Kevin Wright, local historian extraordinaire, has an informative article in the Wayne Patch on Little Ferry's old brickyards.

Mehrhof Pond, a well-known local birding site, was created from a pit that provided the clay for bricks, and the pond itself was named for the brickmaking Mehrhof brothers.

Writes Wright:

"Representing a combined capital investment of $265,000, ten brickyards operating along the Hackensack River employed traditional methods of production. With the exception of the Mehrhof Brick Company, all used wood fuel to bake raw bricks in scove-kilns. “Soft-mud” brick machines produced over 60 million units of common building brick, a 90% increase over the previous year."

The link is here. 

An earlier post on the Mehrhof brick operation is here.

A link to an illustration of a scove-kiln is here; site has other historical brick-making info.