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AL-25
Sam Jackson Box 214
Turpentine Camp Fairhope, Ala.
Route, Stapleton, Ala. Baldwin County.

SAM, THE TURPENTINE CHOPPER
By Lawrence F. Evans

The sand-trail stopped abruptly. On one side an old
cemetery, gone to ruin after the Civil War, reared huge
monuments as high as cedars over gaping holes, where lizards
and toads lived among the bones of those who had dwelt in
peace and plenty in this land. On the other other side, a squat
turpentine camp, called the quarters, sprawled en the slope
of the hill. It was a new camp, only a couple of years old.
In this spot Sam Jackson, turpentine chopper, route 2,
Stapleton, Alabama, lived with his wife, Lou end their two
children.

Here eight miles from a highway and sixteen miles from
a town, was a country slum. Their rude, rent-free shack,
crouched low in a semi-circular row of sixteen of a kind.
The sheet metal roof covered three rooms of undressed and
unpainted pine. There was no ceiling on the roof or walls,
merely clumsy partitions made the rooms. The bedroom con-
tained a disreputable iron bed, forlorn and lop-sided. In
the adjoining room, a crude pine table was built into the
wall and its benches were also made of pine lumber. There
were no chairs. A dirty quilt on the floor served as a bed
for two colored children. The third room was merely a lean-
to. It contained an iron cook stove, teetering bravely on
three legs. It's best days were gone. There was no kitchen.