Tabby

Tabby is a Georgia historical marker in Glynn County, dedicated 1956.

On Riverview Drive near Major Horton Drive on Jekyll Island.

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Tabby was the building material for walls, floors, and roofs widely used throughout coastal Georgia during the Military and Plantation Eras. It was composed of equal parts of sand, lime, oyster shell and water mixed into a mortar and poured into forms. The lime used in tabby was made by burning oyster shell taken from Indian Shell Mounds, the trash piles of the Indians. The word tabby is African in origin, with an Arabic background, and means "a wall made of earth or masonry." This method of building was brought to America by the Spaniards. When the Coquina (shell rock) quarries near St. Augustine were opened, hewn stone superseded tabby for wall construction there. Coastal Georgia has no coquina, so tabby continued to be used even as late as the 1890s.

Maps this old were drawn largely by eye, so places on them can sit miles from where they really are. The pin is ours and marks the marker's location today.

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1764 · Carte de la Nouvelle Georgie (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1778 · Parte Orientale della Florida, della Giorgia, e Carolina Meridionale. Fogl. XI (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1816 · Georgia. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1852 · Georgia, Florida. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1924 · South Carolina. Florida. Georgia. Mississippi. Alabama. North Carolina. South Carolina. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Carte de la Nouvelle Georgie, 1764, covering the location of Tabby, with a pin at the marker's coordinates — Carte de la Nouvelle Georgie, 1764, covering this location. David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

Example

For example, one family's tree showed the Articles of Confederation marker in Pennsylvania standing under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s.

What that marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years there.

From one family's 77-marker roster

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The marker isn't at this spotOur pin may be off. If you know where it stands, tell us.I couldn't find the markerWe record what the source recorded. We have not been to look.The sign reads differentlyThat would be an error, and we can pass it to the program.The historical map looks wrongThe period map behind the pin, not the marker itself.Something else

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This historical marker is part of the Georgia Historical Marker Program and was erected by the Georgia Historical Commission. Marker texts and locations come from the Society's own marker database.

More markers nearby

On the National Register nearby

Horton-duBignon House130 ft

Places within about 300 feet of this marker that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A nearby listing is not always the marker's own subject.