Archaeology at theHarmony BrickworksLeetsdale, Pennsylvania

Archaeology at theHarmony Brickworks

Leetsdale, Pennsylvania

by

Andrew Sewell, Roy Hampton, R. Joe Brandonand Amy Case. Artwork by Sara Oravecz.

Hardlines Design Company, Columbus, Ohio

Published by

Pittsburgh DistrictU.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania2004

IntroductionCommunities in the Ohio

River Valley near Pittsburghhave grown and changedduring the past 300 yearssince the first settlementswere founded. As newindustries replace earlierfactories, landscapes changeand the past disappearsunder the new buildings.Sometimes this newconstruction uncovers aglimpse of the past and givesus a window to look throughto learn about people wholived in earlier times. Oncewe have found a window intothe past, we need a specialtype of detective, anarchaeologist, to investigatethe clues and tell us the

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Detail map showing Leetsdale,Pennsylvania, in relation toPittsburgh, Sewickley, andAmbridge.

Map of Pennsylvania.

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stories about the past. Onewindow into the past wasrecently found in Leetsdale,a small community west ofPittsburgh on the Ohio River.

Jacob Henrici, leader of the Harmony Societywhen the brick factory was started.

In connection with a largeconstruction project in theLeetsdale Industrial Park,a team of archaeologistsexcavated the brick floors andwalls that had been part of anearlier factory. As theyworked, they wondered whohad built the building, and

John Duss, leader of the Harmony Societywhen the brick factory closed in 1901.

The Harmonists lived in aclose-knit community andshared all of their property.The Harmonists acceptedmodern technology andfounded many industries,

what had happened to it.This book answers thosequestions and shows howarchaeologists found andinterpreted the clues to thisfactoryís past.

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The Harmony Brickworkswas owned by the HarmonySociety, a group of religiouspeople who came to Americafrom Germany in 1803. TheHarmony Societyís settlementwas located in Economy, atown in Beaver County, justup the road from Leetsdale.

including the HarmonyBrickworks. The Harmonistswere interested in efficiencyand were innovative in manyof their endeavors.

We first need to understand why a factorywas built at Leetsdale. In the late 1800s,Pittsburgh was still growing into a big city, andthe people living there needed bricks for newbuildings. In 1890, the hardworking membersof the Harmony Society in Economy, Penn-sylvania, opened a brick factory in nearby

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Historic map with arrow showing brickworkssite (US Geological Survey, 1906).

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Leetsdale. The factory was builtoverlooking the Ohio River near a goodsource of clay for making bricks. TheHarmony Society knew this was a goodspot, since there used to be an older brickfactory on the same site.

The Harmony Society builttheir factory to producethousands of bricks a day.The bricks were not used atthe Harmonist settlement inEconomy. Rather, the bricksmay have been used for otherbuildings the Harmonists wereplanning to build nearby, suchas houses, churches, andschools. The Harmony Societyalso sold bricks to builders inPittsburgh, Sewickley, andother towns. The factory itselfwas not staffed by HarmonySociety members, since therewere few members left.Instead, outside help workedthe factory.

The workers had machinesto mold the clay into bricks.They built a large building

called a hot floor to dry the bricks. The workers then put thedried bricks into kilns, where the bricks were baked until theywere hard. In 1897, a fire destroyed part of the factory.Because of the fire, the Harmony Society built a new buildingto dry the bricks, and the brick factory continued operating.

The factory made bricks for eleven years. The brickworkshad to close in 1901 because it was unable to compete withother brick factories in the area. The brick factory was mostlydemolished soon after, and floods from the Ohio River coveredthe old factory with dirt.

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Drawing of abandoned ruins.

How Did the Archaeologists Find andExcavate the Factory?

Between 1999-2002, theland where the brick factoryused to be located wasneeded for important newconstruction by the US ArmyCorps of Engineers. Whenthey realized that such a largeand interesting brick factoryonce existed there, theyhad archaeologists dig up thefactory remains beforeconstruction could affect thesite.

First, archaeologists dug aseries of small holes to findareas where there wereremains of the factory,because over the years theentire site had been buried bydirt washed over it when theOhio River flooded. They alsomeasured the site so theycould make a map of theexcavations.

Above: Archaeologist photographing the siteon a snowy day.

