Friday, May 15, 2009
The Golden Age of Hudson Valley Brickmaking
LOWER HUDSON VALLEY
Bricks are as old as time. The Babylonians and Egyptians made bricks, the oldest manufactured building material, as early as 4000 B.C. For centuries, bricks were sun-dried. Around 1000 B.C. someone discovered that they could be hardened by fire. Since then, every civilization has burnt bricks.
Early British colonists in North America brought with them the brickmaking skills of the mother country. Small deposits of clay were everywhere, and it was not unusual for bricks to be made right at building sites. In the construction of the John Jay mansion in Katonah, for example, bricks were made from clay dug and burned at the site. At the Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton, demonstrations are occasionally given showing how bricks were molded in the 18th century.
During the first half of the 19th century, New York City grew faster than any other American city and became the principal metropolis of the nation. By mid-century, its population had grown to more than half million. Fires were dreaded hazards in cities. Houses were constructed of wood and fireplaces were used for cooking and heating. Small fires quickly spread to become conflagrations of disastrous proportions involving whole sections of a city.
The solution to New York's twin problems of rapid population growth and constant threat of fire was to build more and bigger buildings--and to build them of fire-resistant brick. By providing a constant source of water for fire fighting, the Croton Aqueduct, built between 1837 and 1842, gave added impetus to brickmaking. In its construction, 55 million locally manufactured Hudson Valley bricks would be consumed. This is the story of that forgotten industry.
The father of Hudson Valley commercial brickmaking was James Wood, an Englishman with brickmaking experience. Arriving in America in 1801, he set up a brickyard at Sing Sing and then at George's Island. Upon learning of vast clay deposits on the opposite shore, he crossed over to Haverstraw, where he leased land and established a brickyard. With more abundant supplies of clay, the west bank of the Hudson eventually surpassed the east bank in production. Nevertheless, for 75 years after 1850 a busy brickmaking industry continued to flourish between Peekskill and Croton.
Early Westchester Brickyards
One early brickyard was established at Green's Cove, between Verplanck Point and Montrose Point, by Isaac Green, a settler from Vermont. In 1833 or 1834, Green began to manufacture bricks on land leased from Joshua T. Jones. In 1837, William A. Underhill began making bricks on land owned by his father, Robert Underhill, on Croton Point.
Extensive deposits of clay and sand were discovered on Verplanck Point, and it soon became the center of the early brickmaking industry in Cortlandt. An early brickyard operator was William Bleakley, former supervisor of Cortlandt and later sheriff of Westchester County.
According to the N.Y. State Census of 1855, 37 brickyards were operating in the town of Cortlandt, employing more than a thousand workers. The only other brickyard in Westchester was located near Sing Sing in the town of Mount Pleasant and employed 16 men.
A legacy of the intensive brickmaking on Verplanck Point is the community of Verplanck itself. Still remarkably intact, it is a veritable architectural museum. Its brick public buildings, and modest brick homes and row houses in simplified Greek Revival style are seemingly frozen in time. In 1836, John Henry and nine other investors had purchased Verplanck Point with the intention of establishing a village to rival Peekskill. Their ambitious plan showed small lots along 37 numbered streets and six named avenues (Water, Hudson, Highland, Broadway, Westchester, and Union). Unfortunately, the expected population never materialized. After only eleven streets and three avenues were cut through, in 1866 Henry sold much of his land to the Hudson River Brick Manufacturing Company. Initially, this company did not undertake the manufacture of bricks but leased its land to brickmakers.
Brickmaking in 1884
Because brickmaking was an unglamorous industry requiring comparatively little capital or equipment, few records have survived. We can get a glimpse of its extent in Cortlandt in 1884 from J. Thomas Scharf's two-volume history of Westchester County.
On Verplanck Point ten brickyards employed 425 men and manufactured 400,000 bricks daily. Frank A. Timoney leased three yards, employing 150 men, Patrick King also operated three yards employing 125 men, Adam Fisher's yard employing 50 men, Thomas Vaughey's yard employing 25 men, and John Morton's two yards employing 75 men were all leased. One of Morton's yards manufactured what was described as "Croton front brick," priced at $10-12 a thousand, and the other "common brick," priced at $6 a thousand.
At Green's Cove, between Verplanck Point and Montrose Point, were the brickyards of Cyrus Travis, then the supervisor of the town of Cortlandt, and O'Brien & McConnon. Each employed 50 men.
