Morgan Monument – Follow the Red Brick Old Spye Road
- Old Spye Road as it Parallels Cheesequake Creek.
Much of what makes Morgan unique and historic are the few remnants remaining of its long history. One of the coolest of the few things still present in Morgan is Old Spye Road.
Old Spye Road is unique not only for its near if not over 300 year long history but also because the majority of its length is still composed of brick. While it is now “off the beaten path” and only about one third of a mile in length, up until the opening of what is now State Highway Route 35 in the 1920’s, Old Spye Road was the beaten path.
Following what most likely was originally a natural incline leading from the top of the bluff down to Cheesequake Creek, I’m guessing the road started out as a trail during the Lenni Lenape Indians days. When the early European settlers came to the area in the early 1700’s and needed to decide where to put a permanent building, which eventually would become known as “The Old Spye Inn”, the logical place to situate it was at the bottom of the hill opposite of the bay side of the bluff and at the intersection of Cheesequake Creek and a smaller creek. It isn’t clear to me yet if the original builders of the Old Spye Inn was the Applegate family, the Morgan family or someone else. Who ever it was, this location gave them immediate access to the creek which at the time was easily crossable at low tide, sheltered access to the bay, and an easy path to climb up the thirty or so feet to the top of the bluff for hunting, trading, farming or traveling to near by central South Amboy.
Old Spye Road appears to have been previously known as Route 4, Main Street and Keyport Ave (reference the 2 January 2010 Morgan Maps posting showing the 1919 map). Sometime after the 1930s, the road was renamed after the Old Spye Inn. Note that both the inn and the road were in turn indirectly named for the British spy who was hung at this site during the American Revolution (this is yet another planned future posting).
In addition to putting an ‘e’ at the end of “Spye”, the bricks are what make Old Spye Road so unique. The bricks making up Old Spye Road are a special type of brick known as Paving Blocks. Paving blocks have special properties when compared to “Face” bricks which are used for stairs, fireplaces, chimneys, walls, and the facades of homes. Paving blocks must be durable enough to be able withstand rain, freeze/thaw winter weather cycles, and the frequent compression stresses imposed on it by vehicular traffic without chipping, degrading or cracking.
Drawing of the C. P. Mayer Brick Company of Bridgeville, PA.
I was surprised to learn that the bricks making up Old Spye Road were not manufactured by the Sayre and Fisher Brick Company. Like Morgan itself, the Sayre and Fisher Brick Company was located in the Borough of Sayreville. It was, in its day, the world’s largest producer of bricks pumping out over an astounding one million bricks per day. It appears that paving blocks were not one of the types of products Sayre & Fisher produced. In 1921, Sayre & Fisher was not listed as one of the twenty-five companies making up the Eastern Paving Brick Manufactures’ Association.
Old Spye Road bricks were actually manufactured by the C. P. Mayer Brick Company which used to be located in the town of Bridgeville in western Pennsylvania 12 miles south of Pittsburg’s Union Station. The C. P. Mayer Brick Company was founded in 1903 and used clay and shale from local hills to create each approximately 3 3/4” x 3 3/4” x 8 1/2” paving block.
According to Mr. C. P. Mayer, Founder and President of C. P. Mayer Brick Company, “During the year of 1905, while tied up with a contract in delivering face brick, we were compelled to close down our works or turn to make some other product than face brick, and consequently took up the manufacture of paving block. Our first attempt was a failure, but after putting in a mixing bin and making some changes in composition, we have succeeded in making paving block which now stand a test equal to any.”
As of 1910, the C. P. Mayer Brick Company was producing 20,000 paving blocks per day using a process where the blocks were burned for 14-15 days in a Wilson down-draft kiln.
I don’t know for sure but there might be different types of bricks on Old Spye Road. They might have even originated from different manufactures from different times. We know that at least some portion of the paving blocks on Old Spye Road were made by the C. P. Mayer Brick Company because the name of the company appears on the side of every block. While I can’t fully answer at this time when exactly the paving blocks were put in place or which level governmental agency (Borough of Sayreville, County of Middlesex, or State of New Jersey) installed them, it was most likely some time after 1905 but well before 1920. I base that on Mr. Mayer’s above statement and by knowing that in the early 1920’s Old Spye Road was the main thoroughfare for traveling by auto from South Amboy and points north to the Jersey Shore. Additionally, to support the near by T. A. Gillespie Shell Loading Company, which was built in and blew up in 1918, more than a dirt road at this location would have been needed. Hopefully some further research I am able to do or, even better, feedback from a knowledgeable reader will answer this and many other related questions.
- Morgan Hose and Chemical Company No. 1 with Old Spye Road in the Foreground – 1968. Photo Courtesy of Christina DiPoalo Olender.
Old Spye Road now is a “dead end” road. It originates at its intersection with Route 35 South where, at the time of this writing, the unused buildings which used to be Joe’s Kozy Bar & Italian Smorgasbord, and over time Kozy Lanes, Club Bene and Crome stand. Past the Morgan Hose and Chemical Company No. 1 building (see posting from October 3, 2009) are private homes as it heads south toward Cheesequake Creek. At the bottom of the hill, next to the empty site where the Old Spye Inn used to be, the road curves left around the bluff and runs north easterly toward Raritan Bay in parallel with Cheesequake Creek. The road ends at the dual railroad tracks of New Jersey Transit’s North Jersey Coast Line. Morgan Station, once located just north of this intersection, used to be a train station and later a train stop but neither are present any longer and the trains now just pass by. Before the railroad crossing was removed (because of the opening of Route 35), the road went another 400’ before heading south over the previous Cheesequake Creek draw bridge which was torn down some time in the late 1930’s or early 1940’s.
- Looking up Old Spye Road from Cheesequake Creek.
- House on Old Spye Road Next to the Railroad Tracks Circa 1975. Though This House is No Longer There it Does Appear on the 1919 & 1930 Maps (See 2 January 2010 Morgan Maps Posting).
Many Morgan-NJ.org readers have commented about their very fond childhood memories of getting candy at Millie’s Bait shop which was located where the Misty Morn office (see posting from November 15, 2009) is now. At its peak in the early part of the Twentieth Century, there appear to have been a number of businesses on Old Spye Road primarily the portion along Cheesequake Creek. Today there appears to be only two businesses open on Old Spye Road, the Misty Morn Fishing Boat and some pleasure boat docks I believe are part of Lockwood Boat Works (to be covered in a future posting).
I for one am enormously grateful that the Borough of Sayreville has not paved over this fantastic piece of remaining Morgan history. Grace [Hendershot] OKeefe, who grew up on Old Spye Road and whose late father was a Morgan history expert, indicated that twice in her memory the Borough wanted to pave it but the residents successfully fought it.
I hope it stays forever brick.
