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 Pennsylvaniaby 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 its 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.
“Introductory Remarks,” Pneumatic Tower Foundations of the East River Suspension Bridge. LER.
“This bridge is to be built”: The New York Times, July 23, 1869.
“He felt at his age he could ill afford to lose any time”: WAR in an “Introduction” to JAR’s Long and Short Span Railway Bridges.
This description of the accident is drawn largely from an account in the Eagle, July 22, 1869.
“There is no such thing as chance”: Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, p. 320.
Death of JAR: Various items in the Eagle in the days that followed; later remarks made by WAR (RUL and RPI); Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 139—140; description of tetanus in The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy.
Instructions to Ed Riedel: Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 140.
“He who loses his life from injuries”: Eagle, July 22, 1869.
“The name of John A. Roebling”: EWR to JAR, January 6, 1868. RUL.
Gifts for Elvira: From purchases listed in JAR’s Private Cash Account, 1867-69. RPI.
Wedding gifts for the second Mrs. JAR: Ibid.
Contents of will: JAR will dated September 14, 1867, RUL; also covered in some detail in Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 145-146.
Funeral: Both the Eagle and the Trenton Daily State Gazette for July 26, 1869, carried long descriptive accounts.
“With its inspiration gone”: Steinman and Watson, Bridges and Their Builders, p. 236; Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, p. 323.
“Not long since, before the accident”: Eagle, July 22, 1869.
“First—I was the only living man”: WAR to James Rusling, January 23, 1916. RUL.
“…At the time of his death he was already arranging”: WAR to William Couper, July 26, 1907. RUL.
“The great boast of this land…jabbering and wrangling politicians”: Eagle, July 27, 1869.
5 Brooklyn
“transformed…from insignificance”: The City of Brooklyn, a guidebook.
Third-largest city: Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, 1865-1898, p. 12.
Types of manufacturing: Ibid., pp. 14—15.
“an enigma to the respectable”: Ibid., p. 29.
East River shipyards and virtues as a harbor: Albion, The Rise of New York Port (1815-1860).
More ships than New York and Hoboken combined: Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, p. 139.
Salt air “pure and bracing…”: Stiles, A History of the City of Brooklyn, Vol. II, p. 504.
“the most majestic views of land and ocean”: Attributed to James S. T. Stranahan in The City of Brooklyn.
Banquet on board City of Brooklyn: Eagle, April 15, 1869.
Hezekiah Pierrepont and the development of Brooklyn Heights: Stiles, A History of the City of Brooklyn.
“Almost everybody appears to have built his house”: Eagle, June 22, 1872.
“elegant equipages, well-dressed grooms”: Old Brooklyn Heights, pp. 33-34.
“His knowledge of fish”: National Cyclopedia of American Biography.
Henry Ward Beecher: Smith, Sunshine and Shadow in New York, pp. 86-100; McCabe, Lights and Shadows of New York Life, pp. 655-657; Rourke, Trumpets of Jubilee; a long profile in the Eagle, March 10, 1869.
“He went marching up and down the stage”: Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, pp. 23—24.
“Our institutions live in him”: Eagle, March 10, 1869.
“A more intelligent body”: From the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, quoted in the Eagle, January 1872.
Charles Dickens on Brooklyn: Quoted in Still, Mirror for Gotham, p. 204.
Brooklyn slums: According to The New York Times, June 30, 1866, “dirt and filth and poverty reign triumphant…Here homeless and vagabond children, ragged and dirty, wander about…decaying garbage, dead animals, filth and unclean privies, with crowds of unwashed human beings [are] packed together…”
The Kingsley-McCue-Murphy meeting is reported in the Eagle, May 24, 1883; also in Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, pp. 302-303.
General Johnson’s opposition to a bridge: Long Island Star, February 13, 1834; Trachtenberg, Brooklyn Bridge; Fact and Symbol, pp. 35-36.
HCM’s Mansion House speech: A commemorative booklet on the farewell dinner, LIH; also quoted in the Eagle, December 2, 1882.
William C. Kingsley: Obituaries in The New York Times, New York World, and Eagle, February 21, 1885; in memoriam booklet, W. C. Kingsley, LIH; Green, A Complete History of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge from its Conception in 1866 to its Completion in 1883; Stiles, The Civil, Political, Professional and Ecclesiastical History of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, Vol I, pp. 463—464; Eagle History of Brooklyn, Eagle, May 24, 1883; scrapbooks in LIH collection; Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, pp. 74-76.
Henry C. Murphy: Obituaries in The New York Times, New York World, and Eagle, December 2, 1882; scrapbooks in LIH collection; Green, A Complete History of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge; Stiles, The Civil, Political, Professional and Ecclesiastical History of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, Vol. I, pp. 360—366; Eagle, May 24, 1883; Stiles, A History of the City of Brooklyn, Vol. II, pp. 266-270.
McLaughlin the first to be called “Boss”: Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, p. 71.
“very earnest in manner”: Stiles, A History of the City of Brooklyn, p. 269.
“It was not a change for the better”: Eagle, December 2, 1882.
“Mr. Murphy only failed as a politician”: Stiles, The Civil, Political, Professional and Ecclesiastical History of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, Vol. I, p. 364.
WAR’s private remarks on the role played by Julius Adams: Personal notebook, entry dated January 6, 1880. RPI.
HCM named president: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, 1867-1884, p. 319.
The name Roebling “invaluable”: Kingsley, in a speech given on the opening of the bridge, May 24, 1883.
“Confidence on the part of the public”: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 320.
6 The Proper Person to See
“Who owns the City of New York today?”: Quoted in Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, 1865-1898, p. 19.
Tweed’s prior interest in the Brooklyn ferry lines: Lynch, “Boss” Tweed, pp. 70-75.
New York in 1869: Still, Mirror for Gotham; McCabe, Lights and Shadows of New York Life; Smith, Sunshine and Shadow in New York; Harper’s Weekly for 1869; Crapsey, The Nether Side of New York.
“…a rich field for clever money lovers”: Olof Olson to his brother, September 11, 1869, quoted in Land That Our Fathers Plowed, David Greenberg, ed., University of Oklahoma Press, 1969.
William M. Tweed and his cohorts: Werner, Tammany Hall; Lynch, “Boss” Tweed; Callow, The Tweed Ring; Harper’s Weekly; Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol. II; McCabe, Lights and Shadows of New York Life; Smith, Sunshine and Shadow in New York; Dictionary of American Biography.
“I don’t care a straw for your newspaper articles”: Callow, The Tweed Ring, p. 254.
“Tweed had an abounding vitality”: Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 383.
Tweed and the first session of the Executive Committee: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, 1867-1884, p. 526.
Tweed’s testimony: As recorded before a committee of the Common Council of the City of New York, September 18, 1877; quoted also in Testimony in the Miller Suit to Remove the East River Bridge, “Exhibit A,” pp. 58-63.
“a strong combination made against the measure”: Kingsley to JAR, April 16, 1868. RUL.
Chambers Street courthouse: The best account of this incredible story is in Callow, The Tweed Ring, the chapter titled “The House That Tweed Built,” pp. 198-206, which also appeared in American Heritage, October 1965.
Bridge Company stockholders as of autumn 1869: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, “Exhibit C,” Part I, p. 167.
“…therefore he was the proper person to see”: Eagle, September 19, 1877.
Beach tunnel: Scientific American, February 19, 1870; “Alfred Ely Beach and His Wonderful Pneumatic Underground Railway” by Robert Daley, American Heritage, June 1961.
Black Friday: Swanberg, Jim Fisk: The Career of an Improbable Rascal, pp. 149-153.
Cardiff Giant: Harper’s Weekly, October 1869; Franco, “The Cardiff Giant: A Hundred-Year-Old Hoax.” The Giant itself is still drawing crowds at the Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown, New York. Once having seen the Giant, most twentieth-century onlookers find it hard to believe anyone ever took it seriously.
