244 CLAYS AND CLAY INDUSTRY. 



Between 1780 and 1800, brick were also made between White 

 Horse Tavern and Hamilton Square, and still a little later at 

 Maiden Head, now Lawrenceville. 



About 1826 a man named Embly came to Trenton from Con- 

 necticut and began making brick in the square bounded by 

 Princeton and Brunswick avenues and Sandford and Bond 

 streets. Again in 1831 Joseph Himer and Peter Grim, of Phila- 

 delphia, established a yard on the Hedden farm, now owned by 

 the S. K. Wilson estate, about halfway between the two city 

 reservoirs, the brick used in the original part of the present State 

 Prison being made by them. This yard was abandoned by Grim 

 in 1839, and another started on the present site of the Fell & 

 Roberts yard, while a yard was established in 1845 by James 

 Taylor on the site abandoned by Grim. Between this year and 

 1856 a number of yards were started around Trenton and served 

 as the nucleus of a thriving brick industry, which has continued 

 up to the present. The pressed-brick business of Trenton com- 

 menced about 1865, and increased steadily up to about 1894, since 

 which time it has declined. The explanation oif this decline is to 

 be found chiefly in the fact that the demand for red pressed 

 brick has greatly decreased in late years, owing to the intro- 

 duction of- buff, mottled, speckled and other types of fancy front 

 brick. Since the clay found at Trenton burns red, it cannot be 

 utilized for these newer styles. 



Brick were first made in Middlesex county in 1851, at Round- 

 about (now Sayreville), by James Wood, and in the fall of that 

 year Peter Fisher and James Sayre purchased a small property 

 of 23 acres and commenced the manufacture of common brick, 

 but gradually branched out into the manufacture of other grades. 

 In 1887 this copartnership merged into a corporation known as 

 the Sayre & Fisher Company, which is now by far the largest 

 individual brick-making firm in the State. The inexhaustible 

 supplies oif brick clay in this region early led to the establishment 

 of other yards, and at the present time there are 1 1 large brick- 

 yards at South River and Sayreville. 



In the Hackensack region, brick have also been made for many- 

 years, but although the New York market is only 7 miles distant 



