Thanks to all who replied to my posting. All replies were made to the
histarch list (no personal replies), so they are accessible to all.

In addition, a co-worker found a reference by Orson S. Fowler that was very
useful. In particular, Fowler wrote "A Home for all, or the Gravel Wall and
Octagon Mode of Building" in 1853; republished in 1973 as "The Octagon
House: A Home for All." Fowler does not refer to the construction method as
rammed earth, but rather as "the gravel wall plan." His main points of
argument in favor of this type of construction were:

1.  Wood is an objectionable building material, due to decomposition.
2.  Brick is too laborious to make.
3.  "Lime, gravel, and stone walls" are simple and efficient; buildings are
constructed with a shovel, not by an expensive mason.

He notes houses built in this method (which included the entire walls built
of compressed lime and gravel, not just the foundation) in Janesville, WI
prior to 1850. The 1973 version of the book also shows a house built in
Chenango County, NY with this construction method. He offered detailed
instruction (ca. 15 pages) for building such structures. Fowler went on to
build several houses with gravel wall plans himself, including his own home
which used a mixture of sand, lime, gravel and pounded slate that was
poured first into the foundation trenches. Then the trenches were filled
with a  sand, lime and water mixture. Same procedure for the walls, except
wooden forms were used. He also notes that pebbles, oyster shells (burned),
broken brick, "coal-dross from furnaces," clinkers, "blacksmiths siftings"
and "anything hard" could be thrown into the mix.

I believe our 1875-1885 church used a modified form of the gravel wall
plan. Specifically, the walls were wood-framed, but sat on 15 linear gravel
"wall" foundations, similar to really long narrow building piers.

Cindy Peterson