This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/YUB.2ACI/2053.1.1.1.1.1.2 Message Board Post: DeNoyelles' genealogy book "Birth of an American Family" is available in most of the county libraries, but for in-house use only. "Within These Gates" says about the "fabulous clay deposits along the west shore" that they were used in manufacturing brick in 1773, but the big venture began with the arrival in 1815 to South Haverstraw of James Wood, an Englishman with brickmaking knowledge. In 1852 Richard A. VerValen invented an improved brick machine and "North Rockland was off to 75 years of full employment and prosperity." Talking about marching bands, DeNoyelles says that the ranks of the West Haverstraw Fife and Drum Corps were led by the tallest man, high-hatted in a big bearskin. "James H. Mackey of Garnerville guided its martial strains for some years, about twenty, with his ramrod over-six-feet frame and his regal baton." In his list of brickyards, he notes a Mackey yard in Haverstraw in 1839; Mackey Yards in Verplanck in 1904; and several other Mackey names - Silas G. in Grassy Point in 1872, Daniel G. in Grassy Point in 1863; and W. H. in Verplanck in 1899. So the Mackey family was indeed connected with the brick industry for an exceptionally long period of time. The other very early names (in addition to James Wood) were Clark and Fowler, Drury, and Allison.