See quot. 1848. This mode of building was introduced by Scottish immigrants.
1756. The cottage was built of timber stoops, and what we call cat and clay walls.—Mrs. Calderwood’s Journal (N.E.D.).
1848. For the next six years my father continued to reside at the same place, in the same original log cabin, which in due course of time acquired a roof, a puncheon floor below and a clap-board roof above, a small square window without glass, and a chimney, carried up with “cats and clay” to the height of the ridge-pole. These “cats and clay” were pieces of small poles, well imbedded in mortar.—Dr. D. Drake, ‘Pioneer Life in Kentucky,’ p. 20 (Cincinn., 1870).
1889. From a point sufficiently high to be beyond the flames, the chimney is made of small billets of oak with alternate layers of mud, hence called “dirt and stick” chimneys.—Phelan, ‘History of Tennessee,’ p. 25 (Boston).