Far Left: Part of the factory used to dry wetbricks.

Left: Part of the factory that was found bydigging a series of small holes across the site.

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A backhoe at work on the site.

archaeologists found a goodspot to dig, they carefully duglarger holes to examine whatwas under ground.

A trench cut by the backhoe, with part of thefactory exposed.

Some of these holes werefairly small and were dug byhand. These excavationswere used to identify thedifferent parts of the brickfactory.

One of the holes dug by archaeologists toexamine part of the factory.

The archaeologists alsoused a backhoe to help findwhere the ruins of the factorywere located. When the

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The archaeologistsuncovered and identifieddifferent parts of the factory.They found hot floors, whichwere heated floors used todry bricks. They identifiedkilns (giant ovens) used to

bake bricks. They also foundfurnaces that provided thehigh heat needed to bakebricks in the kilns. Thearchaeologists used a largebackhoe as well as shovelsto remove dirt from the most

Parts of two kilns in the background andfurnaces in the foreground, as excavated bythe archaeologists.

A brick-lined water well uncovered by thearchaeologists.

Archaeologist measuring theinside of a furnace.

interesting areas so theycould learn more about thedifferent parts of thefactory. The archaeologistswere then able to match upwhat they found in the groundwith surviving historicrecords.

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Through their researchand excavations, thearchaeologists learned thatthere were seven kilns at thesite. They also learned thatthere were different types of

hot floors at the site, and theynow know how the inside ofthe big hot floor building wasarranged. The archaeologistscould compare their findingswith records of how other

brick factories were orga-nized. They found out that theHarmony Brickworks was afairly standard brick factoryfor its time.

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Reconstruction of whole brick factory.

The only known photograph of the Harmony Brickworks (from Brick, June 1898: 295).

The archaeologists faceda big challenge, because 100years ago the brick factorywas closed and its buildingswere destroyed. The site wasthen covered by flood depos-its from the Ohio River. Thearchaeologists knew thatwhatever they found was notgoing to look like it did when itwas new. The archaeologistsneeded to study old picturesand books to learn what thesebuildings would have lookedlike, so they could identify

What Did the ArchaeologistsExpect to Find in a Brick Factory?

what they found in the ground.So, the archaeologists

found old records and mapsthat helped them know whatthey could expect to find.

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There were not a lot of oldrecords to help them though,and they had only one mapand only one photograph ofthe factory.

Original map courtesy of Old Economy Village, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC).

The archaeologists were ableto use this 1894 map (above) andthe photograph on the previouspage to determine where theyshould dig to find the old factory.

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This map and photograph also helpedthem figure out what the factorylooked like. Their careful work hashelped us understand how a brickfactory operated in the late 1800s.

Workers digging up fresh clay.

How the Factory Operated

All bricks are made fromclay. Most brick factorieswere built near good sourcesof clay so the workers wouldnot have to transport the clayvery far. The clay for theHarmony Brickworks was dugup near the factory. Theworkers probably transportedthe fresh clay by a smallrailroad leading to the factory.

After the clay was broughtto the factory, it was mixed ina big pit with water and left

Clay

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overnight. This made the clayeasier to work.

Brick MoldingBefore the 1800s, all

bricks were made by hand.This took a long time andmade bricks expensive touse. By the time of theHarmony Brickworks, peoplehad invented steam-poweredmachines to make bricks.

At the Harmony Brick-works, there were two bigbrick-making machines.These were called soft-mudmachines because the claywas soft when it went into themachines.

How did the machineswork? Clay was brought fromthe soaking pits and dumpedinto the top of the machine,where a big shaft with bladescut up the clay and forced itdownwards. The machine

then forced the clay into awooden mold. A workerremoved the mold after the

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clay had been pressed into it.The newly molded bricks werethen ready to be dried.

Workers making bricks with a soft-mud machine.

Furnaces and fluesfrom the coal- andgas-fired hot floor, asdiscovered by thearchaeologists.

Drying the Bricks

The newly-made brickswere placed on heated floorscalled hot floors in a largebuilding to dry. Archaeologistsdigging at the HarmonyBrickworks found the remainsof these floors. They wereable to discover how thesefloors were heated, and that

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there were three differenttypes of hot floors used at thefactory over time.

