Mack brickyard (colorized), c.1915. WHS collections 1954.2.8.76. Photo by William S. Leek.
How many brickyards were there in Windsor? While doing research for our Built by Bricks walking tour, this question came up a lot. The official answer is 40. That’s the number quoted in Daniel Howard’s definitive A New History of Old Windsor. That’s what Connecticut Humanities says in their article on Connecticut brickmaking. That’s what WHS’ own January 1990 newsletter states. Forty is the number cited again and again by almost every piece about brickmaking in Windsor published in the last century. So it has to be 40, right?
Well, some evidence supports the existence of more. A 1916 article in the Windsor Town Crier by Hilliard Bryant claims that in 1836, there were at least 40 brickyards in town, implying there were more. And in 1948, Leland P. Wilson (1871-1959) recalled 17 brickyards in School District 1 where he grew up (roughly today’s Wilson neighborhood) and easily over 100 across town during his boyhood. Trying to pin down the exact number of brickyards in Windsor is perhaps impossible, especially now that most are gone from living memory. Few business records still exist from the 1700s and 1800s, and many records simply note ‘Windsor Brick’ without specifying who made it. The Windsor business directories in our collection were published after most of the brickyards had closed, and accounts written by residents typically only mention brickmaking in passing.
Even when there are records, determining the number of yards is not easy. How many bricks need to be produced to be considered a brickyard? Were the people who fired only a few thousand bricks included in previous counts? As for midsized-to-larger operations, they were often run by families who either operated one brickyard together or had relatives operating separate brickyards simultaneously. This means seeing a family name in the brick business might imply one yard or many. So, with this said, how many brickyards can we, in 2025, identify?
Known Brickyards
A 1915 news article about storm damage to brickyards mentions the Baker Brickyard, run by Fred C.L. Baker, next to a Wilson Brickyard. The yard is also on a map drawn by L.P. Wilson as a teen in 1887.
The Barber Brickyard sat on the east side of Windsor Avenue, halfway between Park and Rood Avenues. A New History of Old Windsor cites Edward and Martin Barber as prominent brickmakers of their time. They ran the brickyard in which Walter W. Loomis (see below) learned to make bricks in 1845.
Deming Brickyard was in Wilson, in what is now Keney Park, almost exactly where the highway crosses over. It is noted on the 1887 map drawn by L.P. Wilson.
Wilson-area brickyards circled on map drawn by L.P. Wilson, 1887. WHS collections 1976.14.3, gift of Leland P. Wilson.
Our earliest reference to the Filley Brickyard is the 1855 Windsor business directory. By the 1870s the yard was run by William H. Filley. William Filley was a man of many business interests beyond bricks, the biggest of which was tobacco, so much so that in 1896, he closed the brickyard to focus on his tobacco company. He was business partners with Horace Ellsworth, who is on L.P. Wilson’s list of brickmakers, but we are unsure if Ellsworth had his own brickyard or co-owned Filley’s.
Brickmaker Fredus Waterhouse is shown on the 1869 map of Windsor living next to a brickyard between modern-day Barber Street and Skitchewaug Street. The brickyard is only labeled as ‘brickyard’, but it is probably safe to assume that it is his.
Levi Hayden ran a family brickyard from at least 1800 to 1848. His son, Jabez H. Hayden notes in his book Historical Sketches that his father sent between 200,000 and 300,000 bricks to Hartford each spring. The Historical Society owns some of his account books showing his brick sales, memos, and employee names.
William Higinbotham ran a brickyard on Mack Street where the final iteration of Mack Brick was located. We know the family ran a brickyard there for at least 60 years, as the brickyard is listed in the 1855 business directory. It can also can been seen on the 1869 Windsor map. He sold the yard to the Mack family in 1911.
