Tabby concrete

[1] Tabby was used by early Spanish settlers in present-day Florida, then by British colonists primarily in coastal South Carolina and Georgia.

It is likely that 16th-century Spanish explorers first brought tabby (which appears as tabee, tapis, tappy and tapia in early documents) to the coast of Florida in the sixteenth century.

The oldest known example of tabby concrete in North America is the Spanish Fort San Antón de Carlos located on Mound Key in Florida.

The fact that the ruins were of structures built after the establishment of the Georgia Colony by Great Britain was not fully accepted by historians until late in the 20th century.

[8] With the exception of St. Augustine and, possibly, a few other important places, Spanish mission buildings were built with wooden posts supporting the roof and walls of palmetto thatch, wattle and daub or planks, or left open.

It was poured or tamped into wood forms called cradles, built up in layers in a similar manner to rammed earth.

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 at the Hamilton Plantation slave houses, St. Simons, Georgia
Horton House, built in 1743
Historic Bodiford Drug Store, Cedar Key, Florida
Heron Restaurant, Hale Building, Cedar Key, Florida, incorporates an older tabby structure.