Soule: How the Old-Time Farmers Made Bricks

"The clay for the bricks in your chimney came from that pit," said former neighbor Bob McLaren as he pointed to the wet area at the bottom of the hill. "They harvested clay where that pond is now."
I looked at the small seasonal pond and pictured the neighbors digging up the clay to make bricks for the three old colonial-style houses on the road to Miles Smith Farm. Built in the 1850s, each house needed bricks for a chimney. Bricks were heavy to transport, which may be why Bob's former home, the place closest to the clay pit, had two chimneys, while the other two houses, farther from the pit, had only one each.
I often wonder at the self-sufficiency of those old-time farmers and have been fascinated by the brickwork in my house's chimney and wanted to know: How would Miles Smith, the man who established my farm, go about producing bricks.
And after a bit of rummaging around online, I found an article with the promising title of "Small Scale Brickmaking in New Hampshire" by James L. Garvin in the Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology (1994). Turns out, it was quite a process.
Clay from the ground is stiff and almost unworkable, so after workers dug the clay dug out, it was left out to freeze and thaw, with repeated turnings, over the winter. In spring, they poured water on the clay and drove cattle over the lumps to trample them into submission. Sometimes sand was added to reduce the clay's natural stiffness.
Once the clay had the consistency of a stiff mortar, it was ready to shape. The farmer took a brick-shaped mold and lubricated it with water or dusted it with dry sand so the raw brick would drop out of the mold easily. The brickmakers put the clay into the mold and scraped off the excess clay.
The brickmaker laid them out to dry for a few days, then stacked the partially dried bricks in rows under a temporary shelter of boards to protect them from the rain. Drying could take weeks, and damp or cloudy weather often made the bricks too soft to handle.

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Reference: Small Scale Brick making in New Hampshire, Volume 20, Numbers 1 and 2, 1994.

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Carole Soule is the co-owner of Miles Smith Farm in Loudon, N.H. She raises and sells beef, pork, lamb, eggs, and other local products. She can be reached at cas@milessmithfarm.com.