“all were disgusted”: Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, p. 273.
7 The Chief Engineer
Assistant engineers: Various memoirs published by the ASCE; National Cyclopedia of American Biography; biographical sketches in the Eagle, May 24, 1883; odd notes made by WAR, RPI.
Claims of Samuel Barnes B. Nolan: Scientific American, August 7, 1869.
“the details not having been considered”: New York Tribune, May 23, 1883.
“very versatile attainments”: From an unpublished biographical sketch of WAR by EWR. RPI.
“rather indifferent to matters of courtesy”: EWR to JAR, January 6, 1868. RUL.
“History teaches us that no man can be great unless a certain amount of vanity enters into his composition”: WAR considered his brother Ferdinand the perfect example of such vanity. The quote is from WAR’s draft of an obituary for Ferdinand, April 15, 1917, RUL; also quoted somewhat differently in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 307.
“a peculiarity of the Roebling mind”: WAR to JAR II, May 24, 1896. RUL.
“It might be argued if a man inherits everything”: WAR’s obituary for his brother Charles, October 1918, RUL; also in Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 324-325.
WAR’s passport: RUL.
“Roebling is a character”: Lyman, Meade’s Headquarters, p. 240; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 195.
“reverently chose…the name that most inspired him”: Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, p. 41.
WAR named for Washington Gill: WAR to JAR II, July 4, 1904. RUL.
Baptized by postmaster Shilly: WAR, Early History of Saxonburg, p. 12.
“well-built, sturdy, quiet boy”: JAR to his brother Christel, undated. RUL.
“…a black bear walked down Main Street”: WAR, Early History of Saxonburg, p. 9.
Saxonburg social life: Ibid., p. 17.
Ferdinand Baehr and Waterloo stories: Ibid., p. 18.
WAR’s love of Saxonburg and disappointing return visit: WAR to JAR II, January 5, 1926. RUL.
“Being the ‘Roebling boy’”: WAR, Early History of Saxonburg, p. 20.
Story of Massy Harbison: “The Touching Narrative of Massy Harbison,” from Our Western Border, Charles McKnight, Philadelphia, 1875, pp. 685-695.
Pigeons, thunderstorms, and the great comet of 1843: WAR, Early History of Saxonburg, p. 21.
“In regard to the mustache you covet so”: Laura Roebling to WAR, December 7, 1856. RUL.
Courses at RPI: Greene, The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; also Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, pp. 196-197.
“Under such a curriculum the average college boy of today”: Steinman, The Builders of the Bridge, p. 197.
“that terrible treadmill of forcing an avalanche of figures…unusable knowledge that I could only memorize, not really digest”: Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 173-174.
“My candle is certainly bewitched…no woman had sense enough to understand his love”: WAR to EWR, about April 14, 1864. RUL.
“Our temperaments are so very different”: RUL.
Letter written Thanksgiving Day: Ibid.
“left the school as mental wrecks”: Quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 174.
“Pittsburgh is getting along quite smart”: WAR to Charles Swan, April 11, 1859, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 182.
Penn Street boardinghouse: WAR to Charles Swan, May 2, 1858. RUL.
“There is a perfect mania here for improvements”: WAR to Charles Swan, April 11, 1859, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 182.
“dark, cloudy, smoky afternoons”: WAR to Charles Swan, November 13, 1858, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 179.
“This is my first letter to you in 1860”: WAR to Charles Swan, January 23, 1860, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 184-185.
“My enlistment was rather sudden”: WAR to James Rusling, February 18, 1916. RUL.
“Loafing in the camp”: Undated letter. RUL.
“This is a mean little town”: WAR to Elvira Roebling, July 19, 1861. RUL.
“This artillery business”: WAR to Charles Swan, July 31, 1861. RUL.
“could make a violin talk”: Letter of condolence written to the second Mrs. WAR by George R. Brown, president of the Eastchester Savings Bank, Mount Vernon, New York, August 2, 1926. RUL.
“My father being too old to rough it”: WAR to James Rusling, February 18, 1916. RUL.
Swims the Shenandoah with tape in his mouth: WAR to Ferdinand, June 8, 1892. RUL.
Surprised Jeb Stuart at his breakfast: WAR to JAR, August 24, 1862. RUL.
Describes bridge: WAR to Charles Swan, August 3, 1862. RUL.
Fate of Harpers Ferry bridge: WAR to James Rusling, February 18, 1916. RUL.
Incident with the statue of Washington’s mother: Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 193-194.
With Hooker at Chancellorsville: WAR to James Rusling, February 18, 1916. RUL.
Reconnaissance from a balloon: Ibid.; also Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 191.
Trip home for maps: WAR to Oliver W. Norton, July 13, 1915. RUL.
WAR’s account of his day on Little Round Top: Letter to a Colonel Smith of New York, July 5, 1913. RUL.
“Roebling was on my staff”: Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 193.
“I was the first man on Little Round Top”: WAR to James Rusling, February 18, 1916. RUL.
WAR and Warren before the Battle of the Crater: Ibid.
“…I was in the Civil War for four years and saw Lincoln on two occasions”: WAR to I. E. Boos, June 19, 1921, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 196—197.
“They must put fresh steam on the man factories…the rest think it is about played out to stand up and get shot”: WAR to EWR, June 23, 1864. RUL.
“…the conduct of the Southern people”: WAR to EWR, July 7, 1864. RUL.
Description of meeting Emily: WAR to Elvira Roebling, February 26, 1863. RUL.
JAR’s letter on the engagement: JAR to WAR, March 30, 1864. RUL.
“I like her very much”: JAR to WAR, November 17, 1864. RUL.
“I dare say you could not sleep”: WAR to EWR, August 14, 1864. RUL.
“This day might be signalized”: WAR to EWR, November 16, 1864. RUL.
“The town is horribly dull”: WAR to EWR, August 6, 1864. RUL.
“I have now more lasting memories”: WAR to EWR, September 10, 1864. RUL.
“I have been solacing myself”: WAR to EWR, April 11, 1864. RUL.
“…the greatest giver of us all [is] gone”: WAR to EWR, December 25, 1864. RUL.
Trip to Europe: Described in numerous lengthy letters from WAR to JAR, in both the RPI and RUL collections.
Letter to JAR describing Keystone Bridge works: WAR to JAR, October 11, 1868. RUL.
Family differences over Edmund: WAR, private memorandums dated July 20, 1898, and March 16, 1922. RUL.
Reminders and comments on stone: WAR’s personal notebook, 1869. RPI.
PART TWO
8 All According to Plan
“The foundations for the support”: 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, p. 20. LER.
Dimensions of the Brooklyn caisson, as well as all other descriptive data: WAR, First Annual Report of the Chief Engineer of the East River Bridge, LER; WAR, Pneumatic Tower Foundations of the East River Suspension Bridge, LER.
Barometer analogy: Harper’s Weekly, December 17, 1870.
“The extreme rise and fall”: WAR, First Annual Report of the Chief Engineer, pp. 8-9. LER.
Webb & Bell contract: Kingsley, First Annual Report of the General Superintendent of the East River Bridge, p. 23. LER.
“A pile which was sixteen inches in diameter”: WAR, First Annual Report of the Chief Engineer, p. 11. LER.
“The character of this material”: Ibid., pp. 11-12.
James B. Eads: There is no real biography of the remarkable Eads. The following have been used as general biographical background: Dorsey, Road to the Sea; Woodward, A History of the St. Louis Bridge; Gies, Bridges and Men; Dictionary of American Biography.
“Eads’s Turtles”: Catton, Grant Moves South, pp. 102-103.
JAR calls St. Louis people fools: JAR to WAR, November 10, 1867. RUL.
