In most locales, the earliest and crudest buildings (excepting bark huts, which, if ventilated at all, featured simple roof openings) used exterior chimneys constructed of timber. These "stick-and-clay" or "cat-and-clay" chimneys were, for obvious reasons, quite dangerous, and settlers typically replaced them with masonry chimneys when finances permitted. Andrew Young's History of Wayne County, Indiana (1872) provides a good description of the stick chimney:
A wide chimney place was cut out of one end of the building, and split timbers laid up for jambs, flat sides inward, extending out from the building. This little structure supported the chimney which stood entirely outside of the house, and was built of the rived sticks before mentioned, laid up cob-house* fashion, gradually narrowed in at the top. The spaces between the sticks were filled with clay of the consistency of common mortar. Hence the name of "stick and clay" chimney. The inside of these wooden jambs was covered several feet high with a thick coat of clay or dirt to protect them against fire. The hearth was also dirt.
| A standard stick chimney. This building, presumably occupied by freedmen, stood in North Carolina. Image from the Keystone-Mast Collection, held by the University of California. Date and photographer unknown. |
In The Architecture of Migration, Donald Hutslar mentions "a carte de visit photograph, of about 1865, showing a catted chimney protected by an enormous gable overhang; the cabin was apparently located in a southern state." The Thornhill Plantation slave quarters (razed), in Greene County, Alabama, were similarly designed:
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| Photo from the Historic American Buildings Survey collection; date and photographer unknown. By 1935, masonry flues had replaced the stick chimneys. |
Just north of the village of Chesapeake, in Union Township, Lawrence County, Ohio, stood a small log house with a similar overhanging gable.
The home — quite crudely built, like many dwellings in impoverished Lawrence County — likely postdated 1887 (a property ownership atlas published that year omits the structure). Some Southerners immigrated to the Hanging Rock Iron Region in the 19th century; one may have erected this residence. Given the gable overhang, it's conceivable that the house featured a stick chimney when constructed.
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| Photo by C. Tim Jones, 1986, from the Ohio Historic Inventory. |
The home — quite crudely built, like many dwellings in impoverished Lawrence County — likely postdated 1887 (a property ownership atlas published that year omits the structure). Some Southerners immigrated to the Hanging Rock Iron Region in the 19th century; one may have erected this residence. Given the gable overhang, it's conceivable that the house featured a stick chimney when constructed.
* A "cob-house" is a stack of corn cobs, used as a toy. Nineteenth century authors frequently compare log buildings to "cob pens" or "cob houses"; evidently, the practice was well-known. In early America, isolation produced inventive and frugal children, it seems!
