He emigrated to New York, but since there was no printing in that city, and no opportunity, therefore, for carrying on his business of making paper, in 1688, together with his sons, Gerhard and Klaus, and his daughter Elizabeth, who subsequently married Heivert Papen, he came to Germantown. There, in 1690, upon a little stream flowing into the Wissahickon, he erected the first paper mill in America, an event which must ever preserve his memory in the recollection of men. “He was the founder of a family which in the person of David Rittenhouse, the astronomer, philosopher and statesman, reached the very highest intellectual rank.”
“Here dwelt a printer, and I find That he can both print books and bind; He wants not paper, ink nor skill; He’s owner of a paper mill.” --John Holme, 1696.
=Roebling, John August.=--One of the greatest engineers and America’s leading bridge builder. Among his famous achievements are the Pennsylvania Canal Aqueduct, across the Alleghany River (1842), Niagara Suspension Bridge (1852), the Cincinnati-Covington bridge, with a span of 1,200 feet, and the famous Brooklyn Bridge across the East River, completed by his son, Washington, upon the death of its designer. Roebling was born June 12, 1806, at Muehlhausen, Thuringia, and learned engineering at Erfurt and Berlin.
=Rassieur, Leo.=--The only German ever elected Commander of the G. A. R. Served as major throughout the Civil War.
=Roosevelt, Col. Theodore.=--Ex-President Roosevelt’s early position on the war has never been cleared up satisfactorily. For more than two months after the outbreak of the war, August, 1914, he held that we were not called upon to interfere on account of the invasion of Belgium. During this time he was not only accounted neutral, but rather friendly to the German side, as was generally understood. He had been cordially received by the Kaiser, whom he allotted the chief credit for his success in bringing about peace between Russia and Japan, and during his term of President one of his most intimate friends was Baron Speck von Sternburg, the German ambassador. He was publicly charged by Mr. Andre Tardieu, the French editor, with trying to influence the Algeciras convention of the powers to favor Germany’s claims in Morocco, although, as M. Tardieu intimated in an article, he must have known of the secret understanding between this government and Great Britain. At all events, in the fall of 1914, Col. Roosevelt wrote in the Outlook Magazine that we had no concern with the invasion of Belgium. In September, 1914, the great war then being in its second month, Col. Roosevelt wrote: