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NEWS FLASH: the acclaimed Hutton book is now back in print!

Visit our HUTTON page for more info.




On July 30th, 1857, the cornerstone was set for the building that continues to be the church home for the St. Augustine's parish. The Vestry minutes resolved: "When we do build, we shall build of good, hard, common brick." And so it was that the church was erected of bricks fashioned at the brickyard on Croton Point."
(from St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, "Our History")

Featured Page: Tales from Croton Point


NEWS UPDATE: brickcollecting.com contributor Andy van der Poel has just updated a complete list of his Hudson River Brick Collection (this can serve as a great aid for all collectors in identifying Hudson River brick).

Wow! This little website has grown by leaps and bounds since we started in 2005. We now average over 175,000 unique visitors per year. Whoever thought there were so many people interested in brick collecting! Note that our focus is primarily on brick from the Hudson Valley and New England. If you are researching brick from these areas, you will find a lot of information on our Brick Blog. You will also find the Search Boxes on the site helpful.

If you are looking for information on bricks from other areas we suggest you direct your questions to Jim Graves of the International Brick Collectors Association (IBCA). You can E-mail him at brickcollector@gmail.com. In each IBCA Journal there's a section where Jim answers brick identity questions from readers. Jim has an extensive collection of historical information and is the Librarian for the IBCA. NOTE: The new web address for the IBCA is https://www.ibcabrick.com.

Many thanks to our resident "guru" Fred Rieck for all his expertise. Fred is Member #969 of the IBCA. I'd also like to thank Andy van der Poel for his contributions to the website and for providing transportation for our research trips on the Hudson.

Happy Bricking! --Don Bayley, Webmaster



News, New Information and Updated Pages as of
:


HUTTON page UPDATED! New content!

Recommended Reading Section UPDATED!Added More Book Discounts!

New Page: Brick Videos New!

Interview with Daniel deNoyelles by Robert Burghardt
(Courtesy of The Rockland County Scrap Book)

New photos and map on our Hutton page
(thanks to Rob Yasinsac for finding these which are reproduced with permission from the June 1989 edition of Railpace Newsmagazine)
New!

Brickmaking at Stony Point New!

New Collections Added and Links Updated on our "Brick Clicks" page

STILES, S + H Updated

SAGE New!

Andy van der Poel's Hudson River Collection: photos, updated list/identifier

"Brickmaking on the Hudson" (from Brick and Clay record), This wonderful resource is now available online

Brickmaking On Cape Cod updated

DRURY New!

KREISCHER New!

Fire at Kreischer and Anderson Pressed Brick from NY Times archives, November 24, 1892

New York and New Jersey Brick Manufacturers Meeting, 1894 New Page!.

A Brief History of COEYMANS, NY Updated.

A new film The Catskill Mountain House and the World Around has been released by Willow Mixed Media. See a preview on our companion site HudsonRiverHistory.com

"Verplanck and Montrose Brickmaking, including Crugers and George's Island" New Page!

New Posts on the Brick Blog

Ulster Landing and East Kingston Updated.

Rosendale Cement Updated.

Haverstraw updated

ROSETON and DAMSKAMMER POINT New Page!

"The Golden Age of Hudson Valley Brickmaking"
(find it on our new Links Page: "Brick Clicks")

PHOTOS: The Wall at Louis Lunch, New Haven, CT

PHOTOS: Bricks in Buildings, Walls and Walks

A Brick Industry Photo Group

Our Brickmaking History Page updated

Tales from Croton Point updated

New Books, Lower Prices in Our Store

Dutchess Junction, NY, new page

Backwards Branding website "guru" Fred Rieck explains what this is all about.

"The Brickyard, Summer of 1957" a wonderful first-hand account from one of our website visitors.





Visit Our Companion Site:

Hudson River History.com





Brick Collecting?

Collecting old branded brick is a growing hobby. Some call it a crazy hobby, but to find, touch and own a piece of history can be very rewarding...and fun. This web site has several main sections:

  • Brickmaking History: How bricks were made; Inventions, Machines, Patents
  • Hudson River Brickmaking: The extent of the industry in New York and northern New Jersey, now with an interactive map version
  • Our Collection: Bricks from the Hudson River Valley and New England with brief notes on the history of the yards and towns where they were made
  • Links: Other web sites with fun and interesting information all about brick(s)
  • Brick Collections Around the World: From Russia to New Zealand to Japan, this is truly an international hobby
  • The Olde Brick Book Store: Hard-to-find gems of Hudson Valley lore, history and mystery

This web site focuses mainly on brick from the Hudson Valley of New York and New England. A great source for information on brick around the USA (and around the world) is the International Brick Collectors Association.

Also, of note is Dan Mosier's fine web site on California Bricks which has a great page on just what Collecting Bricks is all about.

Bricks were produced in many areas around the United States and Canada where craftsmen brought their skills from Europe to places that had the right type of clay suitable for brickmaking and good access to transportation.

Hutton Beach 2006
HUTTON bricks along the Hudson River at Kingston Point Beach, July, 2006

One such area, the Hudson River Valley in New York State, with its abundance of clay and an excellent water link to New York City, churned out millions of bricks, mostly near the turn of the 20th century. In Haverstraw, in Rockland County, NY, there is the Haverstraw Brick Museum. In the 1880s there were over 40 brickyards in the Haverstraw area. Many buildings in New York City are made with bricks manufactured in Haverstraw. For more information on Hudson River Brickmaking, Click Here.

At one time, the state of Connecticut had more than 200 brickmaking companies. As a result of past glaciation periods, many clay deposits dot the state and many of these were exploited to make bricks. The history of brickmaking in the state is explored in a special section of the Connecticut Museum of Mining and Mineral Science.