The first hot floors used atthe factory were heated byfurnaces burning gas or coalat one end. The heat traveledthrough flues made of brick(shown below). These flues

were like little hallways thatchanneled the heat away fromthe furnaces and under thewhole floor. The heat escapedfrom a chimney at the otherend. The bricks were dried bythe heat as it traveled throughthe flues.

Drawing of coal-heated hot floor (left) andtunnel drier (above).

The Harmony Society alsobuilt a steam-heated hot floor,which worked like the gas-and coal-fired hot floor,except that the heat wasproduced by steam, and notby a furnace burning fuel.

After the factory burned in1897, the Harmony Society

added a steam drying tunnel,a slightly different kind ofsystem. The new steam drierwas a long tunnel. Under thetunnel floor, a series of ironpipes acted like a radiator.The steam came from a boilerin one end of the drier, wentthrough the maze of pipes,

and went up through a hugechimney at the other end ofthe tunnel. The bricks wereplaced on carts and slowlymoved through the tunnel ontracks as they dried. Then thebricks were ready to bebaked in the kilns.

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Kilns: Baking the BricksKilns are giant ovens used

for baking things made fromclay, like bricks, pottery, andtiles. There are manydifferent types of kilns, butHarmony Brickworks usedonly one kind.

The kilns at the HarmonyBrickworks were rectangular

and had small furnaces alongthe sides to provide heat.These kilns were calledupdraft kilns because hot airfrom the furnaces entered thebottom of the kiln andescaped through the top. This

updraft of heat baked thebricks inside the kiln.

The bricks were stackedin the kiln with spaces inbetween them so hot air couldmove easily through the kilnand around all the bricks.

Workers loading bricks into a kiln.

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Reconstruction of Harmony Brickworks kiln.

After the bricks werecarefully stacked, thefurnaces along the kiln werelit and the firing began. Thefiring took at least one week.

After the bricks were donebaking, they had to cool,which took a minimum of

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several days. Then the brickscould be stacked on carts,moved out of the kiln, andused to build a house or otherbuilding.

The archaeologists foundremains of some of the kilnsused at the Harmony Brick-

General view of a furnace and outside kiln wall at the HarmonyBrickworks, as excavated by archaeologists in February 2000.

works, which is how we knowwhat type of kiln they used.By examining the remains ofthe kilns, the archaeologistscould tell how the kilns lookedwhen they were in use.

ConclusionAfter the brickworks were

abandoned in 1901, somelocal residents used the areaas a dumping ground. Localchildren played among theruins of the brick factory, untilflooding from the Ohio Rivercovered the site with manylayers of silt. The site

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View of thesteam-heated hotfloor discovered byarchaeologists.

the factory during theexcavation. By carefullystudying what they found,they were able to describe forus the locations of thedifferent buildings and howthey functioned.

remained buried until arch-aeologists began theirexcavation almost onehundred years after thefactory shut down.

The archaeologists hadonly one map and one oldphotograph to help themlocate the different parts of

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Much of what we nowknow about how this brickfactory functioned in the late1800s is based largely onarchaeological study. Therewere also some writtenrecords of the brick factory,which described how some ofthe different parts of thefactory once worked.

We now have a betteridea of how important thisbrick factory was in the OhioRiver Valley near Pittsburgh.Although the factory was just

one of many similar industrialsites while it existed, todaythe site educates us aboutindustrial brick making at theend of the 1800s.Archaeologists help usunderstand the ways that

Archaeologistsexcavating at thebrickworks site.

people lived and worked inthe past. Through archaeol-ogical investigations, wediscover connections to ourancestors.

This project was undertaken by the Pittsburgh District of the US Army Corps ofEngineers to comply with federal laws protecting important historic and archaeologicalsites. For more information on the project, please visit:

http://www.lrp.usace.army.mil/lmon/harmony_brick_works.htm

For more information on the Harmony Society, please contact Old EconomyVillage, or drop by for a tour!

Old Economy Village14th and Church StreetsAmbridge, PA 15003Telephone: 724-266-4500http://www.oldeconomyvillage.org

The excavation of the Harmony Brickworks was conducted by Hardlines DesignCompany. For more information about Hardlines Design Company and our services,please visit :

http://www.hardlinesdesign.com