On Montrose Point was the brickyard of James D. Avery, with 30 men. Farther south were two brickyards operated by Orrin Frost, with 100 men. On George's Island were three leased brickyards, employing 130 men. Two were operated by Tompkins & Bellefeuille and the third by Edward Bellefeuille.
At Crugers, John Peach Cruger owned two brickyards employing 70 men; one was leased to Adam Fisher.
Croton Landing had two brickyards. The northern, smaller yard was operated by Schuyler Hamilton of Ossining and employed 30 men. To the south was the yard of the George D. Arthur Company (owned by Francis Larkin and Marcus L. Cobb, both of Ossining), with 50 men. Croton Point also had two yards--one making 60,000 Croton front bricks a day and another turning out enameled bricks for tiling and wainscoting.
The Brickmaking Process
Brickmaking was fraught with extreme financial risks. Partnerships were formed and dissolved. Fortunes were made and lost. Wages were low, and the physical labor involved was heavy. It was a seasonal business that shut down for the winter when the ground became frozen. Many brickyard workers found winter employment cutting ice in area lakes and ponds, and hauling it to ice houses.
A brickyard was labor intensive, largely dependent on immigrants and itinerants for its workers. Owners of brickyards supplied housing to many of their laborers. So isolated was the brickmaking community on Croton Point that a school was established for the children of brickyard workers.
Clay and sand banks could suddenly peter out. Warm, dry weather was necessary for the initial drying of bricks--but the weather could be unpredictable and capricious. Overproduction in this highly competitive industry was common. The price of bricks was dictated by the state of the economy, the amount of new construction and the annual production of bricks.
Extracting the Clay
Bricks were made by what was called the soft mud process. Early brickmakers had to uncover the clay for bricks by digging by hand. (The steam shovel was not invented until 1879.) Fortune smiled on any brickyard whose clay deposit was overlain by sand, another necessary brick ingredient. Clay and sand were transported in wheelbarrows or horse-drawn carts to the soaking pit. Here clay and sand were mixed with water. Later, it was found that adding powdered coal dust called "culm," a waste product of anthracite coal mining, reduced the burning time.
The mixture was worked until it reached the proper consistency by kneading with the workers' feet. Later, this was done in a horse-driven or steam-powered pug mill. After being properly tempered, the clay was removed in batches from the soaking pit or pug mill and delivered to the molding table.
Molding the Bricks
The assistant brick molder, also called a clot molder, would prepare a lump of clay and pass it to the brick molder. The latter, the key to the brickmaking process, was the star of the team. Highly skilled, the brick molder would take the clay and "dash" it into the already sanded mold, making sure that the corners were filled. Any excess clay mixture was removed from the top of the mold with a "strike"--a flat stick kept soaking in water--and reused.
Molds varied in size, making one, two, four or six bricks at a time. Child labor was common in brickyards. Smaller capacity molds had the advantage that a child could carry them. Hardwoods were used in building the molds--cherry was preferred. Molds were often reinforced with iron bands to prevent distortion from excessive wear.
The next worker in the team would take the mold from the molding table and move it by flatbed wheelbarrow to a leveled and carefully swept "hacking" area for drying. Bricks slid easily from molds thanks to the dusting of fine sand applied before each mold was filled. After being emptied, molds were then returned to the molding table for refilling.
Drying the Bricks
At the roofed-over hacking area, the bricks were stacked to dry. After two days, they were turned over. At this stage, rough handling could easily damage a brick. While the bricks were still moist, young boys using special tools called "edgers" straighten the edges of any damaged bricks. After four days of drying in hot weather, the bricks were sufficiently hard to allow them to be stacked on end a finger's width apart to continue drying. After another two weeks of drying, the bricks were ready to be moved to the kiln shed.
Building and Firing the Kiln
A temporary kiln was constructed of "green" (raw) bricks, stacked 54 bricks high. "Arches"--apertures in which fuel was placed--were left at the base. Wood was used until the supply of local trees was exhausted, then coal was substituted. Anywhere from several hundred thousand to a million bricks could make up a kiln.
Even with the drying that had taken place, the unburned bricks still contained about 15% water, so fires were kept low at first to complete the drying process. Too much heat applied too soon could cause bricks to explode. Steam would issue from the top of the kiln. Old-time brickmakers called this "water smoke." When it was safe to increase the heat, the temperature of the kiln was raised slowly until it reached 1,00 degrees Fahrenheit.
