The sandy loams of the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey are a porous filter for the water that trickles through purifying layers to feed one of the largest aquifers on the East Coast. Hours after the rain has fallen the ground is for the most part dry again, and undisturbed. Into this same ground has been poured, over the centuries, the hopes and dreams of generations of entrepreneurs. The woodcutters, colliers, iron and paper mongers, would-be glass barons, and land speculators have all thrown their best shots at these seemingly endless miles of forest, meadow, river, spung, and swamp, with as little effect. To decamp in the middle of these woods today, in Lacey Township, or perhaps old Shamong, is to find yourself set back 200 years to the turn of the eighteenth century. Before and behind you are the miles of rutted sand roads. Around you the wind moans in the cedars and oaks. There seems to be no sign of the place this once was, and yet, something gleams dully from under a thick carpet of spring greenery.
What comes up in your hands after you push aside the brush is a chunk of clay pipe, thick and cold even in the spring warmth, with a rich brown glaze and crackling that has here and there marred the surface. Henry Beck visited this spot once, following a map old Buzby had given him, and mentioned similar shards. Once clay was the latest in a long list of natural resources that would at last bring riches to the captains of Pine Barrens industry. Not far up the road the Adams Mining Co. dug the pits at Old Halfway and hauled the clay in narrow gauge cars to the rail line at Woodmansie. Northeast of there, and south of Whitings, the Hydraulic Press Brick Co. operated clay pits for many years. The clay all around these parts is of the Cohansey formation; good for terra cotta and pipe. Under this spot where the shards litter the ground a yellow-white variation of it lies in ten foot-thick layers. In 1858, according to state geologist George Cook in his 1868 report to the New Jersey legislature, the Union Clay Works was established in this place to work that yellow-white clay.
First they attempted to make brick. Many of these can still be seen on the site, bearing partial imprints. I haven’t found a whole one with a good imprint, but I have been told by people who should know that they typically read “Ocean Co. N.J.” and sometimes had the date “1850” below that. You can see pieces of this inscription in some of the pictures of brick fragments in the gallery. According to “The Clays and Clay Industry of New Jersey” (Ries, Kummel, and Knapp, 1904) they also tried common pottery, but for whatever reason these products were not successful. Perhaps there was too much competition in the brick business from the Sayre works in Sayreville. You certainly find many of their bricks in the pines. In any event, by 1866 the plant had shifted over to making terra cotta sewer piping in a wide variety of sizes, styles, and configurations. It is this product which is found at the site in quantity today. Again the product was not successful over the long term. Ries, et al speculate that the distance from the railroad and the soft, sandy wagon tracks had something to do with it, but those seem small hurdles for the kind of people that persistently attempted to make enterprise work in the pines.
Whatever the reason, while other clay pits and works continued, Union Clay was abandoned in the late 1870’s. All of the pipe and brick you see in the images accompanying this article was manufactured before that time. Later, around the 1930s, the property was sold to a rod and gun club that maintained a hunting lodge here for several years, some remains of which can still be seen. Today the site is thickly overgrown forest, with few landmarks, waste-high brush, and an abundance of ticks and chiggers. I had visited it once before, nearly a year ago, but failed to muster the gumption to wade deeply into the woods. On a recent return I came more prepared, and spent nearly two hours searching for what I was sure I must have missed last time. The southern portion of the area, where I had been previously, has scattered pipe shards and the occasional brick. As I worked my way northward these dwindled, until in the center of the site I was seeing no remains at all.
I had almost convinced myself that there was nothing more to see when I came upon a pit full of foul, stagnant water. There was no reason for there to be a pit full of water here, unless some human had dug it out and left it to fill. I worked my way around the north side of it and began to see more shards, including one smooth chunk that had become embedded in the roots of a tree. Ahead of me a mound of earth obscured the ground beyond, and since mounds are always of interest in the Pines I headed toward it. On my right were what seemed to be piles of brick, whole and in fragments. On the other side of the mound I stumbled into a large dump pile of broken sewer pipe fragments. In “Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey” Henry Beck mentions finding a pile of pipe “draped around what might have been a kiln.” It’s possible that this pile I had located was the same one, or some other. How it got there is anyone’s guess. Very likely the workers at the plant dumped rejected product here, but it is also possible that the pipe was pushed here when the site was tidied up at some point in the past.
I had to move carefully as I photographed the pile, to avoid breaking anything underfoot. When I left I followed an old fire cut southward, as it was an easier trail than the one I had made for myself coming in. More bricks and shards were in evidence all through this area, and at one point I spied a series of six large iron bolts protruding from the ground. According to one historian I know the management at Union Clay once bought a steam engine and had it mounted at the works to provide power. It’s possible these bolts are part of the footings for that engine. There is more to see at Union Clay. There is a very old cemetery out there that was mentioned by Beck, and I think I know where to look for it now. There are supposed to be some cellar holes as well. And although I brought back my usual collection of tick and chigger bites as a reward for traipsing through their domain, I am looking forward to going back and giving them a third crack at me.
Note: updated on 6/14/08 with some corrections, with thanks to my friend Jerseyman, who knows more about this stuff than most people.
Mark:
Very nice, well written article on the Union Clay Works. I hope you do not mind a few corrections. First, Eastern Hydraulic Pressed Brick Company maintained their clay pits south of Whitings, not the plant. The brickworks belonging to this company actually stood for many years at Winslow Junction. The parent company, Hydraulic Pressed Brick Company, had its headquarters in Saint Louis, Missouri.
