Date published: 0000-00-00
Source: Amy Notes (ID702)
Author: Howard, Amy (ID633)
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Content id: 26331
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Mend can work for Canty and Nairne and Smith can be watching and writing down the process, then clai

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Canty made tar and pitch with 13 slaves

Date Created: 2023-10-12 20:56:17
Source: Black Majority (ID 127)
Author: Wood, Peter (ID 93)
Content_id: 2657
Turpentine, the resinous substance tapped from the living pitch-pine, was less valuable tahn other naval stores, but its extraction paved the way for producing tar and pitch. (Rosin, obtained in small amounts by teh troublesome process of boiling turpentine with water, was only occasionally distilled for export.) A tall person would chop channels in a standing pine so that they converged at its base, where several boards were fixed to catch the liquid as it drained down the trunk and hardened. "The Channels," Nairne explained, "are cut as high as one can reach with an Axe, and the Bark is peeled off from all those parts of the Tree that are expos'd to the Sun, that the Heat of it may the more easily force out the Terpentine." A variation was called boxing the tree: "The Planters make their Servants or Negroes cut large Cavities on each side of the Pitch-Pine Tree... whereinthe Turpentine runs, and the Negroes with Ladles take it out and put it into Barrels." Such grooving, peeling, and hollowing demanded considerable skill, and it was regarded as wasteful for seasoned axement to assume the simpler chore of felling trees; instead the pines were often allowed to drain and dry for several years, after which time a strong wind would bring them down. Slaves were set to work, especially in winter, gathering this so-called lightwood and splitting it into billets several feet in length. Negroes also constructed the actual tar kilns into which these sticks were placed. Note: This was done by leveling off part of a rise of ground to create a circular clay floor included slightly downward toward teh middle. Fromthat central point a wooden pipe was laid, the lower end of which extended outside the circumference over a hollowed spot where a bucket or barrel could be placed to catch the tar. The sticks of lightwood were then stacked in a circular fashion, ends sloping toward the center of the kiln, and the pile was sealed around the sides and top within a thick layer of earth or sod. An opening was left in top through which to kindle the wood, but after it began to burn even that was covered over. Once fired, a kilnburned down slowly with a flameless heat over several days (depending on the amount of wood it contained, and demanded vigilant attention. Salves attended the wooden drain day and night to see that the hot tar which trickled forth was caught and ladled into barrels. Another man, whose task required a skill adn intuition comparable to that of the highly respected boilers on sugar plantations, was responsible for tempering the internal heat by thrusting a stick through the sod to regulate the flow of air. A well-burned kiln yielded considerably more and better tar than one which was poorly attended. Nor were such tasks without danger. According to the naturalist John Brickell: "It sometimes happens through ill management and especially in too dry Weather that these Kilns are blown up as if a train of Gun-powder had been laid under them by which Accident their Negroes have been very much burnt or scalded." Pitch could be created "either by boiling Tar in large Iron Kettles, set in Furnaces, or by burning it in round Clay-holes, made in the Earth." (Nairne) This process may have sometimes been done by different men, for a document from 1713 lists William Canty, Jr., of Berkely County, strictly as a "Pitch Boyler." He owed a debt at 10% annual interest to landgrave Thomas Smith, which he intended to pay off with 200 barrels of pitch per year, and in the meantime Smith had the right to claim any of the 13 slaves who were working with Canty. AN63

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