Manufactory dealer and brickworks owner P.M. Harder (March 4, 1840 – September 12, 1903) started with a hardware store, but later added a brickworks to his business. This burned down twice and ended up being incorporated into the cemetery where you can find his memorial stone.
The haberdashery merchant
Merchant Peter Mouritz Harder descended from a family of craftsmen. Both his grandfather, Jørgen Pauli Harder, and his father, Frederik Adolf Harder, were goldsmiths, but P.M. Harder, like his brother, Frederik Adolf Harder, chose to follow the trade route. P.M. Harder became a manufacturer, and his brother, F.A. Harder, became a merchant and wholesaler in(Den Gamle Købmandsgård Vestergade 15).
P.M. Harder, together with Niels Langballe Boserup, started a manufactory in Adelgade 7 in Skive on August 28, 1866. Boserup left the business in January 1879, which was continued by P.M. Harder alone. In 1886, P.M. Harder bought the neighboring property, Adelgade 9, which he had demolished the same year and replaced with a new three-story building, where the manufactory moved into the ground floor and where the Harder family got an apartment on the floor above.
Harder’s brickworks. The first fire
The bricks – most likely – came from Harder’s own brickworks, because together with his brother, F.A. Harder, P.M. Harder started a brickworks in Liselund below Skive Cemetery around 1870.
The brickworks burned down on August 6, 1897, and the two brothers built a new, modern brickworks, which was completed in May 1899. “The beautiful 25-horsepower steam engine, the large steam boiler, the huge drying kilns, where there is room to dry 200,000 bricks at once, and the mighty ring kiln, the machines that knead and shape the clay, the wagons that transport sand and clay down to the plant, the underground pipe from the river, whereby the water is still at hand, the 100-foot high chimney, everything gives the impression of a large company; 3 million bricks can also be produced annually.” (Skive Avis May 28, 1899) Price “with machinery and everything”: DKK 50,000.
The brickworks was only one of several in the immediate vicinity of Skive. There were also brickworks at Lundhede, Resengård and Krabbesholm, but unlike Harder’s brickworks, they were not modernized and therefore closed shortly after the turn of the century. In 1907, Skive got another modern brickworks, Gammelgård Teglværk, at Brårupvej.
The second fire. Wandering journeyman perishes
On September 12, 1930, Harders Teglværk burned again. Skive Folkeblad reported: “Harders Teglværk in Liselund has this morning at 6 o’clock been haunted by a violent fire that has put the brickworks itself in ashes, just as a couple of the drying barns have been destroyed. The fire killed the 55-year-old wandering journeyman, baker Chr. Stokholm from Lemvig, who had come to the brickworks last night under the influence of alcohol and had been allowed to sleep on the oven. There are currently 24 people working at the brickworks, and if the kiln has not been damaged, some will be able to continue working at the brickworks, says manager Hansen. One of the owners, merchant P.C. Jensen, expects the brickworks to be rebuilt.”
From brickworks to cemetery
This was not to be. In December 1930, the brickworks was sold to the owners of Gammelgård Teglværk, who announced that they would rebuild the brickworks in Liselund, but this was later abandoned. Instead, Skive Parish Council bought Harders Teglværk in order to expand the cemetery, where there was a lack of space. In January 1936, Skive City Council approved the construction of the new cemetery extension as an employment project. The cemetery was put into use in October 1937. On October 2, 1937, Vor Frue Kirke was rededicated as a church by Bishop Malmstrøm, Viborg, at a festive service. The service was also a kind of inauguration of the expansion of the cemetery in the former clay pit.
Public duties
P.M. Harder was a member of the Skive Equalization Commission for 18 years, but otherwise held no public offices.
Legacy and memorial stone
He died on September 12, 1903, aged 63. The manufacturing business was continued by his son, Jørgen W. Harder, who sold it to Emil Tønder in 1913.
After P.M. Harder’s death, the workers at Harders Teglværk erected a memorial stone at the grave site. It is a family grave, which contains a burial chamber.
The fine wrought iron fence around the grave was made by master blacksmith Arthur Neumann, Skive. In 2010 it was completely renovated by master blacksmith Johannes Stampe, Rødding.