Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-11-10

fable when it is considered how lily
equipped for the storms of the north At
lantic the small ships of those early days
were and how unlikely they would be to
burden themselves with such cargo, eS
pecially when the crying need of the col
onies was for manufactured goods, from
which the freight PROFITS must have enor-
mously exceeded any profits possible to
have been derived from the limited cargo
of bricks. Mr.. Philip A. Bruce's pubica-
ton of the Virginia Historical Society has
completely exploded the misty myth. The
persistence of the fable has always been
in a direct ratio with the size and saualor
of the building
Representative Jones Quoted.
Mr.. Townsend quoted VIM. A. Jones. rep
resentative in Congress. from the thirteen
tidewater counties of Virginia. as saying:
II do not know with certainty of any
imported brick Structure in the first dis
trict. The fact has been challenged there,
as in Maryland. The church of chara cter
beyond any colonial church in Virginia, is
Christ Church, in Lancaster county, built
IN lI32 by King Carter. the greatest land
holder. His constructions were built of ma
tive brick, 1 know. for his descendant has
shown me the brick pits. A previous
church the spot dated to 1910. Carter
was a model business planter having his
own mills, etc, and not the man to import
what he could make. But there are stone
sills, rampartS. etc, in some of my coun-
not have rocks.
1.-THE people of the year of Westinghouse
birth certainly had good plasterers and
that is a lost art now. The plaster of old
Christ Church, which stood windowless and
doorless for years, is as perfect as when
put on III years ago. That workmanship,
the fact that the church was gift from
one man, and that man knew how to build
it, initiate against the idea that we went
abroad in colonial days for materials
! craftsmen"
abandoned the imported brick Mr.. Bruce.
| writing a laborious book upon the econom-
| zeal history Of Virginia declares that all
brick used in Virginia in the seventeenth
century We're manufactured there; that
| brcklayers and brickmakers arrived in 1907
| that in 1922 bricks formed one of the prin-
| cpal articles exported from Virginia to the
| Bermudas that the royal governor Berke-
| ley's brick house had only six rooms; that
| the Indians were repulsed with brickbats,
and he calls it improbable that when
| bricks were rated at shillings a thousand
| in Virginia, planters would have been led to
| import them from England where between
| 1850 and 100. they could not be purchased
for less than Is shillings. adding to that
| Transportation across the ocean
| The journal of Fithian, kept while he was
tutor for Robert Carter of Nomini, abounds
in details of such other estates as Sabine
| Hall and Mount Airy, both inhabited now
| but nothing is said of imported bricks.
| Other Testimony.
| "Wm Hand Browne Marylander. saws
| In his Maryland Palatinate:' 1t Is doubt
| full whether single house Gin Maryland)
was built Of imported brick. We find a
contract for making brick as early as 1853,
and still earlier mention of brickmakers ;
| 1.-The custodian of the Maryland Histori-
| cal Society has handed me memorandum
| Of all the imported bricks brought in, Of
| which there is record by the custom
house or the naval officer, There are three
importations and they cover eight years
| time. The schooner Nancy, of twenty tons,
| brought 1900 bricks from Charleston, S.
c.. enough to build q burial vault.
THE Live Oak; Of seventy tons, brought
4 5000 bricks from Philadelphia. enough to
build a chimney. The same number of
| bricks, 6,0O0 were brought on the ship
Britannia, 100 tons, from Bristol, England
only six years before the Continental Con-
| gress met, when every hamlet had its
4 brickyard.
.'If this be the sole record OF the shipment
| Of English bricks let us consider what
| they would construct. A single chimney
| such as the end fchilnneys outside of the
| old houses, If fsrty feet high and six feet
/ by three square, would have 100 feet
| square face of WALL twelve inches thick
and require over 1890 bricks: The 5000
| Bristol bricks, therefore, would only raise
| 1t about fifteen feet from the ground. And
| this is the only importation in the record
/ brick house has the imputation Of import
| ed brick The librarian said that they
probably were wanted for mantelpiece."
photographer Owens Remarks.
| Among those who took part in the discus
sion was Mr.. Owenst the photographer OF
Alabama, who stook occasion to congrat-
| ulate the society, on the useful work 1t is
doing. In referringoto the conditions Of
historical research and preservation in the
| southern statesss She said that Alabama led
| the way in the movement toward state
support of historical work. Two years ago,
| he said the legislature had established a
| department of archives and history, and
this example was followed by Mississippi
and Georgia.
| He referred with qualification to the fact
that the library OF the late Or. ). l.. "a.
| of Alabama This collection includes a
valuable lot of pamphlets comprising over
1 t1o,co nd titlps