Roebling's Delaware & Hudson Canal Aqueducts

Abstract

The nineteenth-century American civil engineer, John A. Roebling, is best remembered for his crowning work, Brooklyn Bridge, built to his design by his son, Washington, following the elder Roebling's death in 1869. Although an engineering monument of the highest order, Brooklyn Bridge Must—if historical justice is to be done—share its notoriety with a small, relatively obscure suspension bridge that was Roebling's second work, and is his earlist still standing. Moreover, in all likelihood, the Delaware Aqueduct is the oldest existing American suspension bridge and may well be the oldest existing suspension bridge in the world (that retains its original principal elements). The sole survivor and largest of four suspension aqueducts erected by Roebling between 1847 and 1850 to carry the Delaware & Hudson Canal over rivers, the Delaware Aqueduct stands today only because of its strategic location. Following abandonment of the canal in 1898, the structure was converted to a private highway bridge, which function it continues to serve, spanning the Delaware above Port Jervis.