Features July 2026

Essays | Themes | Research

George Hyde sent us this essay just days before his passing in June. We’re honored to publish it now as our feature.

Nothing to Hyde

by George Hyde

Turpentine

Every week, millions of Floridians and their guests dip their toes in the surf at some of the world’s prettiest beaches; they indulge their more benign fantasies at the world’s best-known theme parks; perhaps—like many OLLI members—they’ll take a few moments to appreciate Florida through the inventions of Edison, the observations of Zora Neale Hurston, and the adventures of Neil Armstrong and John Glenn. They’ll tee up a Titleist, savor a sample of local O-J, and maybe even try a few puffs of cigars created in Tampa’s Ybor City or Miami’s Little Havana.

Those of us transplanted from “up north” revel in Florida’s mild, snow-free winters, and pothole-free springs alive with the crackle of pre-season baseball.

And sometimes we forget—we forget that Florida wasn’t created as a theme-park-perfect entity and that there are some blemishes on Florida’s spectacular growth and prosperity that are seldom the subjects of casual (or serious) discussion among today’s settlers. This month’s column deals with one, and then we’ll decide whether we should continue our exploration or simply re-shelve the other stories in the file marked “The Florida We Don’t Talk About.”

Naval stores included materials such as tar, pitch, and turpentine used for the maintenance of wooden sailing ships. “Naval Stores” was also Florida’s largest industry at the start of the 20th Century—larger than logging and lumber milling, cigar manufacturing, phosphate mining, and agriculture (including citrus). Vast pine forests covered much of the state, providing raw material for extraction and distillation, frequently at self-contained “turpentine camps,” the remains of which can be seen at a few little-publicized historical sites in the general vicinity of the Suncoast Parkway toll road (and its planned extensions) through Hernando County, and in northeast Florida at the notorious Knabb Turpentine enterprise in Baker County near Macclenny. The sprawling Knabb pine plantation appears to have been relatively stationary, while many of the “turpentine camps,” where workers were housed in the deep pine forests near the stills, were simply uprooted and moved as a unit when the local supply of pine sap became depleted.

The Florida “Knabb Plantation” was a historic turpentine enterprise established by the Knabb family in northeast Florida. In the 1920s and 1930s, the family, led by State Senator T.J. Knabb, operated the largest turpentine empire in the world—over 200,000 acres of pine forest in Baker County. The pine resin harvesting operation is historically significant for its large-scale industrial output, although it was controversial due to the harsh conditions and convict labor.

Smiling Cats and Herty Cups

Think of sap as part of the circulatory system within a longleaf pine tree; it carries nutrients and water up from the root system, and then helps circulate some of the healthy products of photosynthesis throughout the tree; it also repairs damage, repels insects, and insulates the tree from cold-weather damage. Making an angular cut through the bark stimulates the release of sap which would be collected in small terra-cotta pots named for their inventor, chemist Charles Herty, and the cuts gradually create a pattern described as “smiling cats,” one of the most notable characteristics of a plantation which once served as a turpentine camp. Each camp also had at least one still, to help separate the sap in the Herty cups into different densities, from tar and pitch to pharmaceuticals.

Catface Tree: A “catface tree” refers to the distinctive, V-shaped scars left on the trunks of pine trees (predominantly Longleaf pines) in the American South. The pattern of slashes and gutters resembles cat whiskers; these scars earned the nickname “catfaces.” Early harvesters cut deep, cavity-like pockets directly into the base of living pine trees to catch sap. This was highly destructive and often killed the trees.

The Herty Cup (1900s): Dr. Charles Herty revolutionized the industry by inventing a method that didn’t require carving a deep, tree-killing cavity. Instead, workers made angled slashes (“catfaces”) and used metal gutters to direct the flowing pine resin into a clay or metal collection cup.

Naval Stores: The collected sap was distilled to make turpentine, tar, and rosin, which were essential for waterproofing wooden ships, sealing ropes, and caulking seams.

“I Owe My Soul…”

Although slavery had been abolished in Florida upon Confederate surrender in 1865, conditions for turpentine camp workers remained bleak even forty years later; an embedded peonage system involving farmer-owned retail stores kept most workers indebted to their bosses in ever-increasing amounts. If you remember the Tennessee Ernie Ford song, “Sixteen Tons,” you’ll understand the economic manipulations that kept the workers from achieving freedom from indebtedness to “the company store” and thus, unable to leave the squalid camp conditions in search of a better life. Florida State prisons were a complementary source of labor, with inmates “leased” by wardens to work in the turpentine camps until 1923, only to be followed by the implementation of “chain gangs” doing essential infrastructure work, but on the state government “payroll” rather than as representatives of a third party.

Ever-increasing daily quotas, unrealistically high “company store” prices, whippings, beatings—all remained part of the infrastructure that supported the wooden-boat industry.

Over time, however, DuPont and other companies developed systems for turpentine production which did not require manual extraction of pine sap, and many today rely largely on the use of synthetic ingredients or by-products from paper manufacturing.

Nonetheless, there was a time—and not that long ago—when abusive treatment of indebted laborers was an accepted practice in Florida’s largest industry. And it’s one of the things we typically haven’t talked about much in polite society; maybe that needs to change.

George Hyde (1947-2026), holder of an MBA and a graduate of Brown University, was a veteran radio broadcaster who served as Executive VP, Radio Advertising Bureau; Vice Chairman, National Association of Broadcasters; and Florida Regional Vice President for a major radio group. George spent his career in radio, both on-air and behind the scenes. His passion for accurate information and critical thinking led to the creation of many memorable OLLI courses. In George’s recurring column—Nothing to Hyde—he shared his observations about daily life, OLLI events and classes, and topics of interest to all.