It took a knowledgeable and experienced brickmaker to know when the fire holes should be bricked over and the heat allowed to dissipate slowly. Burning the bricks took about a week. Another week was needed to allow them to cool before the kiln could be taken apart.
Sorting the Bricks
Bricks closest to the fires received an unwanted glaze deposited on their surfaces from wood ash or vaporized sand that dropped in the fires and was vaporized. Such bricks could be used in the interior courses of walls. Bricks that were overburned or cracked or warped were designated as "lammies" or "clinkers" and sold for use in garden walls or paths.
Bricks making up the outer walls of the kiln were always less well cured. Called "light-hards," these were put aside to be used to cover the outer walls of the next kiln and daubed with mud to seal it.
Marketable bricks were transported to docks at the river's edge. In the early days these were loaded on sloops. Barges holding from 300,000 to 500,000 bricks for the trip to New York City’s docks later supplanted sloops. Twelfth Avenue and 52nd Street became the site of an informal brick market, gathering place for the city's building materials dealers.
Brick Brands
Early brickmakers occasionally scratched their initials in their bricks, but in the 1880's templates were created to make uniform marks. Eventually, rectangular wooden plates were affixed inside the molds at the bottom. These produced an indentation in each brick called a "frog" in which brickyards' names or initials appeared in raised relief. Brickmakers soon realized that the frog not only made for a lighter brick but also conserved raw material. It also helped to create a better bond between bricks laid with mortar. Builders eventually recognized brands whose quality was consistent and bought such bricks.
Most brands are easily identifiable by their names, but some initials can pose a problem: Verplanck yards: CC (Charles Carman); K&L (King and Lynch); O&McC (O'Brien & McConnon); PO (Patrick O'Brien).
Crugers yards: LHL (L.H. Lynch); L&O (Lynch & O'Brien).
Croton and Croton Point yards: CPB Co (Croton Point Brick Company); EF (Eugene Frost); JM (John Morton); WAU (W.A. Underhill). Bricks of the Anchor Brick Company of Croton were distinguishable by an anchor embossed in the frog. Some W.A. Underhill bricks displayed the letters IXL ("I excel").
Despite their size and weight, and the difficulty of exhibiting them, brick collectors today eagerly seek examples of brick brands.
Decline and Fall
By the turn of the 20th century, some 120 brickyards in the Hudson Valley, employing between eight and ten thousand workers, were producing over a billion bricks a year--more than any other part of the world.
A quarter-century later, faced with depletes banks of clay and sand along the river and having failed to modernize or mechanize their brickmaking, most of the brickyards in Westchester and Rockland counties had closed. Except for machines to mix the clay and pack the molds, much of the work had still involved manual labor. Brickyards upriver around Beacon, Newburgh and Kingston managed to hang on longer, thanks to abundant reserves of clay and the introduction of machine methods. Despite modernization, many of these brickyards succumbed during the Depression; only a few survived the Second World War.
Other brickmaking methods had supplanted the soft mud process. A steam-driven machine could make 100,000 bricks a day by forcing a stiffer mixture through a rectangular aperture. The extruded column was then cut into bricks by a wire cutter similar to a hard-boiled egg slicer. Tunnel-type dryers and kilns were introduced.
After the building boom that followed World War II, architects and builders in the 1960's decided that Hudson Valley brick was too porous. The cost of added ingredients to overcome the porosity problem made it impossible for Hudson Valley brickmakers to compete.
Today, shale is the preferred raw material, and most of the country's bricks come from the South and the Midwest. Only one brickyard making molded bricks survives in the Hudson Valley--the Powell & Minnock Brick Works at Coeymans, about a dozen miles south of Albany.
The visitor to the sites of previous riverside brickmaking operations between Croton and Peekskill will find little to show that industrial history was once made there. The harsh outlines of clay and sand pits have softened and merged with the landscape. Never intended to be permanent, brickyard buildings have long since disappeared. A diligent searcher may scuff up a few discarded bricks. With luck, their brands may be discernible and identifiable.
Tangible proof of the area's prodigality with its natural resources can still be found miles to the south in Gotham, the name applied to New York City by Washington Irving. From humble tenements to millionaires' mansions, thousands of sturdy 19th century buildings still stand, their bricks mute testament to the golden age of Hudson Valley brickmaking.