Carnegie, Linville, and the Keystone Bridge Company: Carnegie, Autobiography, pp. 119-121.
“an achievement out of all proportion”: Kirby and Laurson, The Early Years of Modern Civil Engineering, p. 162.
Material on early use of compressed air and resulting cases of caisson sickness is from The Effects of High Atmospheric Pressure, Including the Caisson Disease by Andrew H. Smith, M.D., pp. 4—10. LER.
“A workman walking about with difficult step”: Woodward, A History of the St. Louis Bridge.
“The fatigue of ascent added not a little”: Ibid.
Eads’s views on the problem of caisson sickness are contained in a long article in Scientific American, December 24, 1870.
The launching of the Brooklyn caisson was described in considerable detail by all of the following: Eagle, March 19, 1870; Engineering (London), June 10, 1870; Scientific American, July 9, 1870; Collingwood, A Few Facts about the Caissons of the East River Bridge, LER.
“more like a huge war leviathan”: Eagle, March 19, 1870.
The only known reference to Roebling’s visit to St. Louis and his sessions with Eads is an exchange of letters in Engineering (London) in the issues for May 16, June 27, and September 5, 1873.
“I do not want any news carried between myself and Mr. Ellet”: JAR to Charles Swan, April 21, 1849, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 82.
“…one of the wonders of the nineteenth century”; “hidden from the gaze of mortal eyes”; “as placidly as a swan”: Eagle, May 3, 1870.
“…they had been upon the monster”: Ibid., May 4, 1870.
Roebling, Paine, and Collingwood go down for first time on May 10: WAR, Pneumatic Tower Foundations of the East River Suspension Bridge, p. 24. LER.
9 Down in the Caisson
The descent of the Brooklyn caisson and the work that went on inside it were the subjects of many articles in newspapers and technical publications in the year 1870. Of particular interest were those in the following: Eagle, June 20; Scientific American, July 9; Van Nostrand’s Eclectic Engineering Magazine, October; Journal of the Franklin Institute, October; and Harper’s Weekly, December 17. But nearly all of this chapter has been drawn from a paper read before the ASCE by Francis Collingwood on June 21, from Master Mechanic E. F. Farrington’s Concise Description of the East River Bridge, and from WAR’s own annual report to the directors of the Bridge Company. An excellent scale model of the caisson can be seen on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
“We have no precedent just like this bridge”: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, January 1, 1877, p. 5. LER.
“The material now became sufficiently exposed”: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer to the Board of Directors of the New York Bridge Company, June 5, 1871, p. 4. LER.
“Inside the caisson everything wore an unreal, weird appearance”: Farrington, Concise Description of the East River Bridge, pp. 27-28.
“An unearthly and deafening screech”: Scientific American, July 9, 1870.
Use of limelights: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5, 1871, pp. 35-37. LER.
Varieties of rock uncovered: Ibid., pp. 4—5.
“Moreover, a settling of the caisson of six inches”: Ibid., p. 6.
“The noise made by splitting blocks”: Ibid., p. 23.
“Levels were taken every morning”: Collingwood, A Few Facts about the Caissons of the East River Bridge. LER.
Techniques for removing boulders from under the shoe: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5, 1871, pp. 8-10. LER.
“five months of incessant toil…were almost tempted to throw the buckets overboard”: Ibid., pp. 15—17.
“When the lungs are filled with compressed air”: Ibid., p. 15.
Side friction: Collingwood, A Few Facts about the Caissons of the East River Bridge. LER.
WAR “conspicuous for his presence and exertions”: Kingsley, Report of the General Superintendent, New York Bridge Company, p. 54. LER.
Lowering of air pressure gives added twelve hundred tons: Collingwood, A Few Facts about the Caissons of the East River Bridge. LER.
Apprehensions about blasting: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5, 1871, pp. 11-12. LER.
WAR uses revolver: Ibid., p. 12.
“For night is turned into day”: New York Herald, December 3, 1870.
Work schedule and work force: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5, 1871, pp. 38—39; Kingsley, Report of the General Superintendent, New York Bridge Company, p. 52. LER.
Pneumatic water closet: Collingwood, A Few Facts about the Caissons of the East River Bridge. LER.
Roebling follows Eads’s system, convinced increased oxygen intake is the heart of the problem: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5, 1871, pp. 39-40. LER.
Steam coils in air locks: Ibid., p. 40.
Great Blowout: Ibid., pp. 20-21; Farrington, Concise Description of the East River Bridge, pp. 20-21.
Weight variation in columns of water: Collingwood, A Few Facts about the Caissons of the East River Bridge. LER.
“To say that this occurrence was an accident”: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5, 1871, p. 20. LER.
10 Fire
“When the perfected East River bridge”: Eagle, June 22, 1872.
Modifications in New York caisson: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer to the Board of Directors of the New York Bridge Company, June 5, 1871, pp. 45-49. LER.
“This bold and peculiarly American design”: Harper’s Weekly, November 19, 1870.
“the rapidity with which the work has proceeded”: Scientific American, November 12, 1870.
Cause of the fire and description of the fire itself have been drawn from the following: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5, 1871, pp. 29-35, LER; Eagle, December 2, December 3, December 5, 1870; Farrington, Concise Description of the East River Bridge, pp. 22-24; Engineering (London), December 30, 1870; Journal of the Franklin Institute, February 1871.
Attempts to extinguish fire: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5,1871, pp. 29-30. LER.
Boring into the roof: Ibid., p. 31.
WAR’s efforts “almost superhuman”: Kingsley, Report of the General Superintendent, New York Bridge Company, p. 54. LER.
Discover mass of living coals: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5, 1871, p. 31. LER.
“He appeared calm and collected”: Eagle, December 2, 1870.
Damage estimated at $250,000: New York Herald, December 3, 1870.
World charges sabotage: December 2, 1870.
Fire marshal’s hearing: Eagle, December 5, 1870.
Begin filling work chambers with concrete: Eagle, December 23, 1870.
Blowout of supply shaft: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5, 1871, pp. 24-27. LER.
Repairing the fire damage: Ibid., pp. 32—35; Farrington, Concise Description of the East River Bridge, pp. 22—24.
Fresh-water springs: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, June 5, 1871, p. 28. LER.
11 The Past Catches Up
Launching of the New York caisson: Eagle, May 8-9, 1871.
Tweed’s daughter’s wedding: Werner, Tammany Hall, pp. 190-193; Lynch, “Boss” Tweed, pp. 359-360; New York Sun, June 1, 1871.
Activities of Matthew J. O’Rourke: Lynch, “Boss” Tweed, pp. 354, 361.
Watson the nerve center of the Ring: Werner, Tammany Hall, p. 209.
“You must do just as Jimmy tells you”: Ibid., p. 161.
O’Rourke’s estimate of Ring thefts: Ibid., p. 160.
Attempt to bribe Jones: Ibid., p. 210.
Attempt to bribe Nast: Ibid., pp. 211-212.
Times attack: Callow, The Tweed Ring, pp. 256—261.
Orange riot: Lynch, “Boss” Tweed, pp. 367-369; Swanberg, Jim Fisk: The Career of an Improbable Rascal, pp. 234—240; Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong, entries for July 1871.
Cooper Union meeting of September 4: Lynch, “Boss” Tweed, pp. 370-371; Werner, Tammany Hall, pp. 217-218.
Cartoon of Tweed in the shadow of the gallows: Harper’s Weekly, October 21, 1871.
“At home again amidst the haunts of my childhood”: Lynch, “Boss” Tweed, pp. 377-378.
George Templeton Strong on the “Boss of New York”: Strong, Diary, entry for January 27, 1871.
Elections in Brooklyn: Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, 1865-1898, pp. 56-60.
Accident: C. C. Martin interview published in the Eagle, May 24, 1883.
