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Ice Harvesting in Massachusetts - 1852
From Water - to Horse Drawn Carts - to Trains - To Ships - To Market
(United States Public Domain)
Walden Pond in the Winter of 1846: The tranquility of the pond was not to be during that winter. Henry David Thoreau must have been astounded with what he he saw and immediately wrote his observations down:
"a hundred Irishmen…came from Cambridge every day to get out the ice. They divided it into cakes…and these, being sledded to the shore, were rapidly hauled off on to an ice platform, and raised by grappling irons and block and tackle, worked by horses, on to a stack, as surely as so many barrels of flour, and there placed evenly side by side, and row upon row, as if they formed the solid base of an obelisk designed to pierce the clouds. They told me that in a good day they could get out a thousand tons, which was the yield of about one acre." {1}
Thoreau was commenting and describing a booming American industry "ICE" and in the winter of 1846 it has been estimated that 10,000 tons of ice was harvested from Walden Pond. Where did this ice go? It was shipped to places in America, South Carolina or Louisiana and what is even more amazing is that this Walden Pond ice made its' way to India. It was written by Thoreau:
"The sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well." {2}
Ice harvesting was a growing industry in the 1800's and naturally there was one man that saw a need, resolved to satisfy it and grabbed an opportunity to be forever known in history as the "Ice King".
Frederic Tudor
September 4, 1783 – February 6, 1864
(United States Public Domain)
Frederic Tudor was born in Boston the third son of a wealthy Boston attorney. He could have gone to Harvard except at the early age of thirteen he was interested in business. He was fortunate to journey to the Caribbean Island of Martinique where he realized how ice could improve not just their drinks but would relive people's suffering with yellow fever. Now he just had to figure out how to ship New England's pure and clean winter ice to the warm waters of the Caribbean.
As with most entrepreneurs at first people thought it was nothing more than a "mad project". He did not get support from his own father but Tudor was determined. His first challenge was finding a ship that was willing to ship "water" albeit frozen so he bought his own ship for $4,750 and set sail with 130 tons of ice. The year was 1806 and he was 23 years old. The Boston Gazette wrote of his adventure:
"No joke. A vessel with a cargo of ice has cleared out from this port for Martinique.
We hope this will not prove to be a slippery speculation." {2}
We hope this will not prove to be a slippery speculation." {2}
His brig headed south with the ice packed in hay for the three-week journey until it finally pulled into port in Martinique. Although he planned well on his end when he arrived in Martinique they had no ice houses so his tears matched the melting ice as he saw his total investment go "down the drain".
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Thomas Edison another man that was introducing something new into American society once said of himself:
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
So it was back to the drawing board for Tudor who was not going to give up his dream easily. The following year he shipped 240 tons of ice to Havana but he was not making money yet. From the years of 1807 to the War of 1812 his business was devastated and he was sent to debtor's prison two times but he was learning. For instance he learned that sawdust was a better insulator than hay, and he was establishing relationships with Havana and Jamaica as well as southern states thereby creating a monopoly. Despite all this by 1821 he was battling depression.
A rest in Cuba and he was back in business. In 1825 he formed a relationship with Nathaniel Wyeth who created a two-bladed, horse-drawn ice cutter. This device, by scoring the ice, made the harvesting of ice much faster and by creating giant ice cubes the melting process slowed considerably. In 1833 Tudor was ready to ship more ice this time on a 16,000 mile journey from Boston to Calcutta. The 180-ton shipment reached its' destination and was heralded as it arrived in India intact. The people of Calcutta were "hooked on ice" demanding an icehouse be built. He found a profitable market.
By 1846 he has created a booming business and now he is harvesting on Walden Pond. Before the civil war ice harvesting ranked (when measured in weight) right behind cotton as the greatest shipping supply sent by American ships. Due to the enthusiasm of ice in India, Tudor had made enough money to pay off the debt he carried $200,000 approximately worth $6 million today.
The ice industry was booming in New England and Tudor was the "King". By 1856 nearly 150,000 tons of ice headed out of Boston - destination 43 foreign countries and sent as far as China, Australia and Japan and then there was the ice sent to American cities and states.
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During the civil war ice was a standard medical necessity. It had been calculated that each patient south of Washington City required one pound for treatment; while in the north of the City was one-half pound. Ice was collected from every frozen water way that could be harvested. In January of 1864 in Little Rock Arkansas when the temperature dropped 12 degrees below zero there was an immediate effort to harvest and store the ice. It was estimated that more than 200 tons of ice was collected, enough to supply Little Rock for nearly the whole year.
Some of the other uses of ice:
"an anti-inflammatory to reduce the swelling of various diseases and wounds, including broken bones; to help in healing surgical scars; to stop hemorrhage; to treat bedsores; to reduce fevers; as cold water dressings; as an external application in tetanus cases; and in at least one instance to successfully treat diphtheria." {3}
The Confederacy sought the help from France to create "artificial ice" as northern ice was no longer available. The French had developed ice-making technology based on ammonia-and-water absorption process. {4}
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Frederic Tudor died in 1864. The eighty year old "Ice King" who had failed initially, spent time in debtors prison, ridiculed by neighbors and family, never gave up his vision, never stopped believing that nothing is impossible died a millionaire and left behind an industry that continued to grow and boom until the electric refrigerators and freezers came into the American market.
Frederic Tudor's entrepreneurial spirit reminds me of a quote from Albert Einstein
"You never fail until you stop trying."
Illustration of New York Ice Industry
Harper's Weekly - August 30, 1884
(United States Public Domain)
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"You never fail until you stop trying."
Illustration of New York Ice Industry
Harper's Weekly - August 30, 1884
(United States Public Domain)
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Sources
1. https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/hot-summer-nights-the-1890-ice-famine/
2. https://www.history.com/news/the-man-who-shipped-new-england-ice-around-the-worl
3. https://www.civilwarmed.org/surgeons-call/ice/
4. https://www.theatlantic.com/nationa...american-who-brought-ice-to-the-world/272828/
5. http://tudorice.com/story
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