Brooklyn Bridge’s foundation laid in Saxonburg
John Augustus Roebling was born in Muhlausen, Kingdom of Prussia, a small-town northwest of Thuringia, Germany, on June 12, 1806. The town, which at one time boasted Johann Sebastian Bach as the town organist” has been described as one of the most important cities in central Germany.
Roebling’s father, Christoph Polykarpus Roebling, owned a small, yet profitable tobacco shop, and his mother, Friederike Dorothea (Muelleren) Roebling, was a doting mother to her four children.
The couple realized early that Roebling, who played music at a young age, was bright. The family was deeply religious, and Roebling was baptized as Lutheran. His mother arranged for him to be tutored in critical thinking, math and science, and surveying at Pädagogium in Erfurt, Germany.
“His mother knew John was special,” said Fred Caesar, a Roebling historian and the former volunteer curator of the Saxonburg Museum.
At 14, Roebling also learned about beam construction, catenary theory, and the statics of arches. Four years later, he passed his surveyor’s examination and enrolled at Bauakademie in Berlin to study architecture, bridge construction, engineering and foundation construction. If that wasn’t enough, he studied hydraulics, languages and philosophy.
By 1825, Roebling took a government job in Arnsberg. He worked in design and supervised construction of military roads. It’s been reported that he was already starting to envision sketches of suspension bridges over the Lenne and Ruhr rivers, but those projects never came to be.
After a four-year stint, he returned home for additional work in engineering. But by 1831, John and his brother Carl felt stunted by political unrest and a general lack of opportunity.
They became enthralled by a glowing review of the United States from a family friend, so they and others planned to immigrate to the United States. With about $6,000 in savings and seed money from other countrymen, the group set sail for new lives on May 23, 1831.
Caesar says the trip was supposed to take six weeks, but because of rough open seas and other delays, it took the hearty group nearly twice that — 11 weeks — to arrive in the “New World.” They arrived on Aug. 3, 1831. Along the way, the group split apart philosophically and scattered in all directions.
While in Philadelphia, the Roebling brothers considered their options. The duo didn’t believe in “human bondage” or slavery, so they didn’t travel south of the Mason-Dixon Line. They considered the Midwest, and while traveling through Pennsylvania via canal boat, Carl Roebling developed malarial fever. While recuperating in Pittsburgh, the Roeblings learned of a life-changing opportunity.
Robert Morris, a signor of the Declaration of Independence, delegate to the Continental Congress from Pennsylvania and the “Financier of the American Revolution” once owned vast parts of Western Pennsylvania. However, later in life, Morris experienced financial failings and had to sell off his properties. Baltimore businessman Stephen Lowery purchased much of the land, and when he died, his daughter, Sarah Collins inherited 1,582 acres.
The land and air were promoted as good for Carl’s health. According to Caesar, the Roebling’s journey to the Midwest ended in Butler County.
On Oct. 28, 1831, the Roeblings purchased the land for more than $2,000. Caesar says he has seen differing price tags — from $1.25 to $1.50 per acre — or $37 to $58 per parcel in today’s money. At the heart of this investment was a 600-acre tract they first called “Germania” and later “Sachsenburg,” before settling on the Anglicized “Saxonburg.”
Caesar says Roebling immediately laid out the town, with Main Street anchoring from the highest point on the land. He wrote letters back to friends — blacksmiths, merchants and others — who could offer needed skills. Caesar said over the next two years, “waves of setters” immigrated to Saxonburg. They worked together to clear the dense, wooded land and establish the town.
Their mother, Friederike Roebling, learned her sons made the trip safely, but died in 1832.
Carl married and quickly had two children. John Roebling met another German immigrant, Johanna “Jane” Herting. In 1837, the couple had Washington Augustus Roebling, the first of their nine children.
That same year, Carl passed away at 34.
John Roebling, who would later be described as eccentric and hard-working, among other attributes, found farming unsatisfying. He was inspired by an article he read about wire rope.
He tinkered with a seven-strand wire rope to build a ropewalk on his property. Sensing an opportunity and a desire to support his family, Roebling would go back to engineering.
