1791 letter about the brick making business

Before the commissioners hired Collen Williamson or James Hoban, they tried to hire a master brick maker. In November 1791 when Francis Cabot, a Yankee merchant left Georgetown for home, the commissioners asked him when in Philadelphia “to enquire on what terms we could get some of the most experienced brick makers to come here early in the spring.” But the report Cabot sent back made brick makers seem pretty expensive.

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 115

How essential slaves were in the brick making business is a hard to estimate. Some historians think it was the worse job they were forced to do, especially since by tradition children were used. I think brick making was probably the best way for slaves to exhibit skills that could allow them to make extra wages and thus, in time, buy their own freedom. However, I can't point to any slave who made bricks for the Capitol and White House who ever got extra wages let alone buy their own freedom. 

I can't make my case because the commissioners never hired brick workers. They used contractors to make their bricks. However, I think one of the first contractors hired in 1792, William Hill, was a free black and according to Jesuit records he was a slave in the 1760's. 

Two of the commissioners, Thomas Johnson and Daniel Carroll of Rock Creek, were slave holders who likely used bricks in their personal building project. In the 1780's a traveler said members of the Carroll family built a house with bricks that were made by their own slaves.However judging from their correspondence in late 1791, the commissioners looked to Philadelphia to find someone to run their brick making operation.

One can dismiss this as  a public relations ploy to spread the word in the then capital that the new capital was on its way, but the commissioners persisted in the quest and a Philadelphia brick maker they almost hired in 1793 did come to the city though he worked, I think, as a contractor. He even supervised the brick making for the scion of the Carroll family in the city, Daniel Carroll of Duddington. 

Certainly the man the commissioners asked to find a Philadelphia brick maker took their request seriously. The letter below describes the wage rates for the overseer of the burning and molders, and notes that laborers "conduct the rest of the business." The letter does not mention the race of the brick workers in Philadelphia. But the letter, I think, suggests the mobility inherent in brick making. Both the laborers and molders got their hands dirty and with the same clay. Only the most foolish contractor would deny an African American laborer a try at becoming a molder. If he worked in a city, a slave molder would understand the value of his labor, and finding himself the most essential cog in a manufacturing process might perhaps be able to leverage some advantages.

Below the letter from Cabot is the November 26, 1791, letter the commissioners wrote to Cabot in which they ask him to find several brickmakers.