Bricks are as old as time. The Babylonians and Egyptians made bricks, the oldest manufactured building material, as early as 4000 B.C. For centuries, bricks were sun-dried. Around 1000 B.C. someone discovered that they could be hardened by fire. Since then, every civilization has burnt bricks.
Early British colonists in North America brought with them the brickmaking skills of the mother country. Small deposits of clay were everywhere, and it was not unusual for bricks to be made right at building sites. In the construction of the John Jay mansion in Katonah, for example, bricks were made from clay dug and burned at the site. At the Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton, demonstrations are occasionally given showing how bricks were molded in the 18th century.
During the first half of the 19th century, New York City grew faster than any other American city and became the principal metropolis of the nation. By mid-century, its population had grown to more than half million. Fires were dreaded hazards in cities. Houses were constructed of wood and fireplaces were used for cooking and heating. Small fires quickly spread to become conflagrations of disastrous proportions involving whole sections of a city.
The solution to New York's twin problems of rapid population growth and constant threat of fire was to build more and bigger buildings--and to build them of fire-resistant brick. By providing a constant source of water for fire fighting, the Croton Aqueduct, built between 1837 and 1842, gave added impetus to brickmaking. In its construction, 55 million locally manufactured Hudson Valley bricks would be consumed. This is the story of that forgotten industry.
The father of Hudson Valley commercial brickmaking was James Wood, an Englishman with brickmaking experience. Arriving in America in 1801, he set up a brickyard at Sing Sing and then at George's Island. Upon learning of vast clay deposits on the opposite shore, he crossed over to Haverstraw, where he leased land and established a brickyard. With more abundant supplies of clay, the west bank of the Hudson eventually surpassed the east bank in production. Nevertheless, for 75 years after 1850 a busy brickmaking industry continued to flourish between Peekskill and Croton.
Early Westchester Brickyards
One early brickyard was established at Green's Cove, between Verplanck Point and Montrose Point, by Isaac Green, a settler from Vermont. In 1833 or 1834, Green began to manufacture bricks on land leased from Joshua T. Jones. In 1837, William A. Underhill began making bricks on land owned by his father, Robert Underhill, on Croton Point.
Extensive deposits of clay and sand were discovered on Verplanck Point, and it soon became the center of the early brickmaking industry in Cortlandt. An early brickyard operator was William Bleakley, former supervisor of Cortlandt and later sheriff of Westchester County.
According to the N.Y. State Census of 1855, 37 brickyards were operating in the town of Cortlandt, employing more than a thousand workers. The only other brickyard in Westchester was located near Sing Sing in the town of Mount Pleasant and employed 16 men.
A legacy of the intensive brickmaking on Verplanck Point is the community of Verplanck itself. Still remarkably intact, it is a veritable architectural museum. Its brick public buildings, and modest brick homes and row houses in simplified Greek Revival style are seemingly frozen in time. In 1836, John Henry and nine other investors had purchased Verplanck Point with the intention of establishing a village to rival Peekskill. Their ambitious plan showed small lots along 37 numbered streets and six named avenues (Water, Hudson, Highland, Broadway, Westchester, and Union). Unfortunately, the expected population never materialized. After only eleven streets and three avenues were cut through, in 1866 Henry sold much of his land to the Hudson River Brick Manufacturing Company. Initially, this company did not undertake the manufacture of bricks but leased its land to brickmakers.
Brickmaking in 1884
Because brickmaking was an unglamorous industry requiring comparatively little capital or equipment, few records have survived. We can get a glimpse of its extent in Cortlandt in 1884 from J. Thomas Scharf's two-volume history of Westchester County.
On Verplanck Point ten brickyards employed 425 men and manufactured 400,000 bricks daily. Frank A. Timoney leased three yards, employing 150 men, Patrick King also operated three yards employing 125 men, Adam Fisher's yard employing 50 men, Thomas Vaughey's yard employing 25 men, and John Morton's two yards employing 75 men were all leased. One of Morton's yards manufactured what was described as "Croton front brick," priced at $10-12 a thousand, and the other "common brick," priced at $6 a thousand.
At Green's Cove, between Verplanck Point and Montrose Point, were the brickyards of Cyrus Travis, then the supervisor of the town of Cortlandt, and O'Brien & McConnon. Each employed 50 men.