“This has been the case from the first”: Kingsley, Report of the General Superintendent of the New York Bridge Company, p. 32. LER.
Six thousand illegal votes: Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, p. 59.
Kingsley interview in the World: Quoted in the Eagle, December 15, 1871.
Kingsley’s name a football: Beecher at Kingsley’s funeral, published in memorial book, W. C. Kingsley. LIH.
Tweed’s appearances at the meetings of the Executive Committee: “Exhibit J; A Full Synopsis of the Minutes of the Respective Executive Committees Thereof, From September 1869 to June 1st, 1883,” New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, 1867-1884,pp. 526-566.
“Resolved, That fifteen per centum on the amount of expenditure”: Ibid., p. 552.
“I had no understanding with him, sir”: Testimony in the Miller Suit to Remove the East River Bridge, “Exhibit A,” February 15, 1879, p. 62.
Kingsley’s “claim…liquidated”: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 572.
Erasure made in the records: “Exhibit No. 4,” Minority Report by Demas Barnes, December 16, 1872, New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 96.
Tweed indicted and arrested: Werner, Tammany Hall, p. 233.
Death of Fisk: Swanberg, Jim Fisk, pp. 271-278.
12 How Natural, Right, and Proper
“Although the bridge from every element of its use”: “Exhibit No. 4,” Minority Report by Demas Barnes, New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 100.
“It is true that Tweed, Connolly, and Sweeny are among the subscribers”: Eagle, April 10, 1872.
Kingsley’s letter to the Eagle and Union appeared April 17, 1872.
Committee of Fifty’s letter in answer to Kingsley: Eagle, April 22, 1872.
Kingsley’s second letter: Eagle, April 29, 1872.
Replacements for Tammany quartet: “Synopsis of the Minutes of Proceedings of the Corporators, Directors, and Stockholders of the New York Bridge Company and Also of the Trustees of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, Comprehending a Period of 16 Years, Viz.; From May 13th, 1867, to June 1st, 1883” (“Exhibit I”), New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 332.
Hewitt swings into action: “The New York Bridge Company and the Trustees of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, A Full Synopsis of the Meetings of the Executive Committees Thereof, From September 17th, 1869, to June 1st, 1883” (“Exhibit J”), New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 575—577.
WAR’s report: Report of the Chief Engineer on Prices of Materials, and Estimated Cost of the Structure, East River Bridge, June 28, 1872 (“Exhibit No. 2”), New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 74—83.
Barnes called an ass and a quack: Eagle, June 22, 1872.
Kinsella faces down scandal: Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, 1865-1898, p. 95.
“…He is the thinker who acts”: Eagle, June 22, 1872.
Predict bridge to cost forty million dollars: Scientific American, July 15, 1872.
Kingsley’s “agreement” at an end: Directors’ Meeting, November 4, 1872, New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 334.
Beecher scandal breaks: Johnston, Mrs. Satan, pp. 159-178; Shaplen, “The Beecher-Tilton Case,” Part II.
Majority report: “Exhibit No. 3,” New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 84—89.
Barnes’s minority report: “Exhibit No. 4,” Ibid., pp. 90-101.
Executive Committee report: “Exhibit No. 5,” Ibid., pp. 102-131
“This Company was chartered as a private company”: Ibid., p. 109
Kingsley back at ten-thousand-dollar salary: Ibid., p. 336.
Kingsley takes leave of absence: Ibid., p. 586.
13 The Mysterious Disorder
“Knowing from the reports of other similar works”: Kingsley, Report of the General Superintendent of the New York Bridge Company, p. 33. LER.
“To such of the general public”: WAR, Third Annual Report of the Chief Engineer, June 1, 1872, p. 7. LER.
“Considerable risk and some degree of uncertainty”: Ibid., p. 8.
Depth of bedrock: Ibid., p. 9.
“The great timber foundation was now complete!”: Ibid., p. 13.
Paine’s mechanical signaling system: Collingwood, Further Notes on the Caissons of the East River Bridge. LER.
Caisson sinking six to eleven inches a day: Ibid.
Sand pipes: WAR, Third Annual Report of the Chief Engineer, pp. 18-20, LER; Farrington, Concise Description of the East River Bridge, pp. 25-26; Collingwood, Further Notes on the Caissons of the East River Bridge. LER.
“The downward movement of the caisson”: WAR, Third Annual Report of the Chief Engineer, p. 26. LER.
Change of work shifts: Collingwood, Further Notes on the Caissons of the East River Bridge. LER.
Dr. Smith’s nine rules: Smith, The Effects of High Atmospheric Pressure, Including the Caisson Disease, p. 13. LER.
“The habits of many of the men”: Ibid., p. 14.
“The utmost efforts of the expiratory muscles”: Ibid., p. 15.
“Hence, the pulse is small”: Ibid., p. 16.
Experiment with pigeons: Ibid., p. 20.
Experiment with dog: Ibid., p. 28.
Sample case histories: Ibid., pp. 35—37.
“When it is severe, local numbness”: Sodeman, Pathologic Physiology, p. 238.
Remedies employed: Ibid., pp. 32—33.
Walter Reed at Brooklyn City Hospital: Ibid., p. 39.
“Indeed, it is altogether probable”: Ibid., p. 30.
“Experience teaches”: Ibid., p. 7.
Smith rules more time in the lock: Ibid., p. 30.
“The natural impatience of the men”: Ibid., p. 30.
Theory of “special predisposition”: Ibid., p. 29.
“The testimony of all observers”: Ibid., p. 27.
14 The Heroic Mode
Smith’s explanation, “overpowering physical force,” blood “retreats,” etc.: Smith, The Effects of High Atmospheric Pressure, Including the Caisson Disease, pp. 25—26. LER.
Prior discovery by Paul Bert: Ibid., p. 27.
“It frequently happened under my observation”: Ibid., p. 34.
“by applying the heroic mode”: WAR, Third Annual Report of the Chief Engineer, June 1, 1872, p. 24. LER.
Difficulty of taking patient into the caisson: Smith, The Effects of High Atmospheric Pressure, p. 34. LER.
Death of John Myers: Ibid., p. 41.
Death of Patrick McKay: Ibid., p. 40.
“Perhaps if they had known”: Josephson, Al Smith, Hero of the Cities, p. 20.
Caisson workers strike: Kingsley, Report of the General Superintendent of the New York Bridge Company, pp. 34-35, LER; Eagle, May 8, 1872.
“The surface was evidently very irregular”: WAR, Third Annual Report of the Chief Engineer, p. 21. LER.
WAR estimates a hundred lives to go to bedrock: EWR, unpublished biographical sketch of WAR. RPI.
Strata undisturbed since time of deposit: WAR, Third Annual Report of the Chief Engineer, p. 22. LER.
A time of “intense anxiety”: EWR, unpublished biographical sketch of WAR. RPI.
First spur of bedrock described: WAR, Third Annual Report of the Chief Engineer, p. 23. LER.
Death of Reardon: Smith, The Effects of High Atmospheric Pressure, p. 40. LER.
Differences of level at the extreme corners: Collingwood, Further Notes on the Caissons of the East River Bridge. LER.
“The labor below is always attended with a certain amount of risk”: WAR, Third Annual Report of the Chief Engineer, p. 29. LER.
“Relief from the excruciating pain”: WAR, Pneumatic Tower Foundations of the East River Suspension Bridge, p. 88, fn. LER.
Cholera epidemic at Niagara Falls: JAR to Charles Swan, July 29, 1854, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 95.
“He determined not to have it”: Beecher’s Magazine, January, 1871; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 96.
Business carried on by WAR in the fall of 1872: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, 1867-1884, pp. 579-583.
WAR’s efforts the winter of 1872-73; EWR, unpublished biographical sketch of WAR, RPI; also WAR notes, letters, specifications, etc., RPI.
