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THE BRUNSWICK BRICK YARD
oak-tree girders rest on the bricks. The girders retain adz marks on the flattened side. The house has studding and split laths of hickory. The flood of 1936 caused the branch to back up and crumble some of the wall. The Cooper sons jacked the house up and put a fieldstone foundation across the Second Avenue end of the house. They installed a trap that prevented rats from entering and allowed excess water to flow out. Charles M. Wenner started the brickworks, which John L. Jordan later owned. Mr. Cooper acquired the house on January 17, 1914, from Veniah and Georgianna Funk, and it has remained in the immediate family of the Coopers ever since.
Many people remember the steep climb up Brick Yard Hill from "D" Street and Second Avenue, often wondering how its name was derived. A brick yard operated near this point as early as 1802, according to Rev. H. Austin Cooper, but the closing date is obscure. The official records are not available, but the brickmaking did not continue to the end of the century. It was located on Second Avenue along the branch in the neighborhood of the Cooper home, at 209 Second A venue. This is at the eastern end of "C" Street near Second Avenue. Clay for the bricks was dug from the banks of the branch at this end of "C" Street and explains the precipitous drop of terrain at this point. Clay was also removed from across the "D" Street area, on up "Brick Yard Hollow" (later called Wenner's Field), to below a barn in that field. Charles M. Wenner started the brick works on his farm which extended from "B" Street to what is now Souder Road. He removed clay with a two-mule scoop. When the clay was exhausted, the enterprise folded. "We had our rears spanked many times for sliding down the clay bank when I was young," Austin Cooper recalls. Two branches of water meet at the brick yard site near the Cooper house and provided water needed for the process. Brick burning took place at Point 1 on the drawing, east of the Wenner branch, which runs south under "D" Street, while the storing yard for the brick was on the west side of the branch at Point 2, below the barrier at "C" Street. Another branch runs from the spring in Frye's Field, which is in a valley east of and below Brick Yard Hill; it flows through a culvert under Second Avenue, then joins the Wenner branch a short distance downstream. Most of the bricks made in Brunswick were used to build chimneys for houses being built in Berlin, and only one house in town, the double house at 217/219 East Potomac Street, is known to be built of Brunswick brick. In earlier days Drs. Crum and Smith had offices there. After Mr. Wenner sold the brickyard, the first floor of the original four-room section of the house served as the office for the brick works, with the second floor being used as living quarters for the owners of the brick company. This was added to in 1878, and the other section was finished in 1890. According to Austin Cooper, who lived there many years, the north and east comer and the south and west corner of the basement ot' the west section of the house contain some Brunswick bricks. Three
S - H. Austin Cooper W-MMM
BUS LINES Before the days of two cars in every garage, travelers used intercity bus lines. One in the county was Blue Ridge, with a station in downtown Frederick. Commuters between Brunswick and Frederick boarded a bus (not Blue Ridge) at that station for Brunswick. Horine's comer was the bus stop here with the bus continuing to Winchester. With the proliferation of automobiles, the small lines ceased operations. LOCAL BUS SERVICE IN BRUNSWICK
After their concrete products business closed, Bub and Ethel Lloyd operated a city bus service in Brunswick for about two years. The bus had seats along each side of the vehicle. It operated from New York Hill to downtown and back, and made regular stops. As with the New York subway. a rider could ride all day for his 25 cents fare, as long as he did not get off the bus. LAND L LINES
Brothers Bill and Russell Litten started their Land L bus service with two school busses during World War II. Harold Summers drove for five years, until Bill Litten died from an accident. Then Summers bought out Litten and operated as Land L Coach Lines. He continued a while after World War 11 and included charter trips in his service. His charter rights permitted him to go anywhere in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. Summers owned the business for twenty years, and had from three to fourteen busses at various times. After his son Gene, who drove for him, was
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