commercial structures as well as in the brick, frame and log dwellings of the society members. The use of clay in plaster and in laying brickwork appears to have been a common practice at that time not just in the construction of Economy village when the settlement was founded in 1824. Specifications for the construction of, “Lock keepers houses on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, written about 1828, require stone walls to be laid with clay mortar, excepting 3 inches on the outside of the walls … which (are) to be good lime mortar and well pointed.” The choice of clay was because of its low cost, but also the availability. At Economy, root cellars dug under the houses yielded clay and sand (stone), or the nearby Ohio river yielded washed sand from the sand bars; and lime outcroppings and oyster shell for the lime kiln. The surrounding forests of the new village of Economy provided straight grain, old-growth oak trees for lath. Hand split lath starts with a log of straight grained wood of the required length. The log is split into quarters and then smaller and smaller bolts with wedges and a sledge. When small enough, a froe and mallet were used to split away narrow strips of lath. Farm animals provided hair and manure for the float coat of plaster. Fields of wheat and grains provided straw and hay to reinforce the clay plaster. But there was no uniformity in clay plaster recipes. Manure provides fiber for tensile strength as well as protein adhesive. Unlike casein used with lime plaster, hydrogen bonds of manure proteins are weakened by moisture. With braced timber-framed structures clay plaster was used on interior walls and ceilings as well as exterior walls as the wall cavity and exterior cladding isolated the clay plaster from moisture penetration. Application of clay plaster in brick structures risked water penetration from failed mortar joints on the exterior brick walls. In Economy Village, the rear and middle wythes of brick dwelling walls are laid in a clay and sand mortar with the front wythe bedded in a lime and sand mortar to provide a weather proof seal to protect from water penetration. This allowed a rendering of clay plaster and setting coat of thin lime and fine sand on exterior-walled rooms. Split lath was nailed with square cut lath nails, one into each framing member. With hand