Official Publication of the St. Lawrence County Historical Association Spring 1991 I&+, BRICK ! WIa8 '1 PrQPflletors of the RAPT"-"' DVILLE3 BRIUK- " A ' order md ke lep lor sale arll kinds of II nl I I II I Resse~ano lommon ilu~~olne,trrlcK a1 me LowesI MalKW YIICI, Th ick mar is Yard (the on1y Press- - -7 . Brick manufacturecl In N orthern -N ew Y or^, ) and f ully eqlla1 to tl ;edE 'hila k- Bulldera are invtted to call and exmine be!( me purchasing. JtrKlFH SHIPPED TO AXY p'ART 0F THE COUXTRY. THE QUARTERLY Official Publication of the St. Lawrence County Historical Association VOLUME XXXVI SPRING 1991 NO. 2 CONTENTS Harriet W; Liotta 3 The Forgotten Industry: Nineteenth Century Brickmaking in St. Lawrence County George F. McFarland 8 The Battle of Ogdensburg, 1813, from First- hand Accounts Katherine Briggs 17 Miss Richmire at the Pine Grove School in Massena Cover: Advertisement for Coates Brickyard, Raymondville, NY, The St. Lawrence County Directory, 1885. This publication is made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. Co-editors: Marvin L. Edwards ISSN 0558-1931 George F. McFarland Copyright St. Lawrence County Historical Association 1991 Advertising: Betsey Deuval Ernest Deuval Contributions: The Quarterly welcomes contributions in the form of manuscripts, drawings, and photo- The Quarterly is published Winter, Spring, Summer, graphs. If documentation is necessary, we request and Fall each year by the St. Lawrence County that it conform to The MLA Style Manual. A summary Historical Association. of the MLA format is available from the editor; Extra copies may be obtained from the St. Law- manuscripts which do not conform to the MLA format rence County Historical Association, PO. Box 8, may be revised. Address all editorial communications Canton, N.Y. 13617, at $3.00 each plus 756 postage to Editor, The Quarterly, St. Lawrence County and handling. Historical Association, P.O. Box 8, Canton, NY 13617. Spring 1991 3 The Forgotten Industry: Nineteenth Century Brickmaking in St. Lawrence County by Harriet W Liotta I. A Secondary Occupation According to the New York State Census of 1845, there were 1,627 men who called themselves brickmakers.' Many of these were probably located in the lower Hudson Valley, where brick- making on a fairly large scale began with the establishment of a plant near New York City in 1630; and is today the major source of commercial red-burn- ing brick in the state, due to the large deposits of fine glacial clays located there.3 Indeed, though clays are to be found nearly everywhere to some extent, St. Lawrence County does not even rate a listing in the 1951 Department of Commerce study of the Clays and Shales of New York State.4 The lack of recognition on the state level is not surprising, for St. Lawrence County could not, by any stretch of the imagination, have been considered, at The home of Erastus Hall, the County's first brickmaker, in Raymondville, any time in its history, a major pro- NY: (Courtesy of the Norfolk Town Historian) ducer of brick. The clay beds, while quite numerous, were not large and were scattered throughout the Valley. Gazetteer and Business Directory of St. production techniques which were prac- Such beds were, indeed, fairly common Lawrence County (1873-4) lists 15 ticed by the early colonists. The yards throughout the country. The surprising "Brick Manufacturers,"s and 11 of these were set up near clay banks, often in fact is, however, the lack of recognition (under their individual listings by Town) close proximity to a river or stream, in local histories. The Paige Yards in indicate other occupations-9 farmers, and not far from a woodlot. The clay Ogdensburg, for example, which began 1 postmaster and town supervisor, 1 was then dug, thrown into a pit, covered operations in 1830 and were still in lawyer and justice of the peace. Indeed, with water and left to "season" for at operation in 1894, occupied 11 acres with- even William Coates, the owner of the least a week. Before the pugmill came in village limits, produced 20,000,000 famed Raymondville yards wished to be into common use in the 19th century, brick annually, and were said by Gates listed also as "bricklayer, inspector of the clay was dug in early autumn and Curtis to "furnish employment to a con- election district 2" and finally, "brick piled in heaps, to be "seasoned" all siderable number of hands, this being manufacturer."lO This might be likened winter by the snow. By spring it was an important factor in the commercial to the County's maple syrup producers considered fit for forming, and was life of Ogdensburg1'.6The output by this of today, who would not, despite the spread on the ground, watered, and yard equaled that of many of the Hud- fact that New York State is a leading then tempered by being trod upon by son Valley yards6 and greatly surpassed syrup producer and that large amounts