In Oshawa, about one mile south-west from St. Peter, Matthias Davidson has made bricks 19 years, using the recent alluvium. He averages 400 thousand yearly, and sells at $4 to $7 per M [1,000]. (The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, The Eighth Annual Report for the Year 1879, Submitted to the President of the University, Feb. 18, 1880, The Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, MN, 1880, Page 120)
In Oshawa, about one mile southwest from Saint Peter, Matthias Davidson has made bricks twenty-three years, using also the recent alluvium of the river, mixing with it one-fourth as much sand. He averages 400,000 yearly, and sells at $4 to $7 per thousand. The surface at the excavation is 15 to 18 feet above low water; at the top a thickness of three to four feet, being too sandy, is rejected; the next ten feet, consisting of dark, levelly stratified, fine clayey silt, are used for brick-making; four feet lower, at 18 feet below the surface, this deposit changes to coarse gray sand and gravel containing much limestone. A layer full of fresh-water gastropod shells, like those of the neighboring sloughs, occurs about five feet below the surface in the excavation, being continuous through its whole extent of about a hundred feet. A slough existed once at this level; but above and below this stratum are occasional land shells (Helix), indicating a deposit accumulated by freshets, as in spring, and left dry during the rest of the year. (A Report on the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, Volume II, 1882-1885, N. H. Winchell and Warren Upham, Pioneer Press Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1888, Page 178)