The slab of black marble in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London,
which marks the last resting place of the English architect, Sir
Christopher Wren, bears the inscription, in Latin, “If you would have
his monument, look about you.” In the great Brooklyn bridge, recently
opened for travel, people will see for ages the noble monument of
those two men of genius—father and son—John Augustus and Washington A.
Roebling. The men whose names are inseparably linked with such a work—a
work, not for an age, but for the ages—have secured a fame to satisfy
any human ambition. In the case of these great engineers we see again
the old law illustrated: the world’s good comes from sacrifice. The one
sacrificed life, the other health, to the work whose future benefits to
mankind are so incalculable.
The elder Roebling was born in Mühlhausen, Prussia, June 12, 1806,
and was educated at the polytechnic school in Berlin. He came to this
country at the age of twenty-five, and settled near Pittsburgh. He
worked for some time as an engineer on certain Pennsylvania canals,
and was then engaged for three years in surveying the route of the
Pennsylvania Central Railroad through the Alleghenies. In the city of
Pittsburgh he established works for the manufacture of wire ropes—which
manufacture he introduced into America. The works were afterward
removed to Trenton, N. J. It was his aim to bring about the use of wire
ropes in the construction of bridges, and in time he was successful.
He was the father of suspension bridges in this country. His first
work was the suspended aqueduct of the Pennsylvania Canal across the
Allegheny River, which was completed in 1845. Soon after this he built
the Monongahela suspension bridge at Pittsburgh, and some suspension
aqueducts on the Delaware and Hudson Canal. A much greater work than
any of these was the Niagara suspension bridge, the building of which
he undertook in 1851, and carried to a successful completion. But
this was surpassed by the bridge across the Ohio at Cincinnati, which
he completed in 1867. The length of the Niagara bridge is 821 feet,
while that at Cincinnati has a clear span of 1,057 feet. It was in the
winter of 1853, when, at one time, Mr. Roebling, his wife and son,
were detained for several hours, while crossing East River, by the
floating ice, that the idea, which certain others had entertained,
of a bridge from New York to Brooklyn first took possession of his
mind; but it was not until 1865 that steps were taken looking to the
practical realization of the idea. Then this engineer prepared plans
and estimates for the work, and in time the great structure was under
way, whose history is now known and read of all men, and which stands
as one of the latest marvels of the nineteenth century. The work was
hardly commenced when the life of its author was cut short. In July,
1869, his foot was crushed by a ferry-boat, as he was standing on the
pier at Fulton Ferry in Brooklyn, and his death followed in two weeks.
The younger Roebling was born at Saxonburg, Butler County, Pa., May
26, 1837. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute at Troy, in
1857. He early became his father’s assistant in engineering, and came
in time to be fully the equal, if not the superior, of his father in
his peculiar line of work. He enlisted as a private in the Union Army
at the breaking out of the rebellion, and had an honorable career
as a soldier, rising to the rank of colonel. After the close of the
war he spent some time in Europe, studying the more important works
of engineering there. The death of his father left him the work of
building the great bridge, of executing his father’s plans. Those
plans were greatly modified by himself, and the completed bridge is
by no means but the embodiment of the elder Roebling’s conception. In
1872 Colonel Roebling became the victim of the “caisson disease,” so
called, and since that time has been an invalid. He is probably an
invalid for life. But he continued at the head of the great enterprise,
and from his sick-room has directed the work until at length it has
been brought to a glorious consummation. He has had in his wife a
most faithful and efficient coadjutor in all his work. Mention of her
name should not be omitted in the laudations paid to the builders of
Brooklyn bridge.