Requests leave of absence: Meeting of the Board of Directors, April 21, 1873, New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 339.
“My plan would be as follows”: Smith, The Effects of High Atmospheric Pressure, p. 34. LER.
PART THREE
15 At the Halfway Mark
“Everything has been built to endure”: Francis Collingwood in a speech before the First Annual Meeting of the Alumni of RPI, New York, February 18, 1881.
“The love of praise is, I believe,”: Dorsey, Road to the Sea, p. 163
Tweed escapes: Werner, Tammany Hall, p. 244.
Beecher on trial: Shaplen, “The Beecher-Tilton Case,” Part II.
“…probably no great work was ever conducted”: EWR, unpublished biographical sketch of WAR. RPI.
Granite and gravity: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, January 1, 1877, p. 6. LER.
Limestone in anchorages: Collingwood, Notes on the Masonry of the East River Bridge. LER.
Arrangement of the anchor plates and anchor bars: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, January 1, 1877, pp. 6-8, LER; Specifications for Anchor Plates, New York Anchorage, East River Bridge, 1875, LER; Specifications for Iron Anchor Bars, New York Anchorage, East River Bridge, April, 1875, LER; “Up Among the Spiders; or How the Great Bridge Is Built,” Appleton’s Journal, January 1878; Conant, “The Brooklyn Bridge.”
Work on the approaches: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, January 1, 1877, pp. 23-32. LER.
Model of the bridge: Brooklyn Union, May 25, 1878.
Tower work: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer, January 1, 1877, pp. 4-5, LER; Scientific American, August 10, 1872; Collingwood, Notes on the Masonry of the East River Bridge, LER.
“There are times when standing alone on this spot”: Farrington, Concise Description of the East River Bridge, pp. 57—59.
Deaths from tower and freak accidents: Eagle, May 18, 1876; interview with C. C. Martin, Eagle, May 24, 1883.
The bridge as an obstruction to navigation: Iron Age, April 27, 1876; Scientific American, May 6, 1876. The hearings were reported in detail in the Eagle, April 24 and May 21, 1876.
Charter amended: An Act to amend an act…Chapter 601. Passed June 5, 1874. LER.
New York Bridge Company dissolved: An Act providing that the bridge in the course of construction over the East River…Chapter 300: Passed May 14, 1875. LER.
“Before winter shall drive the workmen”: Eagle, July 11, 1876.
“One thing is certain”: Ibid.
16 Spirits of ‘76
Specifications: Specifications for Granite Face-stone and Archstone, Required for the New York Tower, East River Bridge, April, 1875, LER; original copy, RPI.
Correspondence with Brooklyn: WAR and EWR, letter books. RPI.
“It is one thing to sit in your office”: WAR to JAR II, August 20, 1907. RUL.
“I would further add, now is the time”: WAR to HCM, February 25, 1875. LER.
Physical discomforts: WAR to JAR II, May 5, 1894.
“There is a popular impression”: EWR, unpublished biographical sketch of WAR. RPI.
Could neither read nor write: WAR to James Rusling, February 18, 1916. RUL.
“Regarding your health”: WAR to Francis Collingwood, undated. RPI.
Note with check for minerals: RPI.
WAR to HCM concerning Keystone Bridge rumor: December 6, 1875. RPI.
Eads lawsuit: Papers on file at RPI; exchange of letters between Eads and WAR, Engineering (London), May 16, June 27, September 5, 1873.
“Its perusal has left only the one prominent impression”; “My actual experience in the St. Louis caisson”; “You might as well patent contrivances in a ship’s rigging”; “In conclusion I beg to assure Captain Eads”: Engineering (London), June 27, 1873.
G. K. Warren and the St. Louis Bridge: Gilbert and Billington, “The Eads Bridge and Nineteenth-Century River Politics.”
“I am willing to accede to the proposition”: WAR to William Paine, May 10, 1876. RPI.
“My health has become of late so precarious”: WAR to HCM, December 1875. RPI.
WAR on his brother Charles: WAR, “Memorial to Charles Roebling,” October 1918, RUL; also quoted in Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 324-326.
“He lost no opportunity”: WAR, notes for what was apparently to be an autobiographical sketch, written July 1898. RUL.
Feelings of indignation: Ibid.
Personal expenses: WAR, notebooks. RPI.
“Their grounds cover fourteen acres”: Eagle, August 8, 1876.
Roebling Centennial display: Ibid.; photograph, RPI. The section of cable made up for the Centennial Exhibition is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution, in the Museum of History and Technology.
Wire: Specifications for Steel Cable Wire, for the East River Suspension Bridge—1876, original copy, RPI; also LER.
Machinery Hall: Brown, The Year of the Century: 1876, pp. 112-137.
Starting of the Corliss engine: Scientific American, May 20, 1876.
“It was a scene to be remembered”: Ibid.
“The engineer sits reading his newspaper”: The Atlantic Monthly, July 1876.
WAR to return to Brooklyn: WAR to William Paine, undated. RPI.
“He is a man of great resource”: WAR to HCM, May 6, 1876. RPI.
Telegrams: Originals in scrapbook kept by EWR. RPI.
17 A Perfect Pandemonium
The description of hanging the first rope is drawn from the following: Eagle, August 14 and 15, 1876; New York Herald, August 15, 1876; New York Tribune, August 15, 1876; Scientific American, September 2, 1876; Van Nostrand’s Eclectic Engineering Magazine, October 1876; Farrington to WAR, December 30, 1876, LER; Farrington, Concise Description of the East River Bridge, pp. 28—30.
“In a few seconds the rope began to move”: Farrington, Concise Description of the East River Bridge, p. 30.
“When it is considered that one has to climb”: New York Herald, August 15, 1876.
Farrington’s ride: Eagle, August 25, 1876; New York Herald, New York Tribune, New York Times, Brooklyn Argus, August 26, 1876; Farrington to WAR, December 30, 1876, LER; Conant, “The Brooklyn Bridge.”
Ten thousand spectators: New York Tribune, August 26, 1876.
“The ride gave me a magnificent view”: Farrington, Concise Description of the East River Bridge, p. 36.
Farrington complains of notoriety: Farrington to WAR, December 30, 1876. LER.
“He does most of the brain work”: Unidentified clipping in a scrapbook kept by EWR. RPI.
High-wire acrobatics on Saturday, August 26: Eagle, same day; New York Herald, Tribune, Sun, and World for August 28.
“Mr. Harry Supple was all that could be desired”: William Paine to WAR, December 31, 1876. LER.
Second day of acrobatics, Monday, August 28: Eagle, same day; New York Herald, Tribune, Sun, and World for August 29.
“I have carried out your instructions”: Farrington to WAR, December 30, 1876. LER.
18 Number 8, Birmingham Gauge
Hewitt and Tilden: Nevins, Abram S. Hewitt, pp. 305-310.
“Hewitt was as true a patriot”: Ibid., p. 317.
“who played the game for ambition”: Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, p. 373.
“the best-equipped, the most active-minded”: Ibid., pp. 295.
Hewitt resolution: Meeting of the Trustees, New York and Brooklyn Bridge, September 7, 1876, New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, 1867-1884, pp. 383-384; Eagle, September 7 and 8; New York Tribune, September 8, 1876.
“I am very strongly opposed”: Tribune, September 8, 1876.
Tweed arrested in Spain: Werner, Tammany Hall, pp. 247-251.
Letter of resignation: WAR to HCM, September 8, 1876. RPI.
WAR to the Eagle: Undated. RPI.
“I was publicly and specifically singled out”: WAR to HCM, September 11, 1876. RPI.
Haigh’s matrimonial adventures: Eagle, January 6, 1880.
WAR returns to New York City by barge: Unidentified clipping in a scrapbook kept by EWR. RPI.
