HISTORIC ABER BRICK, JACKSONVILLE, TEXAS, CIRCA 1890
(so-called swastika brick)

Historic Aber Brick

Kiln-fired in the late 1800s and branded with an ancient good-luck symbol, this historic brick was loaned to the Vanishing Texana Museum in Jacksonville, Texas, by the Ed Aber family of that community.

Our research for Lives of Texas Brick—and Their Makers led us to trace the so-called swastika brick to Jacksonville and track down the facts about it. Sam Hopkins, PhD, chairman of the museum board of directors, met with us in 2013 while the museum was in the midst of renovation. Historic artifacts were packed in boxes, but in one of the rooms, Dr. Hopkins identified a carton that yielded the object of our search! Many thanks to him for the opportunity to photograph the brick and card, which reads:

Aber brick description card

BURNT EARTH BRICK
Made in Jacksonville by Mr. Ed Aber about 1890
The sign X was a universal Good Luck Sign
The business was called Aber Brick Kiln

Ed Aber’s brick and our book research made news in a September 25, 2013 article in the Jacksonville Daily Progress (Jo Anne Embleton, “Unusual Jacksonville brick brings credence to history museum,” with quotes from Dr. Hopkins). The Vanishing Texana Museum reopened at their renovated original site: the WPA-constructed building at 3012 South Bolton Street. Their collection reaches far back in time and also well beyond the region.

From The Lives of Texas Brick—and Their Makers, here is a snippet about

the symbol, the era, the historic Aber brick

In the 19th century world that Ed Aber knew, the raised brand within a rectangular recess on his “burnt earth brick” signified good luck. The cross with equal arms that “turn” at right angles is an ancient symbol that evokes whirling motion—like two sticks bound together and twirled to create fire. During the very era that Aber kiln-fired this brick, the symbol had a surge of popularity in the Western world after it was discovered during Heinrich Schliemann’s excavation of ancient Troy. (Schliemann was the “Indiana Jones” of circa 1870 through the turn of the century. His archaeological discoveries were the rage of the late Victorian era and would have been well-known to Aber.) The symbol was also frequently found among Native American tribes, particularly in the Southwest; Hopi and Navajo referred to it as “The Whirling Logs of Healing.” The term swastika derives from Sanskrit su (good) + asti (it is) + suffix ka (soul). The symbol went by other names in other cultures over time, e.g., crux gammata in Rome, fylfot in Britain, tetraskelion in Greece (familiar now as the tetraskele, or “four-leg”).

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Ed Aber probably had no idea of the ancient history of his land, but that clay from which he fired his brick—and Dave Walling fired his in Houston County—came from the soil of the Hasinai Confederation, occupants since 1000 BC as the farthest southwestern outpost of the Mound Builder Culture. Here, Texans called them Caddo, meaning “friend.”

In 1690, Spanish explorers and missionaries found the Caddo truly friendly, living in a highly developed community near today’s tiny village of Weches in Houston County, just 38 miles south of Aber’s Jacksonville in Cherokee County. The Spanish built Mission San Franciso de los Tejas near the Neches River. It remained until 1731 before moving to Bexar County on the San Antonio River where it became Mission San Francisco de la Espada, and remnants still exist.* In Aber and Walling territory, however, we have only the Mission Tejas State Park in its memory.

* Data from Archaeology magazine, May/June 2014, page 10; also, Texas State Historical Association.

Ancient Native American symbol (as on historic Aber brick) adopted by U.S. National Guard c. 1923

45th Division Badge circa 1930s

45th INFANTRY DIVISION SWASTIKA

Just a few years after its formation in 1923, the 45th Infantry Division—a National Guard unit spanning Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona—adopted this ancient Native American symbol. Assumption of a similar version by the German Nazi party about 1933 forced the 45th’s replacement by their Thunderbird insignia in 1939. For more, see http://45th.45wp.com/Swastika

Displays and storage room artifacts at this museum in Oklahoma City were a gold mine when researching for The Soldier’s Chronology, especially equipment, uniforms and insignia from the Army’s continually-evolving but little-publicized era of the 1920s and 1930s. In appreciation, the author donated a display of unofficial and seldom-seen specialist chevrons from the 1930s.