Nathan and Daniel Loomis ran an early brickyard. This was the brickyard where Mack Brick founder William Mack learned the brickmaking trade. Fourteen different Loomises are recorded by previous historians as brickmakers. This included Walter W. Loomis, who, in 1916, was noted as the brickmaker with the longest memory of the brickmaking trade. It is indeterminable how many brickyards the Loomis family had, but it was certainly more than one. The 1869 map of Windsor shows they had at least two on the west side of Windsor Avenue, halfway between Park and Rood Avenues.
Loveland Brickyard only appears on L.P. Wilson’s 1887 hand-drawn map. It was between what is now Olga and Rosemont Avenues.
Kilns and bricks drying at Mack Brickyard, c1915. WHS collections 1954.2.8.75. Photo by William S. Leek.
There was, of course, Mack Brick. The company was founded by William Mack in 1830, and the family ran it for five generations. William Mack was supposedly the first in town to make brickmaking his entire business rather than a side hustle. He started with a series of smaller brickyards located on Pleasant Street. In 1846, the family and business moved to what became known as Mack Street. There were a couple iterations of the Mack Street brickyard, the final established in 1911. Come 1930, Mack Brick became the last brickyard in Windsor. At that point, they produced over 12 million bricks a year. The brickyard continued until 1962 when Edward Mack, the fifth and final Mack to run the yards, died. Two years later, the family sold the property. Mack Brick the company continues on, selling with bricks rather than making them.
The Nevel Brothers Brickyard was located at 743 Windsor Avenue. It was run by Michael and Thomas Nevel. Nevel is mentioned in several Hartford Courant articles relating to disputes around brickyard foreclosures and the ownership of yards and equipment in the 1910s. This was when many brickyards closed and their assets were bought by competitors. In 1921, Nevel Brick sold their business to the larger Sponzo Brick, a Hartford- based brick company.
The Peck Brickyard is also on the map drawn by L.P. Wilson. It was where the Wilson Gateway Park was built in 2025.
The Wilson Brick Company was started in 1812 and was run by three generations of Wilsons (including Allyn Wilson, father of Leland P. Wilson). At the turn of the 20th century, the brickyard produced over 6 million bricks each year. In 1908, Wilson Brick merged with around a dozen other brick companies from the Hartford area to become the Capital City Brick Company. Bricks continued to be made at the yard after the merger under the guidance of Fred Young. The yard closed in 1930. It was located between modern Barber and Faneuil Streets.
Wallace Wrisley took over the Mack brickyards on Pleasant Street when the Mack family moved their operations in 1846. The brickyard is listed in the 1855 business directory. He and his son, also named Wallace, continued to operate the yards until 1900.
And that ends the list of the brickyards we currently have information on. If each of those families had a single brickyard, that would put the count at 14. However, we know that many of them had multiple yards that existed simultaneously, so 20 might be a closer count. Next is a list of all the families that previous historians L.P. Wilson and Hilliard Bryant named as brickmakers. Both had living memory of the brickmaking business, and both admitted that theirs was an incomplete list. Unfortunately, neither said much about any of these families to give us an indication of scale or location of their brick businesses. As we conducted our research, we added additional names to their lists.
Brickmaking Families
Alderman, Alexander, Baker, Barber, Blanchfield, Blanchard, Cook, Deming, Drake, Ellsworth, Filley, Harvey, Hayden, Higinbotham, Hubbard, Loomis, Loveland, Mack, March, Mather, Mills, Moore, Murphy, Nevel, Peck, Phelps, Sponzo, Tuttle, Webster, Wadsworth, Waterhouse, Wilson, Wrisley, and Young.
That gives us 34 families who made bricks in Windsor. As with the previous list, we can assume some owned multiple brickyards. But we also know that there is some overlap. For example, we know that Young took over the Wilson yard. Yet, even with that taken into account, it is probably safe to say that there were at least 40 brickyards in Windsor. So how many brickyards were there in Windsor? Much like the question ‘how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie-Pop™?’, the world may never know. But if you came to the Historical Society and asked us the question, we would say 40. Probably? Officially? 40. But we would love for you to tell us more.
By Heather Lodge, program manager, 2025
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