“There is something colossal in the look of the East River piers”: Ibid.
HCM notified of stock sale: WAR to HCM, November 2, 1876. RPI.
Aspinwall proposal: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 384-386; Eagle, November 14, 1876.
Presidency stolen: Nevins, Abram S. Hewitt, p. 320 ff.
Men to be trained: WAR to HCM, November 6, 1876. RPI.
Oil kettles, sample ferrule, iron and steel rope: WAR to Farrington, November 16, 1876. RPI.
“Man is after all a very finite being”: WAR to James S. T. Stranahan, November 20, 1876. RPI.
Technical instructions to Trenton: WAR to Ferdinand Roebling, undated. RPI.
Requirements for Number 8, Birmingham Gauge: Specifications for Steel Cable Wire, for the East River Suspension Bridge—1876, original copy, RPI; also LER.
Opening and contents of the bids: Meeting of the Trustees, November 4, 1876, New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 387—389; also, Meeting of the Executive Committee, December 6, 1876, Proceedings, pp. 643-645.
Reporter sees Martin and HCM: New York Herald, December 16, 1876.
“If one man’s samples”: WAR to HCM, December 15, 1876. LER.
Hill’s computations: New York Herald, December 16, 1876.
Aspinwall and Kinsella comment: New York Herald, December 20, 1876.
Hill’s answer: New York Herald, December 21, 1876.
Executive Committee Meeting of December 23, 1876: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 645—646.
WAR’s report on tests: WAR to HCM, December 18, 1876. LER
Board of Directors’ Meeting of December 28, 1876: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 389.
“Unquestionably Bessemer steel wire is the cheapest”: Eagle, January 10, 1877.
Model of cable and Hildenbrand drawing: Eagle, December 26, 1876.
Trustees’ Meeting of January 11, 1877: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 389-391.
“The assurance of the correct performance”: WAR, Report of the Chief Engineer of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, January 1, 1877, p. 18. LER.
Slocum requests Army engineers: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 389-391.
Hewitt letter: Eagle, January 12, 1877.
Brooklyn Theater fire: New York Times, December 6, 1876.
Ashtabula disaster: Gies, Bridges and Men, pp. 125—130. Footnote: Ibid., p. 130.
Trustees’ response to Hewitt’s letter: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 389-391; Eagle, January 12, 1877.
Kinsella’s comments on decision: Eagle, January 16, 1877.
“They can help us and the public”: Union, January 16, 1877.
“My attention has been called”: Eagle, January 23, 1877.
“It has become the deepest of mysteries”: Union, January 18, 1877.
“In laying this plan”: WAR, private notes, undated. RPI.
19 The Gigantic Spinning Machine
“I never saw better days for bridge work”: Eagle, clipping in a scrapbook kept by EWR, no date. RPI.
“…no man can be a bridge builder”: Unidentified clipping, dated February 12, 1877, in a scrapbook kept by EWR. RPI.
“The undulating of the bridge”: New York Tribune, February 19, 1877.
WAR’s sign at the footbridge entrance: From a photograph.
“Trinity Church steeple was fencing”: New York Tribune, February 12, 1877.
Farrington discloses imagined report of crossing (fn.): Farrington, Concise Description of the East River Bridge.
“While Revs. Drs. Storrs and Buddington”: Eagle, February 22, 1877.
Lengthy descriptions of the wire spinning and of the array of apparatus involved were published in the Eagle, June 1 and July 7, 1877, and in Appleton’s Journal, January 1878; “The Gigantic Spinning Machine”: Eagle, July 6, 1877.
Report of WAR’s return to Brooklyn: Eagle, May 20, 1877.
HCM and the footbridge craze: New York Illustrated Times, August 18, 1877.
“I started to go once”: Ibid.
Seaman’s epileptic fit: The New York Times, September 20, 1877.
Eagle’s comments on suicide: October 19, 1877.
“It is as brittle as glass”: WAR to Paine, December 3, 1877. RPI.
“This is what Mr. Kinsella is pleased to call the best”: WAR to HCM, December 3, 1877. RPI.
Kinsella says cost no issue: Eagle, December 4, 1877.
“All of which is bosh”: Union and Argus, December 4, 1877.
Accident at the Brooklyn anchorage: Eagle, December 23, 1877; Union and Argus, December 24.
“The brick arch fell because it had a right to fall”: WAR to HCM, December 31, 1877. RPI.
“There are so many points to be considered”: WAR to Hildenbrand, January 9, 1878. RPI.
“I want you to help me get out a specification”: WAR to Farrington, February 9, 1878. RPI.
January 8 meeting of the Executive Committee: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 667—668.
“Of course more or less legal information is required”: Union and Argus, January 8, 1878.
20 Wire Fraud
“Yet the existence of evil in human life”: JAR, “Life and Creation,” 1864. RUL.
Storm of January 31, 1878: WAR, Communication from Chief Engineer W. A. Roebling, In Regard to the Method of Steam Transit Over the East River Bridge, p. 8, LER; Eagle, January 31, 1878.
Murphy predicts 1880 completion: Eagle, February 5, 1878.
WAR plans for bridge trains: Eagle, March 4, 1878.
“An ingenious arrangement”: WAR, Communication from Chief Engineer W. A. Roebling, p. 6, fn.
“Neither, must we overlook the effect”: Ibid., p. 5.
Minnesota clips a cable: Eagle, March 4, 1878.
Death of Tweed: Werner, Tammany Hall, pp. 257-258.
“He never thought of angels”: Ibid.
“If he had died in 1870”: Callow, The Tweed Ring, p. 298.
“Alas! Alas! young men”: Ibid., quoted, p. 297.
“A villain of more brains”: Quoted in Werner, Tammany Hall, p. 263.
“Well, the Brooklyn people have no right”: New York Sun, clipping in a scrapbook kept by EWR. RPI.
Virtually every paper on both sides of the river carried a long account of the breaking of the cable. This description has been drawn chiefly from the following: Brooklyn Union and Argus, June 14 and 15, 1878; New York Herald, June 15, 1878; Eagle, June 14 and 15, 1878; New York Times, June 15 and 16, 1878; New York World, June 16.
“It will not sway from side to side”: New York World, June 30, 1878.
HCM cuts back the work: Eagle, August 12, 1878.
The exchange of letters between WAR and HCM concerning the Haigh wire deception is contained in “Exhibit No. 6,” New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 132-138. They include: WAR to HCM, July 9 and 22, 1878; HCM to WAR, July 25, 1878; WAR to HCM, July 28 and August 6, 1878.
Trustees’ meeting of August 5, 1878: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 441.
Trustees’ meeting of August 7, 1878: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 441.
WAR’s private notes on Haigh: RPI.
“We have brought machinery to a pitch”: George, Social Problems, p. 19.
“The thousands who daily cross”: Eagle, August 8, 1878.
“It has pleased the average penny-a-liner”: EWR, unpublished biographical sketch of WAR. RPI.
“Each must hang in its own peculiar length”: Appleton’s Journal, January 1878.
Close call on the buggy: Eagle, January 5, 1879.
Wrapping wire contract changed: Meeting of the Executive Committee, September 12, 1878, New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 682.
“The end, then, is near”: Eagle, October 5, 1878.
21 Emily
“At first I thought I would succumb”: WAR, sometime in the spring of 1903. RUL.
“Mrs. Roebling is a tall and handsome woman”: Trenton Gazette, April 15, 1894.
“I would send you a little tintype”: WAR to Elvira Roebling, March 5, 1864. RUL.
“You know, darling, that your presence”: WAR to EWR, April 1, 1864. RUL.
“This full moon evening”: WAR to EWR, April 15, 1864. RUL.
“After all, dear Emmie”: WAR to EWR, April 4, 1864. RUL.
