There may be some people living whose sole activities can be confined to two lines such as these, others who have done a little more than living and breathing.
But at rare intervals, once in a century, a man appears who towers so high above his fellows that his activities and accomplishments surpass a hundred-, yes, a thousand-fold those of the average man. Such a man was Charles G. Roebling.
I am a strong believer in heredity. He was his father over again, to a far greater degree than any of the other children. He inherited his temperament, his constitution, the concentrated energy which drives one to work and be doing something all the time. It might be argued that if a man inherits everything he deserves no credit for what he is. That would be so in a life of universal monotony, but with each generation in turn totally different conditions and environments arise. These have to be met by the new individual, who must develop his own powers to adapt himself to them, to overcome them and use them as his tools.
The early childhood of Charles passed along rather peacefully. The father was away much of the time at Niagara, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, so the boy was spared the educational experiments which were applied so disastrously to the older boys (scolding and cowhide). As he grew older the inherent impulsive traits began to show themselves as this little incident will show. While standing at the door one day, a beggar woman came along asking for old clothes. Charles rushed upstairs to his mother's closet, seized an armful of costly silk dresses, and bestowed them on the astonished mendicant, who marched off with them.
The boy was not christened as a child; his father waited until the two younger boys were ready to march with him to the First Presbyterian Church, where a pew was maintained to enhance the family respectability. My mother was a Lutheran and father more of a Universalist, until he evolved a religion of his own, a thousand written pages of which are still mouldering in a trunk in the garret, forgotten and unread. Charles was baptized without a middle name. A little later he noticed that his older brothers rejoiced in one. As he could not bear the thought of being outdone in anything, he selected the middle name of Gustavus of his own accord.
Charles' older sister, Laura, had married a German school teacher from Muhlhausen named Methfessel, who established a boarding-school and pedagogium in Stapleton, Staten Island. Thither the boy was sent when he was twelve or fourteen; he thrived under his sister's motherly care and followed the usual academic course for three or four years. He developed great ability as a piano player, and became a brilliant performer, by far the best in Trenton. (His father before him had been a virtuoso on the flute and piano until his left hand was maimed.)
It might be supposed that Charles in such surroundings would continue the use of and become adept in the German language, but he never acquired it and soon forgot the little he knew, so different from his oldest brother, who still speaks it with the same fluency as English.
When he was eighteen he was sent to the Rensselaer Polytechnic at Troy, where I had graduated in 1857.
During all these years I saw very little of Charles. While I was at Troy he was a small child, afterwards I went to Pittsburgh for several years and saw nothing of him. Then came four years of Civil War and three years on the Cincinnati Bridge. When my father died and I undertook the Brooklyn Bridge, he still had two years to serve in Troy.... I did not see Charles at Troy. He did not fancy the usual family boarding-house, and occupied rooms above Vanarnum's saloon, eating where and when he pleased. Out of his class of 28 (in , 87 1 ), 18 are dead. (Only two are living in my class.)
He did not seem to have formed any warm attachments with any of his classmates, as is usually the case. I very seldom have heard him allude to any of them. He was already beginning to develop a certain brusqueness of character which repels rather than draws people to you. I have at hand an ambrotype taken when he was twenty-one, wearing a high stovepipe hat, with a perfectly smooth face and still capable of doing boyish tricks. He was a fine draughtsman and fair at mathematics, and learned more about machinery than I did.
When Charles graduated in 1871, he came at once to Trenton where everything was prepared for him to make his entrance into business life an easy one. His father was dead, he was his own master; his guardian, Charles Swan, my father's old superintendent, turned over to him over $300,ooo in good securities. He took his place as an equal partner in the partnership of the two older brothers, Washington and Ferdinand, established by the father's will. Being an educated engineer he naturally took to the manufacturing end of the business. He did not have to go through the grinding apprenticeship that most young men have to undergo.
The history of Charles G. Roebling is practically the history of the Roebling Company from now on. But before proceeding would remark that it is always a delicate matter to say anything about a decedent's family life, or his personal peculiarities. Charles had married a beautiful and highly accomplished woman, who bore him five children, of whom only two survived at the time of his death. She died shortly after the birth of the last one, Helen, when Mrs. Hook, my sister-in-law, came in and took charge of the household. The oldest boy, Ormsby, the father's pride, died at the age of six of diphtheria. This was as much of a shock to him as the death of Washy, years later, on the Titanic. When so many children die a man's heart becomes callous and hardened, he loses his faith in Providence and just falters along with his dreary burthens.
Charles was born with a "high blood pressure" constitution. Persons thus endowed have their destiny marked out for them. It forces them to work hard to the end of their lives; there is no rest for them. Thus we find him down at the mill every day in the year, early and late. That was his pleasure and delight. He shared it with his brother Ferdinand. An occasional business trip gave him all the relaxation he needed. He was not a public orator, but down at the mill in his own province, he could be fluent enough. When someone had done wrong he could annihilate him and then be a little sorry (perhaps). To his daily associates his outbursts of unbalanced excitability did not mean so much, because he always calmed down. He was very outspoken in his opinions, and never hesitated to give them in full force, no matter who was hurt by them.
In later life he became a little more politic. These are apt to be the characteristics of a man who has always had his own way. When brothers are together in business the proper amenities are frequently neglected. Not to speak to each other for six months was by no means uncommon, and still the business went on; each one performed his part with grim determination.
Charles had one very strong point-he never copied; tried to solve every problem according to the best of his ability. Every task was an education to him. This is not always the cheapest way. Later on, when he had too much on his shoulders, he would sometimes pay for ideas.
Everyone who came in contact with him in a business way was impressed by his ability and power, but in arguing with him you had to be sure of your ground, else you would be met with a snort of disdain. Charles did not like to write. I have never received a letter from him. A few scraps and memoranda were enough for him; he trusted much to his memory even about such important subjects as the cables of the Williamsburg Bridge he never wrote a line. He might at least have written a short monograph so as to get credit. He loved his work; it was his life, his happiness. In investments he preferred railroads, kept away from electric roads. Having been once bitten by a municipal, he owned none when he died. His death made a gap in our forces at the mill which will be felt for many a long day.
A LETTER IN REPLY TO A FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR To MRS. STOCKTON:
Dear Madame: Your kind and sympathetic note touches my heart. By the death of Charles I not only lose a friend and brother, but Trenton loses its greatest citizen and the country at large its foremost mechanical engineer. He was a paragon of industry. We all relied upon him. With his wise counsel, his instant decision and effective action we all felt we had a strong tower to lean upon. We already miss him and look around in vain for someone to take his place.... Time, which usually heals all things, cannot replace him. Coming so soon after the death of F. W. it seems like a double stroke of fate. He was never aware of his real condition until it was too late. In the face of a growing weariness he kept on planning and working until sheer exhaustion forced him to his bed, from which he could never rise. Most men would have taken alarm in time, but that was not his way. He preferred to die in harness.
One winter evening, on December 9, 1849, I was sitting next a room where a woman was in labor; presently I heard the faint cry of a new-born child. Last Saturday I heard the last sigh of that same child. When I think back on the great work, the vast accomplishments and undertakings achieved between these two sighs, it surpasses my understanding. May he rest in that peace of which he saw so little during lifetime.
W A ROEBLING