Brick Industry

Italian Immigrants & Mechanicville’s Brick Industry

August 5, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

When Holyoke, Massachusetts investors sought New York State’s permission to build a large power dam and paper mill in Mechanicville, in eastern Saratoga County, NY, in 1882, one thing they knew they would need was tons of bricks.

Brickmaking was among the oldest trades in America, almost as widely distributed as town-building. But certain places blessed with superior clays, inexpensive fuel supplies, and shipping facilities to nearby markets became centers for the brick industry. [Read more…] about Italian Immigrants & Mechanicville’s Brick Industry

New York’s Scows: Workhorse Watercraft

April 6, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The wooden a freight-carrying scow was the most ubiquitous vessel in the waters of the New York, and played a crucial role in various industries. The word scow is derived from the Dutch word for the same type of vessel, schouw, which did not enter use in English until the late 1700s.

Typically towed (although some were rigged as sailing scows) it was generally decked, with a flat bottom hull and vertical sides, and its ends angled upward as a common barge (though typically smaller than a barge). [Read more…] about New York’s Scows: Workhorse Watercraft

The Sloop: Queen of the Hudson River

March 4, 2025 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Some of the world’s greatest cities originated on river banks. In spite of individual histories, there is one common pattern. These were all “hydraulic” communities that developed creative skills to control the elements and open up the access to waterways.

Environmental intervention facilitated their adaptation to the habitat. They engineered techniques to dig canals, drain swamps, reclaim land and build on marshy ground by using mud banks to produce stylish brick. The transition of Venice, Antwerp or Amsterdam from soggy settlements to iconic port cities symbolized man’s ability to master his surroundings. New York City joined that list. [Read more…] about The Sloop: Queen of the Hudson River

The Development of Staten Island

February 16, 2025 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

Relative to the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area, Staten Island has been both water-bound and isolated. Historically, the island’s western border, the Arthur Kill channel, and its northwestern border, the Kill Van Kull, played vital roles connecting New York with New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Long Island Sound.

Staten Island rests between New York Bay and New Jersey’s northwestern shoreline, the Arthur Kill channel separating the Island from the latter. The Island’s geographical center is situated 11 miles southwest of New York City. [Read more…] about The Development of Staten Island

The Great Haverstraw Landslide of 1906

January 9, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

On January 8th, 1906, a catastrophic landslide destroyed a large portion of Haverstraw in Rockland County, NY, and took the lives of 19 people.

On the anniversary of this tragic event, we commemorate the lives lost and the bravery of so many: the rescue teams, search parties, and members of the S.W. Johnson Steam Fire Engine Company that saved many despite the cold and harsh winter. [Read more…] about The Great Haverstraw Landslide of 1906

A Nostalgic Glimpse of Mechanicville, 1902

December 4, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

One of the fun things about living in a very old house is that every now and then, stashed away in a dark corner, you find a completely fascinating remnant of the past. Such was the case when Bill and Bev Betts found a firemen’s convention booklet from 1902 in their 128-year-old Saratoga County, NY, farmhouse. [Read more…] about A Nostalgic Glimpse of Mechanicville, 1902

Hudson River Brick Making: Two Kingston Brick Yards, 1905

April 30, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The following essay is excerpted from Charles Ellery Hall’s The Story of Brick (Building Trades and Employers’ Association Bulletin, July, 1905).

The brick which bears the highly popular brand, “Shultz,” is the product of the Shultz yards at East Kingston, near Rondout, NY. Henry H. Shultz, the present manager of the concern for the Shultz estate, represents the third generation of a family which has been in the brick making business since the earlier half of the last century. [Read more…] about Hudson River Brick Making: Two Kingston Brick Yards, 1905

Bricks and Brick Ruins of the Hudson Valley

November 18, 2023 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

New York State was once one of the great brick making centers of the world, with scores of brickyards on both sides of the Hudson River.

Countless mansions, houses, schools, and factory buildings were built from Hudson River bricks, whose legacy can also be found in piles of reject bricks found along the shoreline today. Many of these bricks were molded with the name of the brickyard owner or company. [Read more…] about Bricks and Brick Ruins of the Hudson Valley

The Beauty of Bricks: Amsterdam, Delft & Manhattan

March 16, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

In his 1653 poem on “The Character of Holland,” a piece of stereotypical English propaganda that was written in an era of fierce Anglo-Dutch economic rivalry, poet and politician Andrew Marvell ridiculed the Low Countries as being composed of “undigested vomit from the sea.”

The satirist did not mention the fact that out of this appalling spew the Dutch created bricks that were used by architects to build their characteristic cities which, in turn, inspired the flourishing genre of the cityscape in seventeenth century painting. Both bricks and building skills were at the time exported to England and across the Atlantic. [Read more…] about The Beauty of Bricks: Amsterdam, Delft & Manhattan

Hudson River ‘Brickers’ Focus of New Exhibit

September 16, 2009 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

There will be an opening reception of the Haverstraw Brick Museum’s new exhibit, Moving Bricks on the Hudson, on September 20, 2009 between 1 and 4 pm at the museum at 12 Main Street in Haverstraw, Rockland County, New York. [Read more…] about Hudson River ‘Brickers’ Focus of New Exhibit

Brick Industry

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