Early Brickyards

Early Brickyards. . The rich clay deposits along the high western bluff of the Chattahoochee River led a pioneer family to begin producing brick here. In 1859, brothers Anderson and Charles Abercrombie acquired a large tract of land from the U.S. government as a result of the Treaty of 1832 with the Creek Nation. By the 1840s, their expansive cotton - producing plantation included a small brickyard, the site of which became Brickyard, Alabama. Captain James Abercrombie, whose plantation lay to the north of his brothers' land, established brickyards in Pensacola, Florida during the 1850s that produced brick for U.S. Army forts off the Gulf Coast. including Fort Jefferson on Dry Tortugas. An Alabama and U.S. legislator, James was also director of the Mobile and Girard railroad, which served Brickyard and enabled Abercrombie bricks to reach Columbus and markets to the south. In 1885, James Henry Bickerstaff and his brother William Jefferson Bickerstaff, Jr. bought the Abercrombie plantation and quickly expanded its brick-making operations. This partnership formed Bickerstaff Brick Company that eventually became one of the largest family-owned brick manufactures in North America.