under my mahogany long enough”: Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 189.
“When a whole nation…steeped for a whole century in sins”; “We cannot close our eyes to the appalling fact”: JAR philosophical papers. RUL.
“A pure-hearted woman or one gifted with warmer affections”: WAR to EWR, August 2, 1864. RUL.
“My dearly beloved wife, Johanna”: Bible page reproduced in Schuyler, The Roeblings, opposite p. 99.
Prayed he would never have to read Roebling’s philosophy: Ibid., p. 13.
“We are born to work and study”; “True life is not only active”; “It is a want of my intellectual nature”; “Human reason is the work of God”: JAR philosophical papers. RUL.
Davis plan proposed to Horace Greeley: The letter in the RUL collection is undated but refers to the “recent foreign war,” meaning the war with Mexico no doubt, so it was probably written between 1848 and 1850. There is no indication whether the letter ever appeared in the Tribune.
The incident involving young Edmund Roebling, as well as Edmund’s subsequent life, is described by WAR in a private memorandum written March 16, 1922. RUL.
“A man may be content with the success of an enterprise”: JAR philsophical papers. RUL.
“The latest sensation we have had here are spiritual communications”: Ferdinand Roebling to WAR, November 12, 1867. RUL.
Seances: From original questions and notes made by JAR. RPI.
Light topcoat and soft felt hat: A rare photograph taken at Niagara of the engineers in the Bridge Party shows both JAR and WAR. It is the only known photograph of father and son together and reveals how remarkably alike they looked. RPI.
3 The Genuine Language of America
The description of the Bridge Party’s tour has been drawn almost entirely from three long articles by Thomas Kinsella that appeared in the Eagle, April 16, 17, and 26. Interestingly, the local papers in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Niagara Falls did little more than mention the arrival of the “visitors from the East.”
James Finley is a fascinating but somewhat shadowy figure. He is given only passing mention in most histories of civil engineering and is referred to as a justice of the peace or judge, but in the classic work The Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania by Solon J. and Elizabeth Hawthorn Buck, Finley is an itinerant preacher, who earlier in his career had been sent into the wilderness of western Pennsylvania to put down a burgeoning new-state movement—a mission he accomplished with amazing skill and speed. His patented chain bridge was first described by Thomas Pope in A Treatise on Bridge Architecture, published in 1811.
Smithfield Street Bridge: American Railroad Journal, February 21, 1846; also in Craig, The Olden Time, Vol. I, pp. 286-288.
Allegheny River Bridge: White and von Bernewitz, The Bridges of Pittsburgh.
“The bridge will be beautiful”: JAR to Charles Swan, June 21, 1859, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 108.
“Washington is about the work”: JAR to Charles Swan, RUL; also quoted in Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, p. 206.
Cincinnati Bridge: JAR, “The Cincinnati Suspension Bridge,” Engineering (London), Vol. 40, pp. 22-23, 49, 74-76, 98-99, 140-141; JAR, Report of John A. Roebling, C.E., to the President and Directors of the New York Bridge Company, on the Proposed East River Bridge, LER; Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 125-128; Farrington, A Full and Complete Description of the Covington and Cincinnati Suspension Bridge with Dimensions and Details of Construction.
“The Germans about here are mostly loyal”: JAR to Charles Swan, spring of 1863, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 110.
“The size and magnitude of this work far surpass any expectations”: WAR to Charles Swan, March 16, 1865, RUL; also in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 234.
“Leave bridgebuilding to younger folks”: JAR to Charles Swan, April 1865, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 114.
“You drive over to Suspension Bridge”: Quoted in Gies, Bridges and Men, p. 188.
Niagara Bridge: Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 118—124; Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, pp. 157-193; Stuart, Lives and Works of Civil and Military Engineers of America; Kirby and Laurson, The Early Tears of Modern Civil Engineering, pp. 155—156. There is also a superb scale model of the bridge on display in the Museum of History and Technology at the Smithsonian Institution.
Maid of the Mist shoots the rapids: The best description is in Anthony Trollope’s North America.
Early suspension bridges: Of the numerous histories of bridges the most readable and reliable is Bridges and Men by Joseph Gies. See also Bridges and Their Builders by David B. Steinman and Sara Ruth Watson.
Charles Ellet: Stuart’s biographical sketch in Lives and Works of Civil and Military Engineers of America, pp. 257-285, miscellaneous newspaper clippings, RPI.
Roebling aspires to be Ellet’s assistant: Letter quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 54—55.
Homer Walsh: Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, p. 163.
Ellet drew up cannon: WAR to F. M. Colby of Dodd, Mead & Co., February 1907. RUL.
“Before entering upon any important work”: Stuart, Lives and Works of Civil and Military Engineers of America, p. 325.
“The only real difficulty of the task”: JAR, Report on the Niagara Bridge, Buffalo, 1852. RUL.
JAR not the innovator of stiff roadway, anchor stays, or the first to spin cables in place: Steinman mistakenly credits Roebling with all three, either directly or by implication, in The Builders of the Bridge, pp. 81, 172.
“In the anxiety to obtain a light roadway”: ASCE, Transactions, 1868-71, a paper by Edward P. North, March 4, 1868, which contains one of the very best accounts of the evolution of the suspension bridge and i
ts refinements.
JAR’s disdain for English bridgebuilders: JAR letter quoted by Stuart, Lives and Works of Civil and Military Engineers of America, pp. 306-308.
Eyewitness account of Wheeling Bridge failure: Wheeling Intelligencer, May 18, 1854; also quoted in Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, p. 171.
“…there are no safer bridges”: Steinman and Watson, Bridges and Their Builders, p. 209.
JAR’s explanation of the Wheeling failure: Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, pp. 182-183.
Ellet rebuilt the bridge himself: Research by C. M. Lewis, S.J., of Wheeling College, West Virginia, reported in ASCE, Civil Engineering, September 1969.
“My bridge is the admiration of everybody”; “We had a tremendous gale”; “No one is afraid to cross”: JAR to Charles Swan. RUL.
Slocum toast: Eagle, July 26, 1869.
“…the great achievements of the present”: Whitman, Passage to India.
“one of the victories of peace”: Harper’s Weekly, May 29, 1869.
“The chief engineers became his heroes”: Sullivan, The Autobiography of an Idea, pp. 247—249.
4 Father and Son
“Nothing lasts forever”: WAR to JAR II, March 6, 1894. RUL.
Job applicants and JAR’s comments: JAR’s address book, 1869. RUL.
WAR’s notes and diagrams for the center line: Black leather notebook kept by WAR, 1869. RPI.
“Your Turkish Bath tickets came today”: WAR to JAR, May 21, 1869. RUL.
Meetings with Rawlins: Described by WAR in several letters to JAR, June 1869. RUL.
Consultants’ approval published: Report of the Board of Consulting Engineers to the Directors of the New York Bridge Company.
Revisions in design as a result of War Department directive: WAR.
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