NORTH ALBANY — Emily May doesn’t consider herself much of a history buff. She’s never lived in a vintage home, nor does she have a passion for old things. Her home is dotted with some garage-sale antiques, but most of them are inherited from her mother.

But this past weekend, as May and a hired helper were pulling out a wood stove at a rental house she owns a few blocks from her own North Albany home, she was surprised to fund a little chunk of history. In the middle of the hearth was a single brick. The words “Convict made 1912 O.S.P” were hand carved in the brick’s surface. The house, which was owned by her parents until their death in the late 1980s, was built in the 1960s, so May assumes the bricks in the hearth must have been recycled from an older property. But as a rental for the past 20 years, the non-functioning fireplace had been filled with a woodstove insert that hid most of the hearth. She reckons the brick predated the house by about 40 years.

“I thought it was unique,” she said.

According to the State of Oregon Web site, the Oregon State Penitentiary began using convicts to make bricks on-site in 1910. The bricks were used primarily to build state institutions. Money made from the from sale of the bricks was used to offset the costs of operation of the prison.

May and her husband, Anthony, are retired from Hewlett-Packard Co., and they don’t want to keep the brick because it would just sit unappreciated in their house.

“I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” May said. She’d like to hear from local historic preservationists if any are interested in removing the brick for display — as long as they provide another brick to put in its place and as long as they aren’t looking to remove it for resale.

May wants to paint over the brick fireplace before she puts in an electric insert, and she doesn’t want to ruin the brick, nor does she want future tenants to spot the historic brick and jimmy it out from the hearth.

“I just hate to destroy it. So if it can go into a museum, and if they can fix the hearth after they take it …” she said, then she’d be able to move on with her hearth project and rent the house again.

Anyone involved in a museum or historic preservation enterprise is invited to contact May via e-mail at emilymis@q.com.

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