Brick Making in America

The first bricks in the English colonies in North America were probably made in Virginia as early as 1612. New England saw its first brick kiln erected at Salem, Massachusetts in 1629. The Dutch colonists in New Amsterdam imported yellow bricks from Holland, which imparted a Dutch character to the architecture of the city. The excellent quality and abundance of local clays in the colonies made it unnecessary to import bricks from across the Atlantic. Brick-making centers developed in what is now Albany, New York, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Burlington and Trenton, New Jersey, as well as along the Raritan River (Ewan, 1970). By the late 1800's, the Industrial Revolution had caught up with the brick-making industry. Sophisticated machinery was developed to aid in the production of bricks. The steam shovel increased the efficiency of mining raw clay. Pug mills, extruding machines, production lines, and improved kiln designs sped the production of clay into bricks.