The Tar Burners
Their mark is still there in the piney
woods, where they sweated out tar
for the King’s Navy.
By
FRANK A. MONTGOMERY. JR.
To some folks it was “lightwood”; to Now, however, because there was
others, if they were the kind who liked suddenly a rip-roarin’ market for tar
one-syllable words the best, “lighter’d.” and pitch, everything changed. And
But no matter what it was called, or with the change, a brand new breed of
by whom, a piece of fat, resin-filled North Carolinian was bom. They
wood from a dead pine tree, when set called them “tar-burners,” and it was
afire, was wood that gave a “light.” one that couldn’t have fit them better,
And since such “lightwood” was just for what they surely did was “burn
about the only source of a light a lot tar” out of their “lighter’d.”
of early North Carolinians had, they
called it by its right name. Of course, Large Demand
you could also make a quick fire with It all started about 1700, when Nor-
it on a chilly morning, but outside of wegjan tar burners decided they
those two things there wasn't much else wanted a better price for the great
“lighter’d” was good for in those days, quantities of the tar and pitch they’d
There came a day, though, w'hen the long been selling the English to keep
good folks of the pineywoods found, their vessels shipshape. But their little
happily enough, that their familiar old plan backfired. The English simply
“fat lighter’d” was good for something turned to their colonics in the New
else — something mighty few of them World for the tar and pitch they had
were even on speaking terms with — to have.
and that something was money. They News of this happy development
found, in short, that their “lighter’d” reached the Virginians first, but in no
would yield tar, and the tar would time at all it had spread to even the
yield pitch. Of course, being the re- most remote settler in the eastern Caro-
sourceful kind of folks they were, they lina pineywoods regions. To most of
probably knew it all along, anyway, these small, backwoods farmers and
But they’d never bothered to make any woodsmen, to whom cash money was
of the stuff, unless it was a little bit to something you heard about but sel-
use around the house. dom saw, the prospect of turning their
1
Tar poured into Wilmington by the tens of thousands of barrels, and was loaded aboard ships far
England. Far decodes this was recognized as the biggest expart paint in the world for naval stares.
The ancient Wilmington harbar scene is from "Harper's News Monthly."
t 2
Scraping away just a few inches of eorth from
an aid tar kiln will reveal charcoal, oil that's left
af what was once a great pile of "lighter'd,"
wealth of “fat lighter’d” into hard cash
was like a breath of fresh air on a
hot summer’s day.
So they didn’t waste any time,
“Burnin’ tar,” as everybody called it,
began with a rush, all over the Caro¬
lina pine tree belt, where the “lighter'd”
had been accumulating on the forest
floor for no man knew how long. Thick
and black, or sulphury-yellow, de¬
pending upon the stage of the burning,
the smoke of the tar kilns hung low
in the pineywoods wherever a man
might look, especially in fall and win¬
ter when the farmers, their meager
crops in, took to the woods to burn
tar right alongside those who worked
at the job regular.
Rough Work
There wasn’t anything easy about
it, either — not by a long-shot there
wasn’t. And if anybody ever got rich
burnin’ tar it’s a secret that’s been
mighty well kept. Not only that, but it
meant exposure to all sorts of weather
for long days on end and, sometimes
painful, slow-healing bums on arm or
leg from the smoking-hot tar. Still aud
all, a dollar was a dollar, so there was
never a dearth of tar-burners in the
vast forests of virgin pine.
Burning tar meant, first of all, get¬
ting hold of enough “lighter’d” to bum.
This was done by going out in the
woods with an axe and gathering all
the old dead resin-filled pine wood one
could find, piling it up in little piles
and later on hauling it in to the place
where the kiln was to be built. There
the rich, orange-red wood was cut into
THE STATE, JANUARY 1. 1S6B
