The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge

by David McCullough

  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 was 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.

  He was being horribly destroyed before their eyes and there was not a thing any of them could do about it. Moreover, as nearly always happens with lockjaw, his mind remained as clear as ever, and this made the sight of his suffering all the more unbearable. They all knew the terrible, titanic battle going on behind those blazing eyes and the ghastly smile that stayed fixed like concrete on his ashen face throughout everything that was happening to him.

  When the seizures passed, he generally slipped into a coma. But even toward the end, there were hours when he would lie there perfectly still in the darkened room staring straight up at the ceiling, one of his family sitting motionless beside him. During the final few days there were tears streaking down his face.

  The watch went on hour upon hour. Downstairs, visitors came and went, talking in whispers. They were told their concern was deeply appreciated, that there was nothing they could do but pray, and they went away to tell others what they had heard about the particulars of his condition, which was very little.

  But on the evening of July 21, quite contrary to all th
e professional forecasts, the patient took a turn for the better. With paper and pencil he began giving instructions to his nephew, Ed Riedel, on a special contrivance he wanted built to lift him up and move him about his bed. He made a sketch, explained how it should be done, and told the young man to get at it immediately. Through the rest of the night he kept issuing orders on a variety of matters, including the bridge, and a wave of hope swept through the house, until sometime after midnight, when it became clear from the things he was scribbling down that his mind was going. He thought he was back at the bridge office.

  About three in the morning he had a convulsion so violent that he leaped clear from the bed and was caught in the arms of C. C. Martin, the assistant engineer, who with Washington and one or two others was standing watch at the time. Within minutes Roeblling was dead.

  Then in the gray light before dawn, Thursday, July 22, the undertaker arrived and an artist who had known Roebling in Cincinnati was called in to take a death mask.

  The afternoon edition of the Eagle had the full story. Roebling was called a martyr, while in virtually the same breath the editors assured their readers that there was still great hope for the bridge. The implication was that the success of the bridge had been more or less assured now that it had claimed a life, like the bell in the old story that would not ring true until it had been cast of molten iron into which a man had fallen. Some people were saying the only safe bridge was one that had taken a life and stories were told of the lives sacrificed in the building of famous bridges of ancient times. The Eagle, for its part, said this:

  He who loses his life from injuries received in the pursuit of science or of duty, in acquiring engineering information or carrying out engineering details, is as truly and usefully a martyr as he who sacrifices his life for a theological opinion, and no less honor should be paid to his memory. Henceforth we look on the great project of the Brooklyn Bridge as being baptized and hallowed by the life blood of its distinguished and lamented author.

  Flags were flown at half-staff all over Brooklyn, and when it came time to take the body down to the ferry, to start the trip to Trenton, there was slow going in the streets because of the crowds. As a subject of popular interest, Roebling seemed a more notable success dead than alive. His training, all his ambition and ability, his entire life’s work had been building toward this greatest of bridges and he had not lived to do it—that was a tragedy people could readily understand regardless of how little previous interest they may have had in either the man or his work.

  Word of Roebling’s death reached Trenton early the same morning he died. Within hours the whole town knew about it, and though there had been ominous talk of his condition for days, no one seemed quite ready to accept the fact that the worst had happened. Talk of Roebling dead was one thing, but the idea of him laid out in a black suit of clothes like any other man, those pale eyes shut forever, was something else. Somehow, it was felt, he would figure a way.

  But by nightfall Saturday, when the body arrived, the truth had long since sunk in. Nobody had any doubts that the extraordinary life of John A. Roebling was over and plans had been laid for the biggest funeral in Trenton’s history.

  The eulogies began that night at a special town meeting. Judge Scudder, General Rushing, and Charles Hewitt spoke, as did Reverend John Brown, who said that though Roebling was known the world over as a man of science, he ought to be remembered as a gentleman all the same. Then early the following morning, in twos and threes, some leading children, people began gathering outside the Roebling house.

  Separated from the wireworks by a narrow strip of lawn, the house was a tall spacious affair, with some twenty-seven rooms, walls two feet thick, and few frills. Roebling had designed it himself before the war, in the Italian style and more for comfort than show, except for the glassy cupola on top. It had stood raw and pink-looking when it was first finished, taller even than the mill in those days, with nothing but bare fields to either side. But in the time since, Roebling had had it stuccoed over, the mill had more than doubled in size, and the trees he planted had closed in most of the property. In summer, only the windows of the cupola could be seen riding high above the treetops. They were the first windows in town to catch the morning sun.

  The grounds themselves were neatly set off from the street by a tall iron fence. Flowers bloomed through the whole summer. Grapes hung from elaborate trellises. There were boxwood hedges, a handsome barn, an icehouse, and an especially fine orchard that he had been extremely proud of, adding to it year by year. As might be expected, everything was kept just so.

