Back in my day, we drank paint thinner. Well, turpentine. Well, we didn’t really drink it. We took a spoonful of it. Well, we didn’t really take a spoonful of it. We occasionally took a couple of drops of it on a spoonful of sugar when mom thought we were wormy. I will never forget the taste, and from what I recollect it wasn’t unpleasant. The medical profession deemed turpentine unsafe for human consumption, but it never killed the Huddleston kids.
For over a century, turpentine was a booming business in the South. After the Civil War, Northern investors bought up thousands of acres of land thick with pine trees.
Workers would hack and slash into long leaf pine trees about three feet above the ground. A pot was hung from a metal sleeve to collect the sap when it ran from early spring through October.
Men stretched across hundreds of acres collecting gum and scraping it into wooden barrels which were then hauled by mule-driven wagons to backwoods stills.
Heat, pressure, and steam from the stills would separate the gum into turpentine and rosin.
“Spirits of turpentine“ was sold in different grades, each with its own use. By burning the pines’ fallen limbs in earthen kilns, tar and pitch were produced.
Turpentine, along with rustic tar and pitch, were first used in shipbuilding and maintenance, creating a global naval store industry. Pitch was used to make ships watertight and preserve planking, ropes, and rigging on ships.
The turpentine business was so big in North Carolina, it was nicknamed “The Tar Heel State.”
Spirits of turpentine was burned in lamps to light homes across America. Turpentine blended with grain alcohol was known as burning fluid. Both replaced more expensive whale oil, until kerosene, gas lighting, and electricity replaced them.
Turpentine would serve as paint thinner, insecticide, flavoring agent, perfume additive, and home remedy medicine.
Rosin became critical for paper production, was used in adhesives, chewing gum, mustache wax, gun powder, oil paints, and polyester. It’s used to keep racing tires from spinning out, on bows of stringed instruments, on dancers’ shoes, and to improve baseball pitchers’ grip.
As complete forests of pine trees were destroyed by the technology of the day, the industry moved further south to new ground.
“Turpentine Camps” sprung up near each operation. Living conditions were bare minimum, with most men making $1 a day, and indebted to the company store.
Trends in the forest products industry changed. Synthetic solvents became dominant, and a process was developed to produce turpentine as a by-product of paper manufacturing. The turpentine industry faded.
Lately there has been a resurgence in the popularity of turpentine. Small batch distilleries are manufacturing turpentine the old-fashioned way, but using sustainable methods of forest management.
More people are using home remedies instead of Big Pharma, and turpentine is once again being touted for its medicinal properties, especially for eliminating parasites.
Most turpentine sells for around $4 an ounce.
Related
Advertisement