Engineering Documents,, 1826-1869

Summary: Plans and records of John A. Roebling's activity as an engineer employed by the Prussian state (1826-1828), as a Pennsylvania State Engineer surveying railroads and canals, and later as an independent civil engineer designing and building canal aqueducts and suspension bridges. Included are notebooks, loose notes, sketches and reports of many of Roebling's major built and unbuilt bridges. Several notebooks include information on more than one bridge; these documents have been files separately from the main sequence.

Among the documents in this series are Roebling's designs for the Eslohe highway in Westphalia, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Aqueducts, the Covington and Cincinnati Bridge, the Niagara Falls Railway Suspension Bridge, the Kentucky River Bridge, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Many of the notebooks contain copies or drafts of proposals for bridges. For example, the folder for the Neversink and High Falls Aqueduct, dated October 1848, is a copy of the proposal sent to R.F. Lord concerning the construction of the Delaware Aqueducts.

This series also includes a "Plan of Masonry on the Eastern Shore," dated 1852, for the Niagara Railway Suspension Bridge.

Engineering documents begun by John A. Roebling, but which were continued by his son Washington, are included with the papers of the latter.

Oversize materials are stored separately.