Tabby is a building material consisting of lime

Lime (mineral)

Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for a single mineral of the CaO composition, occurring very rarely...

, sand

Sand

Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal...

, water

Water

Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

, and crushed oyster

Oyster

The word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....

 shells. It was developed and used by English colonists in Beaufort County and on the Sea Islands

Sea Islands

The Sea Islands are a chain of tidal and barrier islands on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the United States. They number over 100, and are located between the mouths of the Santee and St. Johns Rivers along the coast of the U.S...

 of coastal South Carolina, in coastal Georgia, and in northern Florida in the Southern United States

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

. The period of use extended from the Colonial Period

Colonial America

The colonial history of the United States covers the history from the start of European settlement and especially the history of the thirteen colonies of Britain until they declared independence in 1776. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain and the Netherlands launched major...

 into the early 19th century.

The labor-intensive process depended on slave labor to crush and burn the oyster shells to supply lime. They were combined with sand and water in wood forms to hold the shape until the material hardened. Tabby was used as a substitute for bricks, which were rare and expensive because of the absence of local clay. Some researchers believe that the name came from the Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

word, tapia, which means "mud wall", but that English colonists developed their own process independently of the Spanish.

External links

• "Tabby: The Oyster Shell Concrete of the Lowcountry", Beaufort County, South Carolina Public Library.
• Colin Brooker, "The Conservation and Repair of Tabby in Beaufort County, South Carolina", revised version of formal talk, "The Conservation of Tabby in Beaufort County, South Carolina," given at Jekyll Island Club Hotel, Jekyll Island, Georgia, on February 25, 1998.