1880 DRURY BRICK CO of Colchester Vermont RARE Long Forgotten Company.

Jacob Knowlton Drury (1858)

(rechartered) (1867 - 1872)

Jacob K. Drury and Son (1872 - 1889)

Drury Brick and Tile Co. (1925 - 1926)

Drury Brick Co. (1938 - 1962)

Densmore Brick Co. - Drury Plant (1964 - 1972)

Brick making was an important business in Essex Junction from the 1790s on. In 1867 Jacob Drury founded the Drury Brick Company. It made bricks for buildings throughout the state. Many of the bricks on the UVM campus, Fleming Museum, Waterman Building, Ira Allen Chapel, and the Bailey-Howe Library were made there. During its operation it produced 500 million bricks

Bricks. There are several versions of lettering used in the Drury brick that seem to correspond to the dates when the brickyard was expanded. The first bricks were "water struck" - the molds were wet so that the bricks would easily slide out. Water struck brick have a very irregular shape and different texture. Later bricks were manufactured with "sand molds." In both cases, the molds were wooden but in this case the molds were dusted with fine sand before the clay was pressed in.

I'm still a little sketchy on this part, but I think the first lettering appeared on water struck bricks when a metal stamp was included in the top (or bottom) of the brick form. I have what appears to be a water struck brick with this stamped style lettering. I also have sand molded bricks with this style, making this the transitional lettering style between the two manufacturing processes. I have one of these metal stamps but I'm only assuming this was used in the late 1880s to about 1910. I'm not exactly sure when the manufacturing process changed.

Later bricks used a carved wooden DRURY that filled with clay to produce the raised letters. There are two versions of this lettering. The first incorporated the CBMA symbol after DRURY and I think was used between 1910 and 1920 but my dates may be off. While I have a sign dated 1917 that shows a brick with this symbol I do not have any of these wooden letter forms. The second version was used up until 1963 and did not incorporate the CBMA symbol. I have several of these wooden blocks.