Historically in New Jersey, the vast majority of brick makers and their brickyards could be found in the southern and eastern central part of the state.
Historically in New Jersey, the vast majority of brick makers and their brickyards could be found in the southern and eastern central part of the state. In those areas, large quantities of clay were formed during historical eras in which they were vastly covered by ocean water. This was opposite of the geological conditions found in Sussex County, which is mountainous and was not susceptible to those same archaeological sea levels. It is for this reason that there were very few brickyards in our county as compared to Camden, Gloucester, Burlington, Cumberland, Salem, Cape May, Ocean, Monmouth, Middlesex and Essex counties. The one resource needed for brick making that was in great abundance here were hardwood forests, as large quantities of firewood were required for the operation of the drying kilns.
In Newton, the first identified brickyard was located on the east side of Division Street, between Linwood Annex and Main Street. Samuel and John Johnson operated this brickyard from 1813 to at least 1816, according to the late Kevin Wright, a local historian. Wright also noted that around this time, a brick kiln was operated on Doctor John R. Stuart's farm on lower Spring Street, near the edge of town.
James Snell, in his 1881 book "History of Sussex and Warren Counties, New Jersey," noted that in 1818, a brickyard was operated on the farm of Amos Petit, which was later owned by John Horton. Snell stated that this brickyard apparently operated only once in 1818 to supply bricks for the construction of the residence of George H. McCarter. This property is presently the home of the Sussex County Community College.
There was an apparent lull in the making of bricks locally, until January 1854 when Jacob Wintermute, of Lafayette, began using clay from Edward C. Moore's meadow, near the stone arched bridge on Mill Street. With all probability, the bricks manufactured at this yard would have been used in the construction of the brick-front buildings facing the county park that were built between 1855 and 1866.
Allen Ridgeway began manufacturing bricks in 1866 in the meadows adjoining the old fairgrounds at the end of present-day Moran Street, near Moore's Brook. O.B. Wintermute took over this yard and built brick drying sheds here. Wintermute sold his Newton Brickyard to Abram Losee and his son Franklin E. Losee, in August of 1883. The father and son ran their brickyard for more than 20 years.
The Losee brickyard finally closed its operation prior to World War I. Franklin Losee took on a new vocation -- operating an ice company out of his house and huge brick barn, located at 85 Main St.
Over time, the small country brickyards entirely disappeared. This could be directly attributed to the modernization of the actual brick making process that became almost totally reliant on machinery versus manual labor. It could also be due to the decline in adequate supplies of usable clay or the depleted amount of readily available hardwood for the kilns. These small brickyards were replaced by larger and more mechanized operations, which also had greater capital and access to larger clay deposits.
The making of bricks
While there are numerous techniques for making bricks, the method used in Sussex County was to run clay through a process known as tempering. The tempering of clay was done in a ring pit, approximately 20 feet in diameter and two feet deep. The walls of the pit were lined with hard-fired brick, forming a casing for the enclosure. The floor of the pit was formed with oak planking, cut into wedge-shaped pieces. This pit would hold enough clay to make about 14,000 bricks. In Newton, the bricks made were a common red brick and were not glazed or specially treated.
In the center of the round pit, a pedestal was deeply set. This held up the machinery for working the tempering wheel. A long shaft of iron was passed through the center of a wheel six feet in diameter and then extended out so that the horses or mules, which powered the ring pit, could be hitched to the driver-bar. This extension allowed enough room for the animals to comfortably walk around the ring with the shaft in tow. A gearing of wheels was adjusted to push the tempering wheel from the center of the pit to the outer edge, and draw it back again gradually toward the center; all while the wheel was revolving around the circle. This process of oscillation assured that the clay was uniformly broken down, and then mixed with the appropriate quantities of sand and water. This developed a specific plasticity that was required so the mixture could then be put into the brick forms on a molding board.
Brick forms were originally made of wood, but later out of cast iron. The inside faces of these brick molds were dusted with fine sand to make sure the brick clay did not stick to the mold itself.
To perfectly mold a brick by hand, the brick maker would have to uniformly fill every part of the brick mold and make sure that there were no cracks, or what was referred to as "sand flaws." Once the molds were filled and compacted down, the brick maker would use a straight steel bar with a wooden handle, called a plane, to strike off any excess material projecting above the top of the mold. On a good day, a single brick maker could make roughly 2,000 new bricks.
Following a short period of time, the formed bricks were tapped out of the molds and the "green" bricks were laid on the ground in rows and columns to begin the drying process. A worker called an "off-bearer" handled this part of the process.
Next, the bricks had to be dried. The first step was to turn those bricks, which were made the previous day, up on their edges. Bricks were turned up early in the morning and allowed to stand upon edge, exposed to the sun until around 4 p.m. in the afternoon. At this point, the bricks would be moved into the drying shed where they would remain for two or three weeks, or longer during rainy periods.
These air-dried bricks were next set into the kiln, in specified courses. Assuming the setting crew began their work at 5 a.m. in the morning, they would be able to place 20,000 bricks in a kiln by midday. Wood and coal fueled the fires to get the kiln to the right temperature. Based upon the number of bricks being fired, the kiln would be run for three to five days. Once the firing was completed and the kiln opened, it would take a few days for the bricks to cool off sufficiently so they could be handled. Normally, the bricks would remain in the kiln until they were ready to be picked up or delivered to a job site.
Sussex County Historical Society President Wayne T. McCabe may be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.org.