“Look for a big thief next winter”: WAR to EWR, July 4, 1864. RUL.
“Does the Mary Powell run”: WAR to EWR, August 1, 1864. RUL.
“Your letter describing the visit”: WAR to EWR, June 19, 1864. RUL.
Ferdinand’s reaction to EWR: WAR to EWR, September 1, 1864. RUL.
“When the two hopefuls”: WAR to EWR, September 25, 1864. RUL.
“I still entertain a lively remembrance”: Ibid.
“aspired to no higher distinction”: Blake, History of Putnam County, New York.
Parrott guns bombard Storm King: Pelletreau, History of Putnam County, New York.
Career of G. K. Warren prior to the Civil War: Taylor, Gouverneur Kemble Warren.
The distressing thing about Indian fighting: Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox, pp. 51—52.
Picnic on the Hudson: The painting hangs in the Julia Butterfield Memorial Library, Cold Spring, New York.
“I think we will be a pair of lovers”: WAR to EWR, November 18, 1864. RUL.
Warren and Sheridan at Five Forks: Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox, pp. 348-357.
WAR’s view of Five Forks: WAR to James Rusling, February 18, 1916. RUL.
Effie Afton case: Gies, Bridges and Men, p. 151; Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, pp. 124—125.
“I have heard men like Humphreys”: WAR, private memorandum, written sometime in 1914. RUL.
“It is whispered among the knowing ones”: New York Star, December 17, 1879.
Edge Moor Iron official writes directly to EWR: W. H. Francis to WAR, October 28, 1879. The letter is contained in the scrapbook kept by EWR from May 1878 to October 1882. RPI.
Secretary of State Evarts retained as council: Eagle, January 16, 1879.
Decision of Supreme Court of New York: Ibid.
Decision of Court of Appeals: Eagle, March 25, 1879.
Miller suit: New York Herald and Eagle, February 28, 1879; Eagle, March 7; New York Herald and Eagle, March 31; Eagle, March 23, 1879; Testimony in the Miller Suit to Remove the East River Bridge.
Slocum charges that the engineers are taking bribes: Union and Argus, May 3, 1879; New York World and New York Sun, May 4, 1879.
“And I want to say right here”: Eagle, May 6, 1879.
Davidson and Ferdinand Roebling testify: New York Sun, New York Star, New York World, May 7, 1879; Union and Argus and Eagle, May 8, 1879.
“I hope I have heard for the last time”: WAR to Slocum, May 6, 1879. RPI.
Engineers exonerated: Eagle, New York Sun, New York Herald, May 28, 1879.
Kinsella declines to serve again, new faces on the board: Eagle and Union and Argus, June 9, 1879.
Steinmetz attacks Kingsley: Eagle, June 10, 1879.
Murphy appears to be out: Ibid.
Murphy in again: Eagle, June 25, 1879.
Tay Bridge disaster: Gies, Bridges and Men, pp. 134—146.
“WILL THE TAY DISASTER BE REPEATED”: New York Herald, January 11, 1880.
De Lesseps illustration: EWR’s scrapbook for May 1878 to October 1882, RPI; the illustration is from New York Daily Graphic, February 28, 1880.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper’s view of cable work: November 15, 1879.
J. Lloyd Haigh at Sing Sing: Unidentified clipping in EWR’s scrapbook. RPI.
Kingsley-Steinmetz scene: The incident was widely reported and the dialogue differs somewhat from one account to another. This version is a composite from what appeared in the Eagle, the New York Star, the Sun, the Heraldand the Tribune on October 12, 1880, all of which were carefully entered in EWR’s scrapbook.
RPI alumni dinner: Eagle, February 19, 1881; Engineering News, February 26, 1881.
“The men who have come from the Institute”: Engineering News, February 26, 1881.
Rossiter Raymond at the RPI dinner for 1882 (fn.): Unidentified clippings. RPI.
There is no known description of the view from WAR’s window written at the time. This one has been derived from contemporary photographs of New York taken from the Brooklyn side of the river.
EWR leads the first walk over the bridge: New York Star, Eagle, and the Union and Argus, December 13, 1881.
22 The Man in the Window
“The best way to secure rapid and effective work”: New York Star, August 23, 1882.
Trustees’ meeting of December 12, 1881: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, 1867-1884, pp. 461-462; also New York Star, Brooklyn Union and Argus, and the Eagle, for December 13, 1881.
Stranahan’s customary method: Eagle, December 13, 1881.
Total expenditures January 1, 1882; also HCM’s estimate: Eagle, January 10, 1882.
Meeting of the trustees, October 13, 1881: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 457-458.
“When I consented to make this change”: WAR to HCM, January 9, 1882, p. 11. LER.
Cables could uproot the anchorages: Ibid., p. 12.
Seth Low at his first trustees’ meeting: Eagle, January 10, 1882.
“the first scholar in college”: Dictionary of American Biography.
Low’s campaign for mayor: Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, 1865-1898.
Meeting of the trustees, June 12, 1882: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, p. 468.
Robert Roosevelt’s letter to Mayor Grace: New York Herald, June 14, 1882.
HCM talks to the press: New York Sun, June 16, 1882.
“His plans and diagrams are all about him”: Ibid.
Sellers of Edge Moor ridiculed: Eagle, New York Sun, New York Herald, June 27, 1882.
Meeting of the trustees, June 26, 1882: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 469-470.
Slocum’s remarks: Eagle, New York Sun, June 27, 1882.
“unsubstantial fabric of a dream”: Quoted in Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, p. 153.
The best roundup of rumors concerning the health and mental decline of WAR: New York Sun, July 31, 1882.
WAR’s letter of explanation: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 473—474.
WAR claims he is powerless to push Sellers: WAR to HCM, July 19, 1882, RPI; also New York Sun, August 17, 1882.
“Newport has never looked more attractive”: Eagle, July 3, 1882.
WAR’s “cottage” at Newport: The house still stands; it is now a Catholic convalescent home and is located, ironically, beside the Newport end of the gigantic new suspension bridge over Narragansett Bay.
WAR will not “dance attendance on the Trustees”: Draft of a long letter to Comptroller Campbell, undated. RPI. It is not known whether the letter was sent.
WAR will not be “dragged into the board and put on exhibition”: Draft of a letter to the New York Sun, probably written in July 1882; probably never sent. RPI.
“no less than one hundred and twenty politicians”: Ibid.
“This is the same General Slocum”: Ibid.
Kingsley overpaid by $175,000: Ibid.
“I have always had bitter enemies in the Board”: Draft of letter, WAR to Comptroller Campbell, undated. RPI.
“I have over and over again been interviewed”: Ibid.
Low reported to be out of town briefly: New York Herald, August 3, 1882.
“Mr. Roebling, I am going to remove you because it pleases me”: WAR, undated notes, written sometime in late August 1882. RPI.
Death of G. K. Warren and decision of the military court: Taylor, Gouverneur Kemble Warren.
“Please make it convenient to be present”: Eagle, August 17, 1882.
Trustees’ meeting of August 22: Eagle, New York Sun, New York Star, New York Evening Post, New York World, New York Herald, New York Tribune, August 23, 1882.
Low’s comments on WAR at the meeting of the trustees, August 22, 1882: Eagle, same date; New York World, New York Sun, New York Star, New York Herald, August 23.
“WHEREAS, The Chief Engineer of this Bridge”: New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 477—478.
Editorial comments in New York papers: All for issues of August 23, 1882.
Iron Age comment: Issue of August 31, 1882; Newport Daily News: August 24, 1883; Trenton Daily State Gazette and the Eagle: August 23, 1882.
“I take the liberty of writing to express to you my heartfelt gratitude”: EWR to Ludwig Semler, undated. RPI.
“Nobody should be convicted before he is tried”: Eagle, September 5, 1882.
