We were surprised to see so many people gathered on the sidewalk across from the Brighton town hall this morning. A ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Brickyard Trail was scheduled for 11 and there were already more than a hundred people. Cheryl Dinolfo, Adam Bello, Joseph Robach, Joe Morelli, Sandy Frankel, Anthony Daniele and his father, Mario, Mayor Bill Moehle and Brighton town board members were all there to give an hour’s worth of tedious, self congratulation on accomplishing something so simple. I was asked to say a few words on my dad’s behalf and I was last on the list, the only non-politician to speak.
Fifteen or so years ago my father started uncovering the history of Brighton’s brick yards. The glaciers had generously deposited the right combination of sand, clay and lime in the Pinnacle Range. Cobbs Hill is named after brick maker, Gideon Cobb. Leo Dodd, one of the founding members of Historic Brighton, produced a book for the organization on the early brick industry. My father essentially brought to life the brickyards, the kilns, the train tracks that moved tons of clay from the fields to the furnaces, the homes the workers lived in and the baseball fields they competed on. His passion for art, engineering and history enabled him to depict this pre-photographic past in watercolors and 3D cad drawings. Peggi and I provided technical support as he developed the Brighton Brick book and then presentations and websites on the town’s early history.
He continuously pressured the town, most of the same politicians who were gathered here, to recognize and preserve the remnants of its past. Saving the Buckland House and the meadows behind it where the Bobolinks visit every year, preserving at least one of the old barns on Westfall Road, naming the woods after the Edmunds family that once owned it, the Edmunds family whose diaries of daily farm life my father transcribed, these were all issues he went to bat for. There would be no brickyard trail if it wasn’t for my father. I reminded the crowd of this when I spoke, just as the fire trucks showed up to respond to a woman who had fainted during the politicians’ drivel.
The Brickyard Trail runs through one of the former “clay banks.” The town was developing it while my father was still alive. We’d pull in the temple’s parking lot on the way home from his doctor’s appointments and check on the progress. My father was too sick to get out of the car on the last visit so he had me take photos. The politicians managed to cut the ribbon and the Brickyard Trail opened. We walked the trail with a small crowd and quite a few people made a point to tell us my father would have been proud. As modest as he was he would have proud.
1 Comment
Paul, I loved that blog on the brickyard trail ribbon cutting . we should talk some time I would like to know more , your dad sounds like he was the one who had the passion and did the heavy lifting and many others are there to bask in the glory ….