On Montrose Point was the brickyard of James D. Avery, with 30 men. Farther south were two brickyards operated by Orrin Frost, with 100 men. On George's Island were three leased brickyards, employing 130 men. Two were operated by Tompkins & Bellefeuille and the third by Edward Bellefeuille.
At Crugers, John Peach Cruger owned two brickyards employing 70 men; one was leased to Adam Fisher.
Croton Landing had two brickyards. The northern, smaller yard was operated by Schuyler Hamilton of Ossining and employed 30 men. To the south was the yard of the George D. Arthur Company (owned by Francis Larkin and Marcus L. Cobb, both of Ossining), with 50 men. Croton Point also had two yards--one making 60,000 Croton front bricks a day and another turning out enameled bricks for tiling and wainscoting.
The Brickmaking Process
Brickmaking was fraught with extreme financial risks. Partnerships were formed and dissolved. Fortunes were made and lost. Wages were low, and the physical labor involved was heavy. It was a seasonal business that shut down for the winter when the ground became frozen. Many brickyard workers found winter employment cutting ice in area lakes and ponds, and hauling it to ice houses.
A brickyard was labor intensive, largely dependent on immigrants and itinerants for its workers. Owners of brickyards supplied housing to many of their laborers. So isolated was the brickmaking community on Croton Point that a school was established for the children of brickyard workers.
Clay and sand banks could suddenly peter out. Warm, dry weather was necessary for the initial drying of bricks--but the weather could be unpredictable and capricious. Overproduction in this highly competitive industry was common. The price of bricks was dictated by the state of the economy, the amount of new construction and the annual production of bricks.
Extracting the Clay
Bricks were made by what was called the soft mud process. Early brickmakers had to uncover the clay for bricks by digging by hand. (The steam shovel was not invented until 1879.) Fortune smiled on any brickyard whose clay deposit was overlain by sand, another necessary brick ingredient. Clay and sand were transported in wheelbarrows or horse-drawn carts to the soaking pit. Here clay and sand were mixed with water. Later, it was found that adding powdered coal dust called "culm," a waste product of anthracite coal mining, reduced the burning time.
The mixture was worked until it reached the proper consistency by kneading with the workers' feet. Later, this was done in a horse-driven or steam-powered pug mill. After being properly tempered, the clay was removed in batches from the soaking pit or pug mill and delivered to the molding table.
Molding the Bricks
The assistant brick molder, also called a clot molder, would prepare a lump of clay and pass it to the brick molder. The latter, the key to the brickmaking process, was the star of the team. Highly skilled, the brick molder would take the clay and "dash" it into the already sanded mold, making sure that the corners were filled. Any excess clay mixture was removed from the top of the mold with a "strike"--a flat stick kept soaking in water--and reused.
Molds varied in size, making one, two, four or six bricks at a time. Child labor was common in brickyards. Smaller capacity molds had the advantage that a child could carry them. Hardwoods were used in building the molds--cherry was preferred. Molds were often reinforced with iron bands to prevent distortion from excessive wear.
The next worker in the team would take the mold from the molding table and move it by flatbed wheelbarrow to a leveled and carefully swept "hacking" area for drying. Bricks slid easily from molds thanks to the dusting of fine sand applied before each mold was filled. After being emptied, molds were then returned to the molding table for refilling.
Drying the Bricks
At the roofed-over hacking area, the bricks were stacked to dry. After two days, they were turned over. At this stage, rough handling could easily damage a brick. While the bricks were still moist, young boys using special tools called "edgers" straighten the edges of any damaged bricks. After four days of drying in hot weather, the bricks were sufficiently hard to allow them to be stacked on end a finger's width apart to continue drying. After another two weeks of drying, the bricks were ready to be moved to the kiln shed.
Building and Firing the Kiln
A temporary kiln was constructed of "green" (raw) bricks, stacked 54 bricks high. "Arches"--apertures in which fuel was placed--were left at the base. Wood was used until the supply of local trees was exhausted, then coal was substituted. Anywhere from several hundred thousand to a million bricks could make up a kiln.
Even with the drying that had taken place, the unburned bricks still contained about 15% water, so fires were kept low at first to complete the drying process. Too much heat applied too soon could cause bricks to explode. Steam would issue from the top of the kiln. Old-time brickmakers called this "water smoke." When it was safe to increase the heat, the temperature of the kiln was raised slowly until it reached 1,00 degrees Fahrenheit.
