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Roebling (JOHN AUGUSTUS an American)

JOHN AUGUSTUS, an American engineer; born in Muhlhausen, Prussia, June 6, 1806; came to the United States in 1831, and settled in Pittsburgh, Pa. His first work was as assistant engineer on the dock navigation of Beaver river, a tributary of the Ohio.

He soon found employment in the Pennsylvania State service, and for three years was engaged in surveying and locating three railroads from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh across the Allegheny Mountains. These roads were in due course built by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. In 1844 he secured the contract to remove the wooden aqueduct of the Pennsylvania canal across the Allegheny river, which had become unsafe and to replace it with a new structure. His next piece of construction was the Monongahela suspension bridge at Pittsburgh. He then, within two years, built a series of four suspension aqueducts on the line of the Delaware and Hudson canal, connecting the Hudson river with the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania. He removed from Pennsylvania about this time, to Trenton, N. J., where he established his wire works. He next built a ROEBLING suspension bridge across the chasm of the Niagara river to unite the New York Central and Great Western (Canada) railroads. He began the Cincinnati suspension bridge in 1856 and completed it in 1867. His greatest work was the first bridge over the East river, connecting New York and Brooklyn. He died while the construction was in progress, in Brooklyn, July 22, 1869, and the bridge was completed by his son.