WAR would as soon “be out of the bridge” if Kingsley is to decide his fate: Letter to William Paine, September 10, 1882. RPI.
Semler reports on visit to WAR: Eagle, September 7, 1882.
Visit of the World reporter to Newport: Described by EWR in her letter to William Marshall, undated. RPI.
Meeting of the trustees, September 11, 1882: The entire session was heavily reported by all of the following, from which this account has been drawn, New York Evening Post, New York Sun, New York Times, New York Star, New York Herald, New York World,New York Tribune, Brooklyn Union and Argus, and the Eagle, all for September 12, 1882; also New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 478-481.
Low tells reporters he is pleased with outcome: Eagle, September 12, 1882.
“I actually believe that all that ails him”: Ibid.
23 And Yet the Bridge Is Beautiful
“And yet the bridge is beautiful in itself”: Scientific American, September 22, 1883.
The Times on Mrs. Vanderbilt’s party: March 27, 1883.
The World on the “Bridge Frauds”: The first of a long series of articles appeared on September 18, 1882, under a headline, “THE BRIDGE RING, OVERWHELMING PROOFS OF SYSTEMATIC JOBBERY AND OFFICIAL CORRUPTION.”
Kinsella interview: World, September 19, 1882.
The seating of the Tammany delegates: The best account of the Syracuse convention is in Nevins, Grover Cleveland; A Study in Courage.
The Times pinpoints Slocum’s association with the bridge as the chief cause of his failure to get the nomination: September 22, 1882.
Mayors Low and Grace appoint accountants to examine the Bridge Company’s books: “Report of the Committee Appointed by the Board of Trustees,” New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, 1867-1884, pp. 1-6.
Report of the accountants: Ibid., pp. 7—64.
The bridge as a memorial to HCM: Special meeting of the trustees, December 2, 1882, New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 483-484.
“What a relief it will be”: Barnard, “The Brooklyn Bridge.”
Scientific American editor describes the bridge as seen from the river: Issue of September 22, 1883.
United States Illuminating Company gets contract for arc lamps: Meeting of the Executive Committee, February 12, 1883, New York and Brooklyn Bridge Proceedings, pp. 745—747; “Report of the Committee on Lighting the Bridge, April 9, 1883,” Proceedings,pp. 161-164.
“The scene suggested the subterranean laboratory of a magician”: Quoted in Frederick L. Collins, Consolidated Gas Company of New York, 1934, pp. 268-270.
EWR explains how superstructure should be made: Times, May 23, 1883.
EWR’s ride over the bridge: Only passing mention of the event was made in the papers and then weeks after it happened (Times, May 23, 1883).
The fact that the rooster went along turns up only in the Trenton papers many years later, when the bird, stuffed and mounted, was a conversation piece in the Roebling home.
The interview with the Union reporter appeared May 16, 1883.
Full accounts of the preparations for “The People’s Day” appeared in just about every paper, off and on, throughout the preceding week.
The World now favors the bridge: Swanberg, Pulitzer, p. 74.
WAR’s concern about fireworks display: Letter to Stranahan, dated May 5, 1883. RPI.
Hewitt writes for wages of bridge workers, etc.: May 3, 1883, RPI; WAR’s answer to Hewitt, RPI.
“I wish you would make one of my party of ladies”: EWR to Mrs. William G. Wilson, May 17, 1883. New York Historical Society.
Hewitt letter of May 18, 1883: RPI.
24 The People’s Day
Every newspaper on both sides of the East River went to great lengths to describe the opening of the Great Bridge. The sources used most here were the Eagle, the Union, New York Times, Sun, World, and Tribune, all for May 25, 1883.
Estimates on crowds pouring into New York: Times.
“One moment they were clambering clumsily”: Sun.
“It was as if the forest of masts had blossomed”: Tribune.
“The women in the crowd raised their hands”: Sun.
Arthur trods the bridge “with an elastic step”: Sun.
Arthur “an Apollo in form”: Ibid.
Large portions of the Opening Day addresses were carried in the papers of May 25, but the complete text is contained in a commemorative book, Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, published by the Bridge Company.
WAR’s day and the reception at 110 Columbia Heights were also covered in most newspaper accounts of the day’s events. See in particular the Tribune and the Sun.
“As the sun went down the scene from the bridge was beautiful”: Sun.
“Why I thought Brooklyn had one hotel”: Ibid.
The most interesting account of the first crowds to cross the bridge was provided by the Times.
Epilogue
Attendance figures for first three days: New York Tribune, May 26, 28, 1883.
The Memorial Day tragedy: New York Times and Tribune, June 1, 1883.
“That was my first view of a great calamity”: Josephson, Al Smith, Hero of the Cities, p. 24.
Martin’s force: Martin, Report of the Chief Engineer and Superintendent of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, June 1, 1884. LER.
Barnum’s elephants: Times, May 17, 1884.
Brodie: Times, July 23, 24, 1886; Botkin, New York City Folklore, pp. 218-223.
Other jumpers: “This Alluring Roadway,” The New Yorker, May 17, 1952.
Montgomery Schuyler’s article appeared in Harper’s Weekly, the issue of May 26, 1883; also included in Mumford, Roots of American Architecture, pp. 159—168.
James: See his American Scene; for the best analysis of how he and other American intellectuals and artists responded to the bridge, see Trachtenberg, Brooklyn Bridge; Fact and Symbol, pp. 129-165.
“The stone plays against the steel” plus other Mumford comments on the bridge: Sticks and Stones, pp. 114-117; The Brown Decades, pp. 96-106.
“not so much linking places as leaving them”: Scully, Modern Architecture, p. 17.
The prominent American architect is Philip Johnson.
All that was needed was a new coat of paint: “This Alluring Roadway,” The New Yorker, May 17, 1952.
Roebling’s pleasure over Low’s defeat: WAR to JAR II, November 3-6, 1903. RUL.
“So far as I know not a dollar was stolen”: WAR to James Rusling, January 23, 1916. RUL.
Hildenbrand’s post-Brooklyn career: ASCE, Transactions, Vol. 77, 1914.
“Soon I will be the last leaf on the tree”: WAR to JAR II, April 26, 1909. RUL.
EWR at the coronation of Tsar Nicholas: WAR to JAR II, May 24, 1896. RUL.
WAR blocks sale to U.S. Steel: Ibid., p. 352.
“He was now adrift”: WAR in a private memorandum dated March 16, 1922. RUL.
The founding of Roebling, New Jersey: Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 359-361, 367-373.
Size of WAR’s estate: Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 278.
“…these relationships are those of the heart”: WAR to JAR II, March 21, 1908. RUL.
WAR becomes “almost jovial”: Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 269.
“And yet people say how well you look”: WAR to JAR II, October 19, 1893. RUL.
Times letter: RUL.
“It means 100,000 spies”: WAR to JAR II, September 15, 1913. RUL.
“It has come to this pass”: WAR to JAR II, October 9, 1914. RUL.
“War in the kitchen”: WAR to JAR II, August 11, 1916. RUL.
WAR’s “oddities”: Schuyler, The Roeblings, pp. 263, 274.
“a nice, courteous old gentleman”: Author’s interview with W. H. Pearson, formerly of Trenton.
WAR known as a soft touch: Schuyler, The Roeblings, p. 262.
“Billy Sunday”: Ibid., p. 274.
“I claim a small part of this”: WAR to JAR II, June 10, 1922. RUL.
“It’s my job to carry the responsibility”: New York World interview quoted in the Trenton Times, June 13, 1921.
“Think not that I am improving”: WAR to Mrs. JAR II, May 14, 1926. RUL.
“As far as we are concerned, it will last forever”: Jack Schiff, city engineer in charge of all East River bridges, in an interview with the author, March 16, 1971.