Among his first engineering jobs were improving water traffic and building canals throughout the commonwealth. Roebling conducted railway surveys between Harrisburg, the Allegheny Portage Railroad and Pittsburgh.
While in the Allegheny Mountains, he witnessed a canal boat, which was being pulled by a hemp rope that broke, careen down a hill and kill two men. Later, Roebling’s hand-twisted iron wire cable would successfully replace such hemp rope. Advances in twisted iron would soon be credited to a “factory” in Saxonburg.
Caesar says no factory actually existed. “It was all manual labor,” he said. Between eight and 16 men at a time, occasionally powered by Roebling’s bread and rye whiskey, did the work of twisting the wire into rope by hand in Saxonburg.
In 1840, Roebling and Jane had their first daughter, Laura, while in Philadelphia. While on the farm in 1841, John revisited that ropewalk and the idea of suspension bridges and began constructing the wire ropes in a wooded structure next to his brick home. He offered to help design one in Philadelphia. In 1843, his product was starting to gain media attention.
In 1844, published reports indicate Roebling’s ropes were being considered for use in the United States Navy to secure vessels. He also won a bid to replace the wooden canal aqueduct across the Allegheny River. The Allegheny Aqueduct — the first such suspension bridge in Pittsburgh — was 162 feet long. The next year he was instrumental in building the 188-foot Smithfield Street Bridge, which spans the nearby Monongahela River.
Roebling’s father, Christoph died in 1847 in Germany at 76.
Over the next 12 years, Roebling helped build suspension structures in Pittsburgh (including what’s now the Roberto Clemente Bridge), throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York’s Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge. The Cincinnati-Covington Bridge — later renamed the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge — in Cincinnati was the first to span more than 1,000 feet.
Roebling and his growing family would leave Saxonburg for Trenton, N.J. and a true factory in 1849. Caesar reports that when the “Father of Saxonburg” left, some fellow settlers wept as the family rode out town. Just like his hometown in Germany, John Roebling would never return to Saxonburg.
John and Jane would add sons Ferdinand, Charles, Edmund, and William, as well as daughters Elvira, and Josephine, while daughter Hannah would die in infancy.
Then came the project that would ultimately define his career. In 1867 Roebling began designing the New York and Brooklyn Bridge (also known as the East River Bridge). According to David McCullough’s “The Great Bridge,” Roebling was among the first to call it “The Brooklyn Bridge.”
In a freak mishap, while at Fulton Ferry on June 28, 1869, Roebling’s foot was crushed by an arriving boat. Caesar said Roebling never took any kind of medicine or painkillers. Due to the tragic accident, his injured toes were amputated.
Roebling had an unwavering trust in hydrotherapy and devised a way to have water continually run over the wound. The foot worsened and John Roebling would die from tetanus 24 days later. He was 63.
Roebling was joined by his 32-year-old civil engineer son Washington in designing and constructing the 1,595-foot-long bridge. At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge of its kind in the world. Washington Roebling was a remarkable man in his own right, following his father into engineering and helped build suspension bridges before enlisting in the military and serving gallantly as a colonel in the Civil War.
Over the next decade, Washington Roebling oversaw construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. While diving to inspect the caissons, or bridge foundation, he rose to the surface too quickly and developed decompression disease, or “the bends.”
Bedridden for a long time afterward, his wife, Emily, served as a liaison. An educated and cultured partner who excelled in the role, Emily learned a lot about strength of materials, stress analysis, cable construction, and calculating catenary curves. She also organized the opening “People’s Day” festivities.
On May 24, 1883 with President Chester A. Arthur and Mayor Grover Cleveland witnessing, the Brooklyn Bridge opened. Emily Roebling, John Roebling’s daughter-in-law, was the first person to traverse the bridge via the first of 25 carriages. The bridge cost $15 million to build, or $320 million in today’s money.
Roebling’s children and extended family would run his business empire for years to come. The John A Roebling's Sons Co., in Trenton, which experienced a huge fire in 1915, later helped build the Golden Gate Bridge.
In Saxonburg, Roebling’s home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. His workshop in Saxonburg is the subject of an ongoing effort to raise money to repair a sinking foundation and other damage.