It took a knowledgeable and experienced brickmaker to know when the fire holes should be bricked over and the heat allowed to dissipate slowly. Burning the bricks took about a week. Another week was needed to allow them to cool before the kiln could be taken apart.
Sorting the Bricks
Bricks closest to the fires received an unwanted glaze deposited on their surfaces from wood ash or vaporized sand that dropped in the fires and was vaporized. Such bricks could be used in the interior courses of walls. Bricks that were overburned or cracked or warped were designated as "lammies" or "clinkers" and sold for use in garden walls or paths.
Bricks making up the outer walls of the kiln were always less well cured. Called "light-hards," these were put aside to be used to cover the outer walls of the next kiln and daubed with mud to seal it.
Marketable bricks were transported to docks at the river's edge. In the early days these were loaded on sloops. Barges holding from 300,000 to 500,000 bricks for the trip to New York City’s docks later supplanted sloops. Twelfth Avenue and 52nd Street became the site of an informal brick market, gathering place for the city's building materials dealers.
Brick Brands
Early brickmakers occasionally scratched their initials in their bricks, but in the 1880's templates were created to make uniform marks. Eventually, rectangular wooden plates were affixed inside the molds at the bottom. These produced an indentation in each brick called a "frog" in which brickyards' names or initials appeared in raised relief. Brickmakers soon realized that the frog not only made for a lighter brick but also conserved raw material. It also helped to create a better bond between bricks laid with mortar. Builders eventually recognized brands whose quality was consistent and bought such bricks.
Most brands are easily identifiable by their names, but some initials can pose a problem: Verplanck yards: CC (Charles Carman); K&L (King and Lynch); O&McC (O'Brien & McConnon); PO (Patrick O'Brien).
Crugers yards: LHL (L.H. Lynch); L&O (Lynch & O'Brien).
Croton and Croton Point yards: CPB Co (Croton Point Brick Company); EF (Eugene Frost); JM (John Morton); WAU (W.A. Underhill). Bricks of the Anchor Brick Company of Croton were distinguishable by an anchor embossed in the frog. Some W.A. Underhill bricks displayed the letters IXL ("I excel").
Despite their size and weight, and the difficulty of exhibiting them, brick collectors today eagerly seek examples of brick brands.
Decline and Fall
By the turn of the 20th century, some 120 brickyards in the Hudson Valley, employing between eight and ten thousand workers, were producing over a billion bricks a year--more than any other part of the world.
A quarter-century later, faced with depletes banks of clay and sand along the river and having failed to modernize or mechanize their brickmaking, most of the brickyards in Westchester and Rockland counties had closed. Except for machines to mix the clay and pack the molds, much of the work had still involved manual labor. Brickyards upriver around Beacon, Newburgh and Kingston managed to hang on longer, thanks to abundant reserves of clay and the introduction of machine methods. Despite modernization, many of these brickyards succumbed during the Depression; only a few survived the Second World War.
Other brickmaking methods had supplanted the soft mud process. A steam-driven machine could make 100,000 bricks a day by forcing a stiffer mixture through a rectangular aperture. The extruded column was then cut into bricks by a wire cutter similar to a hard-boiled egg slicer. Tunnel-type dryers and kilns were introduced.
After the building boom that followed World War II, architects and builders in the 1960's decided that Hudson Valley brick was too porous. The cost of added ingredients to overcome the porosity problem made it impossible for Hudson Valley brickmakers to compete.
Today, shale is the preferred raw material, and most of the country's bricks come from the South and the Midwest. Only one brickyard making molded bricks survives in the Hudson Valley--the Powell & Minnock Brick Works at Coeymans, about a dozen miles south of Albany.
The visitor to the sites of previous riverside brickmaking operations between Croton and Peekskill will find little to show that industrial history was once made there. The harsh outlines of clay and sand pits have softened and merged with the landscape. Never intended to be permanent, brickyard buildings have long since disappeared. A diligent searcher may scuff up a few discarded bricks. With luck, their brands may be discernible and identifiable.
Tangible proof of the area's prodigality with its natural resources can still be found miles to the south in Gotham, the name applied to New York City by Washington Irving. From humble tenements to millionaires' mansions, thousands of sturdy 19th century buildings still stand, their bricks mute testament to the golden age of Hudson Valley brickmaking.
Labels: Brickmaking, Hudson River Valley
