Monsey Memories: Chronicling Haverstraw’s Brickyards in its Brick Museum

Yitzy Fried 

Haverstraw is famous for its history as a brickmaking town, and infamous for the landslide that killed many of its residents in 1906 as a result of overmining the area. 

On December 5th, 1975, a group of prominent leaders in the Haverstraw community gathered with descendants of the original brickyards to discuss plans of a proposed brick museum in the Haverstraw area. It took another 20 years for the vision of the original leaders to take hold, but in 1995 the Haverstraw Brick Museum was established to collect artifacts and preserve the history of the brick industry of the North Rockland County area.

The New Tork Times wrote about the museum in 2004, twenty years ago: 

HAVERSTRAW, overlooking Westchester from the Rockland County side of the Hudson, was once known as the brick-making capital of the world. By the turn of the 20th century, as many as 42 brickyards operated in the area, churning out millions of bricks a year from the abundant local supply of Hudson River clay.

It has been more than 60 years since the last brick was made in the village, but the industry has not been forgotten. As the village experiences the shifts of revitalization, soon to include a $200 million retail-residential complex on the riverfront, a new museum is paying tribute to the area's past.

On a recent frigid Saturday afternoon, about a dozen visitors wandered through the storefront museum on Main Street. They took in period photographs depicting the stages of brick making, drying racks and other antique equipment, a model kiln, a 1903 payroll ledger listing daily salaries ranging from $1.20 to $4.50, and a wall display of 300 locally made bricks, many branded with the ''frogs'' -- indented name stamps, which served both to identify bricks and to save a little clay -- of the prominent brick manufacturers of the era, including Excelsior, deNoyelles, Hutton and Gormley.

The Hudson Valley's prominence in the industry, which until the 1920's was rivaled only by Chicago, was sparked by the region's clay resources and by New York City's hunger for bricks, said George V. Hutton, a retired architect and expert on the industry's history. After fires took down many wood frame buildings in the 1830's and 40's, ''New York City began turning into brick city,'' said Mr. Hutton, who estimated that 75 percent of the bricks came from the Hudson Valley.

The museum continues to attract visitors throughout the year—as a beautiful Jewish community is being built nearby in the town of Haverstraw.