Natan S. Roberts was born July 28, 1776 in Piles Grove , the son of Abraham Roberts, a native of New Hampshire whose Puritan forefathers, emigrating from England in 1640, had settled in Auburn, Massachussets. During his minority Nathan helped to support his parents and younger brothers.
When he became of age he purchased a hundred acres of land in Vermont, where he began the cutting of timber, but he returned to New Jersey and taught school at Plainfield during the winter.
In 1804, he moved to Oneida County, N. Y. , where he acquired some land. He taught school at Oriskany until 1806, when he was appointed principal of the academy at Whitesboro.
In July 1816 he became an assistant to Benjamin Wright of Rome, engineer in charge of the building of the middle section of the Erie Canal.
From that time until 1822 he was engaged in exploratory surveys and location work on the section of the canal between Rome and Rochester, including the drafting of plans for locks between Clyde and Rochester. From 1822 until its completion in 1825, he was in charge of the construction of the western section of the canal, from Lockport to Buffalo. He drafted the plan which was adopted and superintended the construction of five pairs of locks at Lockport to overcome the barrier formed by a sixty-foot rocky ridge--a more elaborate scheme of locks than had ever been constructed in America.
Upon the completion of the Erie Canal, he became a consulting engineer for the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.
Then followed service as chief engineer of the western end of the Pennsylvania State Canal, that part between Pittsburgh and Kiskimenetas.
During a visit home he made an investigation and report for the New York State Canal Board on the practicability of supplying the summit level of the projected Chenango Canal with water.
In association with James Geddes he reviewed the estimates of the line of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal for the secretary of war and subsequently examined the country between Johnstown and Franktown for a possible route for a railroad or portage over the mountains to connect the eastern and western sections of the Pennsylvania State Canal.
From December 1828, as a member of the board of engineers of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company, he was engaged for some two years in the revision and location of extensions of that canal, building the section between Point of Rocks and Harpers Ferry, and during the same period was associated with Jonathan Knight in preliminary work in the same territory for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
He was appointed by the federal government to take charge of surveys for a ship canal around Muscle Shoals in the Tennessee River, Alabama. In the spring of 1835, in association with John B. Jervis and Holmes Hutchinson, he made a series of examinations and surveys for the New York State Canal Board to estimate the expense of enlarging the Erie Canal, and in 1839, as chief engineer, began the enlargement of the canal between Rochester and Buffalo.
In 1841, while still thus engaged and about to complete his last great task, the Rochester Aqueduct, he was removed from office for political reasons, by the new Whig administration.
Since through his profession he had attained sufficient means to make him financially independent, he now retired to his farm in Madison County, where he spent his remaining years.
In 1841, while still thus engaged and about to complete his last great task, the Rochester Aqueduct, he was removed from office for political reasons, by the new Whig administration.
Member of the board of engineers of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company
On November 4, 1816, Roberts married Lavinia, daughter of Ansel White and granddaughter of Judge Hugh White, pioneer settler of the region
