John Maclure from Wigtonshire, Scotland travelled to British Columbia in 1858 with fellow Royal Engineers. He travelled across the Atlantic Ocean by steam boat, through Panama by rail, up the coast of North America by sea and arrived at the Esquimalt Harbour on Vancouver Island. While working to install a telegraph cable through to Alaska, John Maclure rode horseback to the Matsqui Sahacum Indian Reserve area and exclaimed “This is God’s country, The Promised Land. Its where im going to settle” This was the beginning of the Maclure’s homesteading dream that is now Clayburn Village.
In 1905 John Charles MacClure (Son of John Maclure) founded the Vancouver Fireclay Company Ltd. and established a brickworks in the newly created village of Clayburn, near Abbotsford, B.C. and forty miles east of Vancouver.
By 1909, when the firm’s name was changed to that of the village. the Clayburn Company had surpassed in output its largest competitor in the province, the Columbia Clay Company of Anvil Island.
After a period of expansion Clayburn purchased its nearby rival, Kilgard Fireclay Company, in 1918.
Dual operations continued at both the Clayburn plant, which specialized in brick, and the Kilgard plant, which specialized in clay tiles and pipe, until 1930 when the plant at Clayburn was abandoned and that at Kilgard enlarged to accommodate brick manufacturing as well.
When Charles’ father John died in 1907, poisoned from drinking brackish water out of a stream while in the woods, he was originally buried behind the family home, known as Hazelbrae, in the Clayburn district. The vault was carefully constructed of the first bricks Charles had produced at his Clayburn Brick Factory.
Charles was predeceased by his wife Alice Cecelia Richardson, married August 31, 1883 in Victoria, British Columbia. Source
Found by Russell & Blake Violette in Vancouver, BC, near the historic North Pacific Lumber Co mill built in 1889 by James MacLaren. Russell states – this is an arch fire brick. Tapered depth, 4 1/2 inches height and 9 inches length. Gartcraig Fire Clay Works, By Millerston, Glasgow. . . .
Found by Barry Campbell on the south shore of English Bay near Kitslano, Vancouver, Canada. Boghead Fireclay Works, Bathgate, West Lothian. . . . .
This brick was found on a beach in Ottawa, Canada. (Finder wished to remain anonymous online). Garnqueen Fireclay Works, Glenboig, Lanarkshire Alternative brickworks include: Gartliston Fireclay Works, Glenboig, Lanarkshire. Building bricks at Garscadden Works, Drumchapel. .
Found by Jeannie Davis at an old tannery in Nova Scotia, Canada. Garnkirk Fireclay Works, Garnkirk, Lanarkshire. . . . . .
Found by Eddy Pellerin at the Chemin de la Réserve Faunique de Matane, St-René-de-Matane, Québec, Canada. Eddy believes the structure in which the brick was found was a ruined building of some sort. Gartcraig Fire Clay Works, By Millerston, Glasgow. . . . . . .
The following bricks were found by Heather Harris. Heather states – I am located in Prince Edward Island, Canada, and there is a beach site in our capital, Charlottetown, that is covered in bricks and other building debris. The location formerly housed a hospital, called Falconwood, which was built in the 1870s as an asylum. Sadly,…
Found in Gaspé, Québec, Canada by Josée Lemire. Morningside Fireclay Works, Wishaw, Lanarkshire. . . . .
Found by Lou Coletti. Lou states – Here is a photo of a brick I found, last spring at low water, at the old CPR shipyard in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada. The shipyard operated from the 1890s to about 1960s. Several sternwheelers for travel on Kootenay Lake were assembled there in the early days Gartcraig…
Found by Karen Haggetton on the Northumberland Strait near Cape John, Nova Scotia, Canada. Gartcraig Fire Clay Works, By Millerston, Glasgow. . . . .
Found by Laura Lea and Ian Wallingford while on vacation in St Martin, New Brunswick, Canada on the Bay of Fundy. Gartcraig Fire Clay Works, By Millerston, Glasgow. . . . .
