A South Carolina Tradition – Built of Brick

Contractors often built antebellum houses of brick. A common misconception is often repeated, "the bricks for my house were hauled from Charleston." Historic documents actually show most bricks were made on the spot, in steel or wooden molds, and fired on the construction site. One of South Carolina's finest early 19th century brick homes, The White Homestead, (view on the Jefferson Davis Jaunt), was built by Thomas Hoover who well documented the making of brick on site. The S.C. Artisans Database also documented numerous individual and commercial brick makers across the state prior to 1870. Levy's Brickyard in Columbia, M/I Census of 1850, shows some 600,000 brick manufactured annually. McDonald - Houser of Chester, S.C., was also producing about 400,000 brick annually. But the vast majority of bricks were made by hand, one site at a time.

The brick structures on the Built of Brick Jaunt, are a cross section of S.C. architecture, focusing on the extensive use of brick during the antebellum period.

Please remember to load your own travel route when following the Built of Brick Jaunt, and each R&R page when possible provides accurate map locations.