The year incised on the bricks found at Union represent the year the state legislature erected Ocean County—primarily out of Monmouth County. No entity with the style of “The Union Clay Company” ever existed as a New Jersey corporation. The Union Clay Works is a bit of a misnomer and the works actually belonged to a business partnership. The “cast sewer pipe” you refer to is actually known as “terra cotta pipe” and the clay used at Union was a semi-refractory or semi-fire clay that withstood the higher temperatures necessary to manufacture such items. The management did NOT bring in a steam locomotive and mounted it. Rather, the company purchased a stationary engine and boiler to provide power for the works. My recollection is that the engine arrived about 1866, but I cannot be certain without checking.
Finally—and you will have to forgive me for this one as it is a real bugaboo of mine—there is only one way to spell “cemetery” and it does not contain the letter “a” at all.
Best regards,
Jerseyman
Mark:
Oh, I forget to mention that the Middlesex County firm that manufactured brick is properly spelled Sayre & Fisher and the town is spelled Sayreville.
Best regards,
Jerseyman
Ah, so when someone said “steam engine” I did not take it literally enough :). As always, Jerseyman, thanks for the excellent information. Knowing that you bother to read this stuff will keep me on my toes. I will make the necessary corrections.
Interesting Stuff
I just attended my Uncles Jesse F. Ivins funeral today. He was 89. He spent a lot of time in the pines and has written about it but mostly in hard copy. I was searching the net tonight because I remember when I was about 10 my Uncle Jess took my brother for a ride in the woods to see the old clay works. I don’t recall the exact route as you don’t usually notice these things when you are a kid. We left from Chatsworth as my dad and uncle were both members of the Glendora Buck Club. I take it the Buzby you refer to is the one and the same that owned the store.
Anyway we explored a site much like you described. There was one added item. There were large tunnels that I believe my uncle said were for cooling the clay. I remember maybe six of these. They were large enough to walk in but were very overgrown and no way did we venture in. I seem to recall we walked down a dirt ramp into a pit and the tunnels were dug into the sides going off in different directions.
Maybe this is the same place?
Hi, Jeff. I’m sorry to hear about your uncle. Please accept our condolences. I would guess from your description that the site you visited was the former Brooksbrae pottery works off of Woodmansie Road. There are a number of concrete structures including cooling tunnels. Paintballers have played a lot of games back there recently, and it’s all stained and pretty trashed, but interesting nonetheless. Brooksbrae is a fairly open site, whereas Union Clay is in thick woods and brush.
The Hydraulic Pressed Brick company pits are in Whiting. They are in the Fox Hollow neighborhood and the woods stretching to Bamber Lake. Along Lake Road from Harry Wright Lake to Pershing Ave. is a raised hill where the cable car brought the bricks to a siding on the Tuckerton Railroad. In the other direction the rail ran down Pershing Ave on the right to Newark Ave. where it goes into the woods to the left of the Brooklyn Pond snd continues down Brooklyn Ave. and follows to the right to 21 Lakes where there is more evidence of clay pits. On the middle block of Newark Ave. in between there and Patterson Ave. seems to be the location of the works. On old aerial maps you can see two old lakes next to each other. In 1976 they didn’t build on the site because of the high water table and rumors of pollution from the brick company. It was our sandlot as kids. There are still the roads exiting the location going through the yards there now. In 1988, they built a house on the sandlot which has been sold many times since.
In 1901, when the location closed, TH Elliot’s (The Wasteland) father took over the company. It then Became Jersey Pines Poultry which had their house and barn at the end of Newark Ave. Strange company owned by Jersey City investors. There was a group if about 6 men who took turns at putting their names on the ownership of a collection of 50 other companies. Shell companies?
They then sell to Frank Parisi who owned what became Arsarco. A convenient location to dispose of bodies. Parisi was part of Murder Inc. until its leader was killed. He then worked with the Gambino family. He bought the old William Hurry Tract first owned by General Lacey’s Ferrago Forge on Bamber Lake. What is Fox Hollow and Roosevelt City, Parisi cut out roads and utility lanes behind them to develop a city on the Tuckerton Railroad to rival NYC. It had a fancy boulevard with a fountain, city hall with a church behind it on lot 6 Block 66 ( location of once Trenton Gun Club), factories (tracks off Rt 539), power plant in front of Harry Wright Lake, poor neighborhood and a rich neighborhood, and train stations. You can ask for the map at the Ocean County Clerk’s office. He only sold less than five houses on Monroe Ave. The fancy boulevard is the only road never paved.
But he sold 24 acres to a couple of nudist masseuses. They also shared ownership of Arsarco with him which is now littered with uranium and radon in the sand.
Today, you can see the foundation of the barn, out building with kitchen, well with foundation for windmill tower, carriage house and horse run, arboretum, and remnants of the poultry owners home and Nature’s Rest nudist colony next to it. Then at Docterspond there are remnants of the pumphouse that ran pipes to the windmill/well, bridge, carriage stoop, whirlpool bath in crick powered by a waterwheel and underground chutes. The site house plenty of iron scattered about. Beyond that heading toward Harry Wright Lake is Boyscout Pond where even more iron is scattered. The biggest pile can be found where a hill descends to the pond where a furnace might of once stood where they could drop the iron in from the top of the hill into the furnace.
The site with the buildings is nestled in a Lenape graveyard with several circular depressions and round mounds with several bonsai shaped trees into forks, low sweeping, and lightning bolts. Above is Halfmoon Hill that was blindingly white covered in quartz, silicone, and seashells.
On the northern side of Jefferson Ave was a ditch lined with sea shells which would direct run off into the woods on Newark Ave. to fill a stream irrigating a plain bellow a terrace that flowed into the Davenport Branch swamp. Old deeds record a produce company in the plain at one time. There is also a garbage put in the plain filled with crockery and a kitchen stove.Now, I have written a series of stories set in the area called Trollheim where a group of Trolls now live that escaped from slavery from the Swedish Colony. http://www.salemhousepress.com/2021-Site/Trollheim/Latest.html .
Enjoy