CLICK A BRICK
By 1883— with 41 brickyards operating in Haverstraw, employing an estimated 2,400 men, Haverstraw became the world’s largest producer of bricks. At one time, approximately two-thirds of the buildings in nearby New York City were built with Haverstraw bricks.
ABOUT The CLICK A BRICK Project
The click a brick project is an on-going program that strives to connect bill of sale records from Haverstraw brickyards and significant up-river brickyards such as the Rose and Hutton brickyards to the insurance documents in the New York Public Library system that record the developers, contractors and architects responsible for the building of New York.
While the Museum knows and has documented particular neighborhoods and buildings of significance because of found bricks from donations and the records kept by brickyard owners and collectors—there is still much more research to be done.
The click a brick project also delves deeply into the lives of the owners, workers and families who ran and worked in the brickyards, and connects them to the story of the neighborhoods that they helped to create and build.
To continue this project we need your help!
CLICK ON ANY BRICK TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EACH BRICKYARD
1. 1921-1931 Malley/De Noyelles
Brickyards often changed ownership multiple times throughout the course of a brickyards life. Often land was simply leased from one of the key land owners of the area. At one point De Noyelles & Co. had four leases on their land, the largest of which was the Malley brickyard.
# 1, 2, 3 & 4— DE NOYELLES
In 1757, John De Noyelles, a young french officer came to the American colonies and purchased the De Harts Patent from the Dutch along the Hudson River with the Allison family. One of the original brickyard owners, the De Noyelles family leased land to numerous brickyards starting with James Wood in 1815. From that day on the De Noyelles family contributed greatly to the Haverstraw brick community with Daniel De Noyelles, a descendant of John De Noyelles becoming a founding the Haverstraw Brick Museum in 1975.
6. 1896-1935 Excelsior
One of the longest continuous running brickyards, the Excelsior brickyard brought innovation to the Haverstraw brick-making community.
An Immigrant from Cuba, In 1885, Jova opened the Jova Brick Company in Roseton just south of Newburgh. He tore down the house he had purchased from Armstrong, known as Danskammer, in order to make use of the clay beds underneath….click on the brick to learn more.
28. REilly & Rose, Rose, Roseton
In 1865 John C. Rose settled in Haverstraw where he owned a large brick manufacturing yard with six machines in operation. In 1882, because of ill health he sold out to the Reilly family. In 1883 John C. Rose moved his family to just north of Newburgh on the Hudson River where he purchased a large tract of land of nearly 300 hundred acres. One of the most significant brick manufacturing marks, the Rose family went on to become one of the great brick family dynasties, with his son John B. Rose elected to the 25th district of the New York State Senate from 1909 to 1912 under Theadore Roosevelt.
