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Found a 1902 brass tag in my crawlspace last week, and it turns out the whole street used to be a brick yard | Archaeology Discoveries - Chatter Central

val949•29d ago

Found a 1902 brass tag in my crawlspace last week, and it turns out the whole street used to be a brick yard

So last week I was under a house over on Delaney St doing a repipe, and I popped a floor register loose and this little brass tag falls out, about the size of a poker chip, stamped with a worker number and the year 1902. I showed it to the homeowner and she got curious, so we looked up the old plat maps at the county office, and it turns out her whole block used to be a brickyard before the houses went up in the 20s. Three years ago I dug a footing trench two streets over and kept hitting this weird orange clay layer with brick chunks mixed in, and I just figured it was old fill dirt. Now it makes sense. The crazy part is nobody on that block knows any of this, the plat maps are just sitting there and nobody ever pulls them. I gave the tag to the homeowner and she's getting it framed. Anyway, has anyone else found old worker tags or tools buried around their place, and did you ever figure out what the site used to be?

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1 Comment

sarah_hart29d ago

Those brass tags turn up more than people realize, especially in older neighborhoods where the ground got worked over before houses went in. I keep a magnet and a small sieve in the truck for exactly this, since tags and old tools usually sit right at the clay line where fill meets native dirt. County plat maps are free to look at and almost nobody bothers, so you did the right thing pulling them. If the homeowner wants more info, she can check the old Sanborn fire maps too, they often show brickyards and kilns by name. One thing to watch for on that block is a patch of ground that won't grow grass right, that's usually where the kiln or the clay pit was. Tell her to keep the tag out of direct sun if she frames it, brass will fade and pit over time.