Well I've seen many orignal ones in my day, but lets be sure to mention that my area of esxpertise is upper canada, which stretches along the St. Lawrence, from the Quebec border in the east--to Kingston in the west--and north to the Ottawa river, an area settled by United Empire Loyalists that emigrated here in 1784 from the Schoharie Valley area of New York State
These settlers brought building techniques that had their roots in Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland and France
This mix of peoples and ideas quickly mixed as the population mixed (boys and girls), and out of this mix barns and drivesheds,churches, homes, mills, shops, soon began to appear and of course they needed foundations to sit on
In this area the newly cleared land gave up its cover of stones that were mostly of glacial till origin--smoothed and rounded, and buildings such as small wood frame sheds, barns and other out buildings sat on the larger ones, strategically placed under load bearing points
Homes required a cellar and the walls were laid up using smaller stones held in place using lime mortar
