one hog drive to Virginia in by McWhiney’s figures of annual drives
the last fifteen antebellum years—to other Atlantic and to Gulf ports—and
the diminution of many thousands of square miles of longleaf forests be-
comes overwhelming. No wonder the species is gravely endangered today,
its ultimate extinction predicted annually.
This scenario may be true enough, but not quite true. First, near the
Blackwater River in far southern Isle of Wight County, well into the twen-
tieth century a stand of longleaves was found by lumber and paper indus-
try cruisers. Nearby were barely visible remains of turpentine stills from
the s, and stumps of long-ago-cut trees revealed marks showing that
the trees were ‘‘boxed’’ to tap resin for turpentine distilling. There were
also grass-stage longleaves scattered about. The tree had survived, if barely,
in Virginia after all. During the s the lumber/paper company (Union-
Camp) gave the little grove to Old Dominion University, which in turn char-
tered the Blackwater Ecologic Preserve. Managers regularly burn the for-
est floor so longleaf regeneration may be assured. Meanwhile, the remains
of turpentine distilleries and the old slash wounds on stumps of long-
cut longleaves suggest a different cause for longleaves’ near-demise. The
crackers’ hogs had their day, but it was naval stores entrepreneurs who
must bear major responsibility for prolonged, massive depredations of the
magnificent longleaf pine.
tThe naval stores industry is at least as old as sailing ships. Wooden
hulls bore up better if protected with tar and pitch, which with caulking
not only sealed out water but discouraged shipworms. Miles of roping to
manage sails needed protection, too. No wonder that sailors handling lines
and climbing rope ladders were called tars by English-speakers. During the
seventeenth century, as England became deforested principally from the
building of its own navies, Scandinavian naval-stores producers achieved,
collectively, near-monopolistic control over the industry. The mercantilist
response of the British, new imperialists, was promotion of tar, pitch, and
resin production in America. So was born the first and longest-lived ‘‘First
Wave’’ southern industry, especially in North Carolina, where a northeast-
ern river is named the Tar and whose people, even now, are known as Tar
Heels.
In America the naval stores industry had an up-and-down history, start-
ing before and persisting through the colonial era. Production was
outrageously wasteful there. Workers made open, elongated pits of clay,
piled the pits with pine logs and limbs, and set them ablaze. As the wood