Here in Beaufort rises Tabby Manse, also known as the Thomas Fuller House, a striking late 18th-century home built around 1786. Built around 1786 by Thomas Fuller, a prominent local planter of rice and cotton, it began life as the Fuller mansion — a wedding gift to his bride, Elizabeth Middleton. Take a moment to look closely: the exterior walls are made of tabby, a coastal material composed of whole oyster shells and lime from crushed oyster shells, an uncommon construction that leaves walls more than two-feet thick.
Those walls are then covered with stucco scored to look like stone blocks, giving the house its classical proportions and an almost carved presence. Tabby Manse is noted for its superb construction and is one of only a handful of remaining early American residences whose exterior walls are made entirely of tabby. Think of the family connections that surround this place: Elizabeth, descended from Henry Woodward, belonged to the Barnwells, the Bulls, and the Middletons; her great-grandfather, John 'Tuscarora Jack' Barnwell, subdued the Indians in the Carolinas; and her first cousin was Arthur Middleton.
Under that stucco scored to look like stone lie walls of whole oyster shells and lime, more than two feet thick.