Being poled and ducked was a North Carolina alternative to being tarred and feathered.
Most folks don’t know that tarring and feathering is not fatal, as the heat required to melt pine tar is quote low, only enough to create minor burns.
Here is the only known, published reference to being poled and ducked:
From The Weekly Standard, published at Raleigh, N.C. Feb. 2, 1862
An Abolitionist Poled and Ducked
We learn from the Salisbury papers that on Saturday last SANDY TAITE, a Scotsman, who has resided in Rowan for some five or six years took it in his head to express abolition sentiments; whereupon the said SANDY was seized, carried into a back lot, stripped to his waist, tarred and feathered then carried through town on a pole, then ducked in the creek. He was afterwards arrested under a warrant and committed to prison to answer for his offense.
