These bricks were hand-made on site around the turn of the century using the same techniques as were used at Williamsburg in the 18th-century.
Unskilled men, women, and children made bricks
In 18th-century Virginia, slaves, poor unskilled free laborers, and sometimes indentured or convict servants practiced the brickmaking trade. In large yards owned and overseen by a master and in family-owned businesses, men, women, and children participated in the trade.
Wealthy landowners assigned slaves to brickmaking
Wealthy landowners building a plantation home may have assigned a number of their slaves to make bricks for the new structure. Thomas Jefferson's slaves made the bricks for Monticello. His journal noted a crew of three laborers assisting one molder could mold 2,000 bricks in a day. Carter Burwell charged his slaves with making bricks for his mansion house at Carter's Grove, employing brickmaker David Minitree to oversee the work in 1751. The art of firing the kiln was left to Minitree; apparently Burwell was pleased with the outcome as he gave this brickmaker a gift of 25 pounds – a large sum of money at the time!
Brickmaking important in Williamsburg history
In Williamsburg, Samuel Spurr was commissioned to build the wall around the Bruton Parish Church in 1752. Builder Benjamin Powell, working on the Public Hospital, subcontracted the brickwork to Spurr in 1771. Spurr advertised for bricklayers and plasterers in the Virginia Gazette in 1773. By 1779, as the pace of new construction had slowed in Williamsburg, bricklayer and plasterer Humphrey Harwood – noted in the Virginia Gazette as the "chief workman in the city of Williamsburg" – oversaw repair work to many of the public and private structures in town. Harwood burned bricks, turned oyster shells to lime, and made his own mortar. At his death, he had become quite prosperous, owning several slaves, a plantation and a house on the north side of Duke of Gloucester Street.
How the bricks were made
First, native clay was shoveled into a treading pit.
Working in the pit, brickmakers used their feet to stomp water into the clay. As soon as it was a smooth consistency, the clay was pulled from the pit and piled upon a molding table.
Before being shaped in a wooden mold, the form and a "brick-sized" loaf of clay were dusted with sand to keep the clay from sticking. Before molding began, roots, leaves, sticks, and other debris were cleaned from the clay. The molder then threw each loaf of clay into the mold.
The excess clay was removed by drawing a straight, wooden stick across the top of the form.
The filled mold was "off-beared" or carried to raised beds of sand for drying. Once there, the soft bricks were dropped out of the mold and left to dry..
After a week or so, the somewhat-dry bricks were placed in a drying shed. Protected from the weather, the bricks were stored and dried for six more weeks.
Stacking and firing the kiln was part of the "art" of brickmaking. First, bricks were used to set four walls with arched fire tunnels. Approximately 20,000 bricks were stacked in the oven, always a finger's width apart to allow the fire to draft upward.
After the structure is sealed with clay, wood is placed in the tunnels, and the fires were lit.
The fires burned for about six days – day and night. The brickmakers remained on site during the entire burn period, getting little sleep and keeping the fires burning and the wood stacked and ready to add to the fire. Near the end of the burn, the kiln reached a temperature of 1,850 degrees Fahrenheit.
The bricks inside the kiln glowed yellow, and flames traveled from the fire tunnels up out the top of the oven and sometimes, the edges of the bricks facing into the fire tunnels received a glaze. After approximately seven days of burning, the brickmakers let the fires bank, closed the fire tunnels and resealed the kiln with clay. The fired bricks cooled for at least a week before the kiln could be unstacked.
Please contact us via email or call John or Mike Gavin at 319-354-5251 to discuss your project.
