Tabby concrete

Restored and unrestored slave cabins, made of tabby. Kingsley Plantation, Jacksonville, Florida.
Original tabby concrete walls of slave housing at Kingsley Plantation, early nineteenth century

Tabby is a type of concrete made by burning oyster shells to create lime, then mixing it with water, sand, ash and broken oyster shells.[1] Tabby was used by early Spanish settlers in present-day Florida, then by British colonists primarily in coastal South Carolina and Georgia.[1] It is a man-made analogue of coquina, a naturally-occurring sedimentary rock derived from shells and also used for building.[2]

Revivals in the use of tabby spread northward and continued into the early 19th century. Tabby was normally protected with a coating of plaster or stucco.

  1. ^ a b Carolina Supplies & Materials Inc. "Concrete and oyster shell agregate". Tabby Agregates – via JSTOR.
  2. ^ US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "What are coquina and tabby?". oceanservice.noaa.gov. Retrieved 2024-03-31.