Our experience in Virginia was that most brick country houses and churches
were built of bricks made on site during the Colonial period. The
brickmaker would come and make the bricks, followed by the construction
personnel. Clay pits would then become trash receptacles.
 
Quite often the clamp will be found in or near the house foundation. The
church at Chuckatuck, Virginia, was actually built around its clamp. Saint
George's Chapel, near Rehoboth, Delaware, was built of bricks fired by the
parishioners, who allowed the fire to get away. The vitrified results may
still be seen. The clamp for the first court building on the Delaware State
House site was found in the public square out front.
 
Bricks were traded by sea. There are accounts of bricks from the Dutch fort
at Albany being shipped into the Delaware for construction of Fort Casimir.
But the legends of "English" imported bricks, so frequently recounted at
historic sites, has been pretty well debunked as a general statement.
 
See the following:
 
"Colonial brick technology," Conference on Historic Site Archæology Papers,
1968, pages 43-49.
 
"Several Virginia brick clamps: a summary of brickmaking," Quarterly
Bulletin Archeological Society of Virginia, September 1973, pages 48-45.
 
 
 
 
    _____
___(_____)                           LAND ROVER
|"Baby"  \                           Official vehicle of the
|1969 Land\_===__                    Vogon Construction Fleet!
|IIA__Rover   ___|o
|_/ . \______/ . ||                  42
___\_/________\_/____________________________________________
Ned Heite, Camden, DE  http://home.dmv.com/~eheite/index.html