the workers until of the proper con- that of the locally famous Rayrnondville of syrup are produced locally, list syrup sistency, after which it was pressed by yards (which, during peak years, pro- production as their primary occupation. hand into wooden molds. duced no more than 1,000,000 bricks It, too, is seasonal work. The early pugmill was a tall wooden , annually)7 and yet, the only reference In addition, brick production was a box containing a mixing shaft, which to be found was discovered in the His- primitive kind of industry, especially was simply a post from which projected torical Sketches in the back of the Curtis when practiced on the small scale of a number of iron pins arranged in a volume. No mention was made in the many of the local brickmakers. It en- descending spiral, so as to cut through town history in that volume, nor in the tailed no extensive building, as did the the clay, while at the same time forcing Hough or Everts histories. All of these mills and foundries, no great feats of it downward and ultimately expelling contained some discussion of the brick- engineering, no complicated power it through a hole at the box's lower end. yards at Raymondville. But perhaps sources. All that was needed was the The common source of power for the most amazing of all is the fact that raw material (clay), water for seasoning pugmill was the ox, which had learned there is no listing of the Paige yards and mixing, man, ox or horse power for to follow a path without supervision, under "Industries Other Than Agricul- working the pug mill (if, indeed, such towing a long pole connected to the ture" in the local 1865 Cens~s.~ was used in the earlier days), man mixing shaft. This may have been true I It is equally difficult, though more power for forming the brick, and fuel even in the North Country, where oxen I understandable, to garner information for firing the kiln. All were to be found are not commonly thought of as a part I concerning the other brickmakers of locally in abundance. of the early local scene. For the Stone 1 St. Lawrence County. One reason for and Stewart New Topographical Atlas: this may be that many of the brick- 11. A Primitive Process St. Lawenee County, New York shows makers themselves did not consider this It is safe to say that the smaller yards that, even as late as 1865, there were to be their primary occupation. Child's probably used those unsophisticated 44,247 oxen (or an average of 3 per Spring 1991 by a local geologist, ". practically every excavation encountered varves and they presented some critical con- struction and drainage problerns."l3 These clay deposits were formed when streams resulting from glacial melting carried this fine sediment to a melt- water lake, of which there were many in the area, and deposited it on the lake bottom. The striation of these deposits is thought bo be a result of the differences in settling during the differ- ent seasons of the year-the darker, finer deposits occurring during the winter months when the water was still and no new material was transported.14 Hough refers to these varves as "Lau- rentian Depositw-a formation "which skirts the northern border. from Ogdensburg eastward, [with] extensive occurrence in the Valley of the St. Lawrence . ."I5 He even devotes con- siderable space to a discussion of the clay deposits found at Raymondville as having ". a peculiar columnar struc- ture, very much like starch, and no signs of stratification whatever . [and belonging to] a marine formation of a comparatively very recent period."l6 These St. Lawrence Valley deposits were apparently discovered very early and used by those mysterious tribes of Indians which roamed the valley and about which we know very little. Ancient pottery fragments of clay and sand have been found on the shores of several of the St. Lawrence tributaries- William Coates Jr., Brickmaker, Rayn~ondr~ille.NY (Courtesy of the Norfolk particularly on the banks of the St. Town Historian) Regis River, on the Racquette between Norwood and Norfolk, on the ridge between the Racquette and Grasse family) in the County, and less than half pending on the number of bricks. A Rivers in Massena, and also in the that number of horses.11 Ox or horse variation of this type of kiln was the towns of Oswegatchie and Macomb.17 power was also used in this fashion by Updraft, or Scotch, kiln, consisting of Clay is also mentioned by Curtis as early manufacturers of water pipe (in four permanent brick walls perforated occurring naturally "through a greater the boring of the logs used) and by at intervals with fire holes from which part of the central portion" of the town tanners for grinding bark.12 the hot gases passed into the kiln and of Depeyster and also within the town At the pugmill outlet was a pit in flowed naturally upward through and of Hammond.18 which the Moldman stood, scooping the around the bricks.