ICE HARVESTING

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ICE HARVESTING

• Trevor Layton

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The Beginning

• Frederic Tudor, A merchant from Boston, created
  the first natural ice business in the USA in
  1805.
• Started in Lynn, Massachusetts. Then moved to
  Milton, New Hampshire.
• Ice was primarily moved by railroads in special
  ice cars. Over 50 railroad cars a day.

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1800s

• Maine had over 244 plants
• Over 25,000 men and 1,000 horses were employed
• More than 1,000,000 tons of ice were cut from
  Maine rivers in the late 1800s. About 20 of all
  US consumption
• Many Mainers were drawn to the ice trade because
  of how lucrative it was and the abundance of ice.

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Maines Involvement

• Ice was harvested from the Penobscot and Kennebec
  River
• Kennebec River Ice was considered the gold
  standard of ice
• Ice from Maine was shipped to Charleston, New
  Orleans, Cuba,
• Calcutta, South America, China, and England on
  Brigs or Schooners
• John Cheesemans ice was shipped to most states
  south of Boston, where there was a major ice
  shortage or drought.

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Tools

• Ice houses-used for storing ice during other
  seasons
• Tongs-moving ice from the sleds to the chutes
• Saws-for cutting the blocks in 22x32-44 blocks
• Picks-moving the blocks down the trenches
• Gaffs-pulling the ice up onto the sleds/chutes
• Sleds-pulled by horses to the ice houses
• Frames Pulleys-lifting the blocks on top of
  each other
• In the ice houses
• Chutes-primitive conveyor belt, powered by hand
  cranks
• Choke collars-horse collars that can be pulled
  tight if a
• horse falls through the ice so they dont drown,
  they float
• to the surface
• Sawdust/Hay insulation-used to keep the ice
  frozen on long trips
• or seasonal storage

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Charles Morse

• Graduated from Bowdoin in 1877
• Moved to New York and entered the
• ice business
• Launched the Consolidated Ice
• Company and used it to take over the
• American Ice Company, which consisted of
  companies from Boston, NY, Philadelphia,
  Baltimore, and Washington, creating a
• monopoly.
• Made over 15 million in profit from the ice
  business.

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Downfall

• Morses attempt to raise the price of ice using
  his monopoly backfired and he soon sold his
  company.
• The invention of ice boxes refrigerators, where
  ice was placed at the top of a box and air was
  allowed to circulate around it keeping food
  fresher longer. First manufactured in 1874 by the
  Maine Manufacturing Company in Fairfield, Maine.
• The invention of the first electric refrigerators
  that began marketing in 1913 in Chicago,
  available to the entire US.

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Modern Day Harvesting on Squam Lake, NH