WELL, IT’S TRUE - In 1889, the Savannah naval stores firm of Peacock, Hunt & Company was one of the largest in the entire world. The firm handled hundreds of thousands of barrels of the liquid distilled from the sap of pine trees which blanketed the coastal plain of Georgia. Charlie Baldwin, an experienced dealer in turpentine, received a small bottle which contained a sample of turpentine from Laurens County. The only problem was, this turpentine didn't come from a tree, it came from a well near Donaldson, between Lovett and Brewton on the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad.
In an accompanying letter, the operator of the company's farm stated what seemed to be colored turpentine had been drawn from a well at a depth of sixty feet. The well had been dug to furnish water for the operation of the company's turpentine still. Workers frequently noticed the odor of a strange gas escaping from the well. One curious fellow decided to drop a bucket down and see what he brought up. He couldn't believe his eyes or his nose. It was turpentine, not from the nozzle of the still, but from the bottom of a shallow water well. His fellow still hands got busy and hauled up fourteen barrels of the valuable commodity. A few days later, eighteen more barrels were filled with the mysterious substance. Seems no one ever knew exactly how the turpentine came to be found in the well. No one actually believed there could be an underground lake of turpentine, but neither did they believe that the find was nothing but a hoax.
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