If I recall correctly, mud wall construction was a common vernacular
mode of construction in Ireland and other parts of the British Isles.
It is generally assumed by Henry Glassie, Glassie & Kniffen, and others,
that the large numbers of Scots and Irish who came to America in the
early 18th century abandoned mud wall construction in favor of building
with logs.  Part of this theory is based on the notion of the
mid-Atlantic culture hearth (southeastern PA, DE River Valley, etc)
where the Scots and Irish presumably rubbed elbows with log house
building ethnic Germans.  It is believed that this shift was motivated,
in part, by the ready availability of logs and, in some regions of the
U.S., a lack of good clays and sods.  Nonetheless, one would expect to
find some evidence of mud-walled houses in America, and this survey that
Ned found is very interesting.  The apparent dearth of mud-wall houses
may have something to do with preservation problems (i.e., how well did
they hold up?) and I'm also interested in hearing any ideas as to how
these would show up in the archaeological record.
 
Another possibility is that the houses may have been built of pise, or
rammed-earth construction.  I seem to recall that experiments in pise
construction were something of a vogue in France during the later 18th
century.  Thomas Jefferson was interested in the process, which he
discovered during his travels abroad.  John Hartwell Cocke, the
progressive farmer who built Bremo in Fluvanna Co., VA., also
experimented with pise.  I believe he built several slave houses with
rammed earth sometime in the 1830s.  Rammed earth was also one of those
off-beat, alternative building methods that received mention in
mid-19th-century house pattern books.  Ned, please let us know if you
manage to uncover any information on the owners/builders of the houses.
Thanks!
 
Marty Perdue
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