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The Sticky Truth Behind Tar and Feathering
Today, we bandy about the term “tar and feathering” to indicate public shaming or humiliation. In the not-so-distant past, tar and feathering was a more physical way to show extreme dissatisfaction. Especially during the revolutionary years, it was a crowd (or more like an angry mob) favorite meant to expose and punish bad behavior, disloyalty, or increasingly unpopular support of crown policies. Think vigilante justice for perceived crimes that don’t warrant capital punishment. The end result was not only public embarrassment but a not insignificant amount of pain and suffering.
The Process
The process is no more complex than the name. The victim is stripped, usually to the waist, but on special occasions, entirely and covered with hot tar. Not the roadside stuff, but pine tar, used at the time as an adhesive and to fill the seams in wooden boats and ships. Once the victim was adequately sticky, they’d be covered in feathers.
Pardon the language, but the bottom line was… this sucked.
If you’ve ever grabbed a freshly cut log oozing with sap, you know precisely how sticky it is and how hard it is to remove from your skin. Now add semi-permanently attached feathers and the spectacle of morphing into a large bird with second and third-degree skin burns. Not fun. And everyone knew you’d been in hot water for some reason or another. There’s no hiding the tar and feathering treatment.
Pine Tar
When we think of tar in these modern times, images of roadside crews cooking that smelly stuff come to mind. Typical road “tar” is heated to 275 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Remember, water boils at just 212.
While pine tar is not nearly as hot as the highway stuff, it’s still plenty uncomfortable. The melting point of pine tar varies with the type and composition of the substance but ranges from 194 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s still hot.
How Hot Are We Talking?
To put those temperatures in perspective, a hot tub that’s “human safe” and won’t scald you maxes out at about 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
While hot tubs can feel uncomfortable hot, one in the factory-recommended temperature range is unlikely to cause burns, so let’s consider some other data points.
McDonald’s is known for its piping-hot coffee (this is a selling point), and these days, word on the street is the appropriate temperature for their fresh Joe, which is between 167 and 176 degrees Fahrenheit. It used to be hotter until the famous Liebeck v. McDonald’s, where a woman sued the company for medical damages after receiving third-degree burns when she spilled a cup of hot coffee in her lap. In those days, the suit alleged the company served coffee hotter than other industry players, possibly in the 180 to 190-degree range.
So, whatever the nature of the specific pine tar used in tar and feathering, it’s likely it was plenty hot enough to cause painful burns on contact. As for removing it? It’s not just uncomfortable, you’re going to lose skin.
Why?
It’s hard to argue the punishment factor of tarring and feathering as it’s a painful and messy process, but perhaps the real appeal to those who inflicted the practice was the “message” component. In a time when the populace was divided between support of and rebellion against the crown, it was perceived as an effective way to show displeasure to those who violated boycotts against England or engaged in other activities not in support of the revolution.
Tom. I actually have to disagree with you about the “hot” tar. My father worked at an oil refinery, Sun Oil Company refinery at Marcus Hook, PA, to be exact and he was burned with hot tar from a line that was supposed to have been cleared and wasn’t. So, I am very familiar with the results of “hot” or molten tar being applied to human skin and usually even in fairly small doses it is fatal. The hot tar doesn’t stop burning the flesh until it has cooled down to less than 98.6°F. That takes a while. In the meantime it continues to cook the flesh the lies underneath the tar. My father’s burns included burns on his bare arms, the open neck of his shirt, under his top layer shirt but protected from the tar by his “wife beater” undershirt which was what men wore in those days. T-shirts didn’t become popular until sometime in the 50s. He was burned on the fronts of his legs but fortunately his trousers protected him from the tar sticking to his skin. He “only” had second degree burns on the fronts of his legs. He had third degree burns on the tops of his feet where the hot tar ran into his shoes. He had third degree burns on the right side of his face where he turned his head away from the tar spurting out of the pipe. He had third degree burns on both forearms. He was pulled out of the pit by his helper. That is an interesting story in itself. My father was a big man for his time. He stood 6 feet and weighed over 200 pounds. His helper snatched him out of the pit. His helper stood about 5’8″ and weighed about 140 pounds fully clothed. He said he didn’t know how he managed but he snatched my father clean out of the pit he was in which was about shoulder high. My father walked to the dispensary by himself. When the nurse tried to peel the tar off it brought cooked skin with it, much like taking the skin off a ham roast. At the hospital the doctors used warm mineral oil to remove the tar. My mother heard the interns who were getting up a pool on how long my father would last before he died from the extensive burns. This was in the late 40s, well before the highly developed burn centers that exist today. My father didn’t die and the primary doctor opined that he didn’t because my father neither drank nor smoked and the doc figured his kidneys and lungs were in excellent shape as a result and that is what allowed him to survive what should have been fatal burns.
That preamble was to show the result of only partial covering with hot tar. If the pitch were heated to melting point and then poured over the victim’s upper torso he would have never survived the experience. I believe the pitch was heated just enough to make it spreadable, uncomfortably warm but not fatally hot. The pitch one gets on one’s hands is spreadable and it is just ambient temperature. Remember, our forefathers worked with pitch a lot more than most of us these days. They knew its properties and could work it while it was just warm and pliable. When was the last time you calked your rowboat with pitch and calk? It has been so long for me, I can’t remember what the fiber is called. I think it was oakem but if that is the million dollar question, don’t call me as your expert. I can remember doing it at the start of every summer with my father when I was in grade school but at 87, you can do a little math and realize it might have been as long ago as 80 since I participated in that exercise. Probably no one has calked a wooden row boat in over 50 years, if that recently.
So, I think you should post a correction to your historical note that the pitch used probably was not molten but just softened to workable stage. If it were molten, it would have killed most men fairly shortly and the perpetrators would have been charged with murder in the first degree. That would have carried the death sentence in that unenlightened age when the death penalty was prescribed for many more offenses than today and carried out promptly. Right here in Ventura, CA in the 1850s just shortly after CA deigned to join the Union, a thief who stole a barrel of flour worth more than $200 was sentenced to be hanged on Wednesday and the Sheriff of this county carried out the deed bright and early on Saturday morning. The CA Supreme Court commented that the execution seemed a bit hasty but otherwise didn’t have a problem with the whole affair. You can read about the case in Cal Reports Volume 1. I can’t quote the page number this many years after I read the case. Obviously the judicial system in CA then was somewhat stricter than what we have today.