Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA 1905 Pine Barrens brick factory abandoned after fires killed multiple people — only chimney stacks and kilns remain, deep in the forest off Woodmanse Road
Woodmanse Road, Pasadena, NJ 08270
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Located in the New Jersey Pinelands; no fee to access. No facilities of any kind.
Access
Limited Access
Sandy Pine Barrens trail; soft terrain, moderate walking distance from road access. Ruins include unstable standing structures — use caution.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1905 · Pine Barrens brick production facility, 1905 · Multiple deaths on site including 1908 chimney fire (two caretakers) and a subsequent murder-suicide · Ruins documented by Weird NJ; among the more visited abandoned industrial sites in the Pine Barrens
The New Jersey Pine Barrens supported numerous small industrial operations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, drawing on the region's clay, timber, and iron resources. The Brooksbrae Brick Company established a facility on Woodmanse Road around 1905, producing brick from the area's clay deposits for regional construction markets.
The factory's operational history was brief and marked by repeated deaths on site. Around 1908, two caretakers died in a fire in one of the factory's chimneys. The operation continued, but the site accumulated a reputation for misfortune.
Several years later, the factory watchman Gildo Plazziano and Harriet Chattin, a 12-year-old girl who lived nearby, were found dead in the ruins. Investigators ruled the deaths a probable murder-suicide. The exact circumstances are documented in secondary sources drawing on contemporaneous newspaper accounts; no surviving court or inquest record was identified in the reviewed secondary literature.
The factory shut down not long after this final incident. The brick kilns, chimneys, and partial structural walls were left in place as the surrounding pine and oak forest moved back in. By the time Weird NJ documented the site in the 2000s, the ruins were substantially reclaimed by vegetation but the main kiln structures remained standing. The site continues to attract urban explorers and Pine Barrens hikers.
Sources
The curse legend that attaches to Brooksbrae follows a pattern seen at other abandoned industrial sites in the Pine Barrens: repeated misfortune at the same location generates a supernatural explanation, which consolidates into named entities and a transmissible story. In the Brooksbrae version, the recurring fires — 1908 and the later incident — are attributed to the ghosts of the 'Pine Witch and Pine Wizard,' a cursed pair said to have taken up residence in the ruins.
The naming is significant in Pine Barrens legend tradition. The Piney folk-supernatural vocabulary tends toward figures with regional specificity — the Jersey Devil, the Piney witches, the Pinehawker — rather than the generic haunted-house ghost. The Brooksbrae pairing slots into this local tradition, giving a narrative frame to industrial tragedy that might otherwise be explained by the ordinary hazards of early-twentieth-century brick production.
Weird NJ's documentation of the site combined the factual death record with the curse legend, treating both as part of the location's identity rather than separating history from folklore. The site is accessed by urban explorers and Pine Barrens hikers who report an atmosphere described as markedly unsettling — a quality that is partly the physical isolation of the ruins and partly the compound death history of the place.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The remaining brick kilns and chimney stacks of the 1905 Brooksbrae Brick Company factory rise from the surrounding pine forest, reclaimed by vegetation but still structurally visible. The site is accessed via a walk through sandy Pine Barrens terrain from Woodmanse Road and requires navigation; no trail is formally marked.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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