Lou’s View – Sept. 24, 2015
The Castanea Brick and Tile Company
By Lou Bernard
First off, let’s get something straight—It’s pronounced “Cast-an-EEE-uh,” okay? Not “Cast-EEE-nuh.” If you’re a fan of my columns, clearly you are intelligent enough to pronounce it correctly. Don’t let me down.
Now that we have all that unpleasantness out of the way, let’s explain why it’s so important that it be pronounced correctly. Jacob Brown and Peter Keller, two local businessmen, founded Castanea in 1871. Brown and Keller purchased an entire farm from Joseph Hamberger of Dunnstable Township, and used that farm to lay out their new village. Both of them have streets named after them, in case you were wondering where Brown Street and Keller Street came from.
Castanea is one of the younger municipalities in the county, much like Avis. According to early accounts, many Italian immigrants were the first settlers of the community, and they noticed all the chestnut trees growing there. So they creatively named it for the Italian word for chestnut, Castagna. This quickly was distorted into “Castanea.”
Very early on, Castanea was placed in its own township—Residents of Dunnstable Township felt that their area was getting too large and irregularly-shaped, though don’t ask me exactly what that entails. But in 1877, they voted to chop a portion off, and make it Castanea Township.
From the beginning, the township was home to a lot of businesses. Stores and breweries were common in Castanea. And another business spring up in 1906, one of the big ones—The Castanea Brick and Tile Company.
An article in the Clinton Republican, which ran before the company was even begun, said that it would produce excellent quality clay and employ a hundred and fifty people. This estimate turned out to be off by about six hundred percent; the company opened with twenty-five employees. Harry Leighbaugh was the president of the company, Magnus Cluston, who had the name of a super-villain for some reason, was the vice-president, and J. Frank Francis was the superintendent.
Pretty much everything else was done by Ferdinand Lucas.
Lucas was a local businessman who was also known for his brewery and for growing onions in his back yard. He was the secretary, manager, and treasurer of the Castanea Brick and Tile Company, and probably cleaned the windows as well. Lucas lived nearby, enabling him to come in and work long shifts at odd hours.
Elizabeth Keller, the wife of Peter Keller, sold a right-of-way to her land. This enabled the company to use sixteen feet of Elizabeth’s land to ship clay to the factory, and earned Elizabeth a hundred and fifty dollars. A sixteen-foot wide path was constructed to the mouth of the clay mine.
The twenty-five employees managed to produce over four million bricks every year. That same bunch did all the mining, shipping, and production. Business got busy enough that Clyde Batdorf, local businessman, was brought in and added as the twenty-sixth employee, acting as general manager of the place.
When sales slowed down in 1913, the plant was repossessed by the county and put up for sheriff’s sale. To the rescue came Ferdinand Lucas, purchasing the place for three thousand dollars, and began to save the company. He wrote a new charter, hired new employees, and bought new machinery that was capable of creating different types of brick. Lucas continued to run the company, making a profit, until 1928, when he sold it to George McFarland, a recent arrival in Lock Haven.
McFarland ran the company for another eleven years until it went out of business for good in 1939. The property later became a chemical company, but that’s another article.
And now you know as much as I know. You are now an expert on the Castanea Brick and Tile Company. And remember, it’s “Cast-an-EEE-uh,” okay? Seriously. I cannot stress enough just how important this is. (And don’t even get me started on Keating.)