From the National Building Museum's American Brick Collection:

National Building Museum

A variety of 19th and 20th century brick samples from the National Building Museum Collection, which contains more than 1,800 examples from brickyards around the country

Brick is one of the oldest and most enduring man-made building materials.Sun-dried mud brick, or adobe, appeared about 10,000 years ago, and the earliest kiln-fired or clay-baked brick dates to 3,500 BC. This marked the first time humans were able to construct permanent, fireproof structures without stone. 

Since at least 1611, when English brickmakers were recruited to Virginia, fired brick has been part of the North American landscape. Indelibly tied to the colonial era, brick came to define the nation’s industrial age and remains linked to contemporary notions of the American factory, school, and single-family house.

Although once manufactured with incredible variety, brick production today is far more limited because the material is no longer used structurally, but rather as veneer.

A labor of love, the Museum’s extensive American Brick Collection was amassed by Raymond Chase over 24 years. The collection now holds some 1,800 decorative, face, fire, paving, pressed, and common bricks from around the nation. And unlike the country’s anonymous army of bricklayers, many of these late-19th and early 20th-century brick are branded with the name or location of their originating brickyard, or a distinguishing mark.


We often get asked where old bricks can be found. The best places are former brickyards, construction sites, abandoned building sites, demolition sites, dump sites, land-fill and beaches.

Bronx Brick

Just a few of the many bricks found by website visitor Jason in the Bronx, NY

Webmaster Note: We'd like to thank Jason for donating the bricks pictured above as well as the following. Note the range of towns up and down the Hudson and even in Connecticut where these bricks were made. Jason found them all in ruins of buildings in the Bronx.

M&LW Mordecai & Lucien Washburn Haverstraw (Grassy Point)
RMBCo Richard Murray Brick Co., Berlin, CT
J.C.M. John C. Maginnis, Glasco
L & O BB John Lynch, John & Mark OBrien Bros., George's Island
J.J.J. Juan Jacinto Jova, Newburgh
KLINE Jacob Kline, Port Ewen
DFJr&Co Denton Fowler Jr. & Co, Haverstraw
G&G Gladfelter & Gladfelter, Athens
TERRY BROS. Terry Brick Co.(David,Albert & Edwin), Kingston
MBC Mayone Brick Co., Athens
TBCo Troy Brick Co., Troy
W&F Uriah Washburn & Denton Fowler, Haverstraw
MALDEN Malden Brick Co., Malden
CBCo Champlain Brick Co., Mechanicville
MBW Malden Brick Works, Malden
AMERICAN American Brick Co., Berlin CT
TUTTLE Tuttle Brick Co., Middletown, CT
XXX George W. Washburn, Catskill
STAPLES Terry Staples, Malden



Pilgrim Psychological Hospital

Bricks found at demolition site, Pilgrim Psychiatric Center,
998 Crooked Hill Road, West Brentwood, NY, September, 2007

(Thanks to Bill from St. James, NY for tipping us off on this location!)

 


Bricks found in land-fill (site now closed), Milton, NY, January, 2007



For true brickophiles there's the International Brick Collectors Association. IBCA members don't buy bricks, they swap them. They collect all kinds of brick: building brick, paving brick, fire brick, as long as they are branded with names, designs, patterns, pictures, or numbers. A Hudson Valley I.B.C.A. BRICK SWAP took place in Haverstraw, NY the "Brickmaking Capitol of the World." Click Here for Photos



Some collectors build custom shelves to display their brick


Brick Binder

Others even have their bricks bound



Over the years, we've added some new specialized pages and sections:

I hope you enjoy this web site.
--Don Bayley


CBMA


Featured Brick Brand:

The Inn at Shelburne Farms

DRURY brick were used in the construction and restoration of The Inn at Shelburne Farms
Read about it here.





Brick Clicks

Visit our New, Improved Links Page





Recommended Reading


The Great Hudson River Brick Industry:
Commemorating Three-and-a Half Centuries of Brickmaking
by George V. Hutton
UPDATE: this acclaimed book is now back in print!
CLICK HERE for a SPECIAL DISCOUNT!


Hudson Valley Ruins: Forgotten Landmarks of an American Landscape
by Thomas E. Rinaldi and Robert J. Yasinsac
(A must-have for brick collectors and history buffs alike. There is a section on the Powell and Minnock Brick Company in Coeymans, NY; the HUTTON Brick Works is also featured.)
Click Here for Discounted Price


Lost Towns of the Hudson Valley
by Wesley and Barbara H. Gottlock
(There is an entire chapter devoted to the lost brickyard town of ROSETON.)
Click Here for Discounted Price




by Karl Gurcke



Bricks and Brickmaking Shire Library--Special Pricebook
by Martin Hammond
This book gives an insight into the surprising variety of bricks, as well as a brief history of brickmaking, descriptions of hand and machine moulding, drying, the use of kilns and firing.


Denning's Point: A Hudson River History
by Jim Heron
(This extraordinary book tells a 6,000-year story of an extraordinary 64 acres on the eastern edge of the Hudson River.
--Pete Seeger, from the prologue)
Click Here for Discounted Price


A Practical Treatise On the Manufacture of Bricksbook
by Charles Thomas Davis
This book is a reprint of an old text from the 1800s. Very informative and I love the illustrations and diagrams.


Within These Gatesbook
by Daniel deNoyelles
A favorite of your Webmaster! Daniel De Noyelles was one of the oldest manufacturers of brick in the East and president of the De Noyelles Brick Co. in Haverstraw, NY. This book has some excellent information on brick making during the 19th century and deals primarily with brickyards in the northeast portion of the United States.




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