Turpentiners
worked hard
for product
By W. T.
Block
First
published in
Beaumont
Enterprise on
Saturday
December 4,
1999.
NEDERLAND—In
1915, if one
had seen
V-grooves
notched into
the East Texas
tree trunks
and buckets
affixed for
collecting
sap, the
unknowing
viewer might
suppose he was
in the maple
forests of
Vermont during
syrup-making
time.
Instead,
employees of
Western Naval
Stores Company
were
“turpentining,”
that is,
bleeding the
sap from pine
trees, which
was then made
into
turpentine and
rosin.
Even
the loggers
who often
worked beside
them did not
hold
“Turpentiners”
in high esteem
in East Texas.
A Broaddus
native
considered
them “...the
meanest people
that ever
lived...”
Although
many East
Texans worked
in the
turpentine
camps at very
low pay,
Western Naval
Stores
imported many
foreigners,
who formerly
had worked in
the forests of
Finland and
Russia. In
Western
Louisiana,
nearly all
turpentiners
were Black
men, who were
experienced in
that trade and
had been
solicited from
camps closing
in Georgia and
Alabama.
At
its peak about
1915, there
were probably
25 turpentine
camps in six
East Texas
counties,
about 80% of
the industry
being
concentrated
in Jasper and
Newton
counties. Two
towns in
Jasper County,
Wenasco and
Turpentine,
were devoted
solely to
bleeding pine
trees and
distilling the
sap.
Buckets
attached to
pine trees
might collect
as much as a
quart of sap
when they were
emptied weekly
and poured
into a nearby
barrel. The
barrel wagon
made frequent
rounds to pick
up the sap and
return it to
the “still,”
for the
process of
turpentine
distilling was
not greatly
different from
bootlegging.
Usually
a copper
“still”
contained the
sap, mixed
with water,
and the cooker
was heated
from a stone
furnace
beneath. The
distilled
liquid passed
through copper
coils in a
tank of water,
and the
finished
product was
turpentine,
floating on
water.
Oftentimes
coopers worked
in the camp,
making wooden
barrels for
the
turpentine.
Wenasco,
5 miles north
of Jasper, was
founded in
1915, its name
derived from
the beginning
letters of
Western Naval
Stores
Company. Being
solely a
turpentine
camp, it had a
single
distillery,
300 employees,
and a
population of
about 500 when
the site was
closed down
and abandoned
in 1919.
Turpentine,
Texas, 20
miles
northwest of
Jasper, was
located on the
Burr’s Ferry,
Browndell, and
Chester
Railroad. It
was founded in
1907, with an
initial work
force of 80
men, and it
had 16
subsidiary
camps in 4
neighboring
counties. The
turpentine
center in
Newton County
was at
Burkeville,
where several
camps were
subsidiary to
the main
distillery
there.
However,
the East Texas
industry was
dwarfed when
compared to
Western
Louisiana,
where the
major lumber
companies
owned
distilleries.
Long-Bell
Lumber Company
operated its
distillery and
camps adjacent
to its log
camp at Walla,
between
DeRidder and
Singer.
Western
Louisiana’s
largest
turpentine
distillery was
at Rustville,
operated by
Gulf Lumber
Company at
Fullerton,
east of
DeRidder. The
pine forest
was bled by 50
“crops,”
containing
505,000
“boxes,” and
the 3
distilleries
there averaged
150 barrels of
turpentine and
450 barrels of
rosin weekly.
The plant had
three
550-barrel
tanks for
turpentine and
worked 259
employees.
Rustville
was entirely a
Negro town,
which was
built in 1907.
It had 129 new
employee
cottages, a
commissary and
meat market,
depot, post
office, a
church and a
school. One
account noted
that “...there
is no other
plant that
offers greater
inducements to
the turpentine
Negro...”
At
a later date
Southwest
Louisiana’s
main
turpentine
plant was
located near
DeQuincy. Like
East Texas in
1930, all that
Western
Louisiana had
left from its
once mighty
lumber
industry was
30,000 square
miles of
lighter pine
stumps, rich
with rosin.
So,
Mr. Fiddler,
the next time
tune your
violin or
adjust your
bow, remember
how much work
went into that
little clump
of rosin.
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