Turpentine is a fluid made from the sap of certain trees, especially pines. Uses have included as a solvent for paint thinning and production of varnishes. Turpentine has been largely replaced by cheaper products made from petroleum.
Between about 1840 and 1930 turpentining was big business in mostly south Alabama with it's plentiful supply of longleaf pines. You can read more about the industry and the process in the Encyclopedia of Alabama article by Catherine Kim Gyllerstrom. She also wrote her Auburn University dissertation on the topic, "2000 Trees a Day: Work and Life in the American Naval Stores Industry, 1877-1940". Pitch or resin used in caulking wooden ships was produced from the same trees.
The industry's long history in the state included the use of labor by slaves, convicts leased to private companies, and immigrants lured from northern cities into debt peonage/involuntary servitude in Alabama with promises of lucrative work. You can imagine the conditions in which these men worked in the isolated pine forests of not only southern Alabama but also northwest Florida and southern Georgia. .
An article by Breck Pappas in the Mobile Bay Magazine March 23, 2017, described a particularly horrific incident: "A 1901 story from the New York Times describes the burning of a Baldwin County turpentine camp as “the most horrible catastrophe in the history of Alabama.” It’s reported that 60 people perished in the fire, which started in the middle of the night while workers slept. The tragedy’s lone survivor was said to have rowed naked across Mobile Bay the next day to recount his story."
