1818. In this country they build “cob-houses;” a “cob” is the interior part of a head of Indian corn after the grains are stripped off; with these cobs, which are lying about every where, structures are raised by the little half Indian brats, very much like our “houses of cards,” whose chief merit lies in their tumbling down before they are finished; or like castles in the air, which are built by most people in every country under the age of fifty.—Birkbeck, ‘Letters from Illinois,’ p. 90 (Phila.).
1830. The victim is chained to a stake, and a pile of combustible wood built up around him, in the form of a cob-house.—Description of a negro-burning in South Carolina, Mass. Spy, July 21: from the Providence American.
1852. See BACK-LOG.
1857. When I see a number of little boys by the Tithing Office, where we shell the corn, building a cob-house in order to pluck the sun from the heavens and bring it down to the earth, I believe that they will accomplish their design just as readily as I believe that the devil and all his imps will accomplish the destruction of this people.—Brigham Young, June 28: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ iv. 370.
