A glimpse into the local brick

On Aug. 3, 1889, Zanesville Courier subscribers read about a columnist's tour of the T. B. Townsend & Company brickyard. The company, which employed from 150 and 200 men, had the capacity to produce about 60,000 bricks per day.

The author began by describing Zanesville as a city with man-made and natural advantages: “Zanesville, with her perfect water system, with her eight lines of railways completed and two lines projected, with her inexhaustible supply of materials in their crude form found in the surrounding hills and with her rich and fertile valleys, is truly a place to be desired for manufacturing purposes.”

According to the writer, “In 1867 T. B. Townsend bought the ground and started a small brickyard. In 1882 he began making pressed brick, and Rufus C. Burton was added to the firm, and now the yards have reached a commanding place in that industry. During the last twenty years about fifteen feet of clay on the average, has been taken from the top of the hill.”

The anonymous columnist informed readers that brick-making was one of the most important Zanesville enterprises: “The city is already noted for her large factories, mills and other industries, among the largest and most famed of which are the brickyards. Zanesville bricks are to be found not only all over this state and the neighboring states, but in all the United States and Canada, and in none of these places has there been found any which can excel them for beauty and durability.”

Then a brief history of brick-making was given: “The history of bricks and their manufacture is so ancient that no historian or compiler of an encyclopedia has attempted to give the date or time when they were first made. The ancient records make mention of their use. As far back as the time in which the Genesis of the Bible was written, the Babylonians were spoken of as making brick. All the large structures of ancient history were made partly if not wholly of bricks, dried by the sun, and to this day, thirty and more centuries afterward, some of those buildings still stand.”

Next, the tour of the Townsend Brickyard began: “One may gaze at a large brick building and wonder at the number of bricks in it but let him get in the midst of a brickyard and his wondering ceases. On all sides bricks: bricks spread out drying, bricks piled up in kilns burning, bricks stacked ready to be shipped.

“In fact, (there are) so many bricks that one feels like pinching himself to see if he is not a brick. The reporter was first shown where the brick has its birth. Standing on the rim of a huge bucket, grasping a wire chain, he was lowered ninety-five feet into the depths of the earth. Arriving at the bottom, one starts off to one side traveling through a tunnel, where formerly there was a twenty-foot vein of clay. The clay is as hard as rock and requires blasting to loosen it. This is where the brick gets its start.

“After the clay is loosened, it is hauled above ground, and allowed to dry thoroughly, the freer from moisture the better brick it makes. After thoroughly drying, it is transferred to a machine that grinds the clay into a fine dust. Then it goes on its course over an endless belt, into another machine, which mixes it with water, and when to a proper consistency, the no longer dust, but paste, is forced into another machine.

"Here a small portion at a time is forced down, filling a six brick mold at every motion. The molds are carried away and the bricks are laid on the drying floor of the furnace. Here they are left until the moisture is completely exhausted when they are piled in huge kilns, the fires are lighted, and in a few days the mud becomes brick.”

The writer continued: “This sketch is merely a brief outline of the art of making common brick. Ornamental bricks require that each one be molded twice and separately, in a hand machine. Of the odd-shaped bricks, there are about 300 styles, ranging from a thin triangular to a large rectangular form embossed. Besides the ornamental brick, there is the enameled. This is a high-priced product, vitrified and enameled. The glazing is heated and chilled, then heated again and stirred into a paste. With it in this condition, one face of a brick is dipped in it, and the brick (is then) placed in another kiln, where it is again burned.”

At the time of this writing, “The firm has now...an order for 100,000 enameled brick to be used in the Government Appraiser's Storehouse at Chicago. T. B. Townsend & Company have a large order for paving material to be used on Columbus streets.”

Townsend and other local brick companies made durable, lasting products. Some side roads off Putnam and Maple avenues are still paved with their bricks.

Lewis LeMaster is a retired school teacher of the Zanesville area.