  The house faced onto the street, a railroad track, and the old Delaware and Raritan Canal, which all ran side by side, parallel to the river. Past the canal and the state prison, the land sloped away toward the ironworks and the river. That part of town was all built up now, but behind the house, on the other side of the orchard, was a broad, flat wheat field that was just beginning to turn color.

  By ten o’clock the small cluster of onlookers had grown big enough to fill the front lawn and most of the street. Carriages approaching the house had trouble getting through. But there was little commotion. The time passed about as quietly as on any Sunday morning, broken only by the sound of church bells from across town. Already the temperature was near eighty as the sun climbed into a cloudless bowl of summer sky. Nothing like this had ever happened in Trenton. Estimates were that perhaps two thousand people were gathered on the front lawn.

  Inside the house the entire family was assembled—a rare thing for the Roeblings—surrounded by the books and paintings he had collected, the marble statuary and the steel engravings of his bridges. At eleven the doors were to be opened to the crowd outside, but for the time being, except for the servants, they had the house and its memories all to themselves.

  With Washington Roebling, now head of the family, was his pretty and alert-looking wife, Emily, who had been a special favorite of her father-in-law’s. He had admired her for her energy and intelligence, often showing her a degree of kindness seldom granted his own children. After her son had been born, she had written to Roebling in an affectionate letter from Germany, “The name of John A. Roebling must ever be identified with you and your works, but with a mother’s pride and fond hopes for her first-born I trust my boy may not prove unworthy of the name…”

  Then there was Ferdinand Roebling, slight, fine-featured, bespectacled, and now twenty-seven. This was the only one of his sons, John Roebling used to say, who had the makings of a merchant. His oldest boy, the bridgebuilder, he had ordered off to war, but Ferdinand had been kept at home, Ferdinand’s services to the wire business being too valuable to spare, according to John Roebling.

  Charles, younger still by seven years, was a strangely silent, thoughtful young man, whose chief interest was flower gardening and who was home for the summer from Troy, where he was a student at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, like his oldest brother before him, and not particularly happy about it.

  Edmund, or Eddie as he seems to have been called by most of them, was fifteen, very shy and uncertain-looking, and still a great worry apparently.

  The sisters were Laura, Josephine, and Elvira. Laura was the oldest after Washington. She had dutifully played the organ at the German church every Sunday and married a “good German,” a Mühlhausen man at that, her Mr. Methfessel, as she called him. They had a number of children and lived on Staten Island, where Mr. Methfessel had started a school and where they would have failed to make ends meet by this time had it not been for the checks she received regularly in the mail from her father.

  Josephine was now the wife of Charles H. Jarvis, one of the finest American pianists of the time, and Elvira, the last of the three to be married, was Mrs. John Stewart. Elvira had always been the most playful and high-spirited member of the family, the least like her father in this respect and the one whose company he most enjoyed. Her wedding had taken place only a few weeks before, in the same large front parlor where his cor
pse was now on display. All that spring, as he went back and forth to Brooklyn, he kept bringing home expensive gifts for her, dresses he had picked out at A. T. Stewart’s, hundreds of dollars’ worth of silks, fancy carpets, Tiffany silver. A few days before the wedding he had insisted that she take a hundred dollars in cash, to have with her on her wedding trip. Then he had given her away to young Stewart in a room full of guests, several of whom would comment at the funeral on how exceptionally genial and good-spirited he had seemed then.

  Very little is known about the new Mrs. Roebling, except that she was the former Lucia Cooper of Trenton and that their wedding had taken place in February of 1867. He had presented her with two gold bracelets and a painting by Rembrandt Peale and in his cashbook he entered $125 as the cost of the wedding trip, about which he made no other notation that is known of. Two years later she had still not been fully accepted by the family, nor would she be. Washington Roebling would write that after the summer of his father’s death, he never saw her again.

  And finally, there was Charles Swan, who, in a photograph taken some years later, sits in a stiff, upholstered chair, looking quite well upholstered himself as he focuses directly and amiably on the camera, every inch the solid, kindly, dependable man, it would appear, John Roebling’s sons would say he was. That Roebling also appreciated Swan for what he was and all he had done seems clear, despite the cold formality of their working relationship. For when he sat down to write a new will in 1867, after he remarried, he included twenty thousand dollars for Swan and the clearly stated wish that his sons take Swan into the business as a full partner.

  The contents of the will would not be made public for several days, but for the family its general outline had been known for some time. In addition to the money for Swan, Roebling had left some eighty thousand dollars for distant relatives and several charities. The bulk of his estate he had split eight ways, between his new wife and his seven children—except that he deducted from each child whatever money had been advanced to him during his lifetime. Year by year, in a private ledger, he had carefully itemized his expenditures for his children, down to the penny, and now in his last summing up he docked them each accordingly.