In the 1920s and 1930s, developers arrived to create resort communities like Riviera Beach, Breton Woods, Shore Acres, and Normandy Beach.īrick Township was a relatively quiet resort area until the opening of the Garden State Parkway in the 1950s, when residential and commercial development created a dramatic growth in the year-round population. Their varying ethnic backgrounds brought diversity that dramatically changed the nature of the community. Overcrowding in northern New Jersey brought a new wave of settlers in the 1900s. It was not long after its formation that the iron works went out of business and new industries, such as cranberry and blueberry production, flourished. Brick's founding families included the Burrs, Woolleys, Allans, Cooks, Havens, Herberts, Wardells, Osborns, Tiltons, Johnsons, Grants, and Hulses and they comprised most of the population. The Brick Township Committee met for its first session on March 13, 1850, at the home of Richard Burr, and appointed its town officers. Eventually, certain portions would break away to form Bay Head, Mantoloking, Point Pleasant, Point Pleasant Beach, and Lakewood. At the time of its incorporation, it housed 1,558 residents.

Brick, who had died just three years earlier. The township was named for its most prominent resident, Joseph W. It included the area south of the Manasquan River in the northeastern portion of Dover Township, and was bordered on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and by Jackson Township on the west. On February 15, 1850, the same day Ocean County was formed, the New Jersey Legislature officially incorporated the Township of Brick. While local industry jobs were available, the area was also home to shipbuilders, carpenters, and sailors.

He was responsible for establishing a successful industry that converted bog ore into pig iron that was employed to make water pipes for New York City. Brick arrived around 1832 when he took over the Washington Furnace and transformed it into the Bergen Iron Works. They erected sawmills and gristmills that attracted even more settlers. Settlers from Long Island and Europe moved to the area in the mid-1700s and quickly saw the potential the natural resources offered. They not only cultivated the land, but they constructed useful items from local resources to use for trading purposes. A little over 10,000 years ago the Lenni-Lenape Indians inhabited the area currently known as Brick Township.

Brick township library