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Cold Cash
Custom-crafted implements were the key to the turn-of-the-century natural ice harvest industry. Technological advancement, though, made the business short-lived.
As you reach into your refrigerator for that car-ton of milk, pound of hamburger, or a cold beer, it's pretty easy to take the process of refrigeration for granted. Most of today's population never know it any other way.
But convenient refrigeration was not always available. From the time of the earliest colonial settlements, Americans experimented with various forms of cold storage (usually in the form of ice and snow) for food preservation. What ensued was the beginning of the natural ice industry.
Considered an "American phenomenon" by Joseph C. Jones Jr. in his book "America's Icemen," the natural ice industry boomed as the concepts of refrigeration became better understood. "By 1830 the use of ice to preserve food was commonplace," he wrote. Eventually, the industry thrived and employed thousands.
The Harvest
In rural communities, the ice harvest was eagerly anticipated. In a cooperative community effort, labor, horse teams and sleighs were donated to help fill local icehouses. It was extremely hard work, but also a social activity that people looked forward to.
To fulfill the demand for ice in the cities, large scale commercial operations were necessary. A crew of 100 men and a dozen teams of horses would work an ice field while an additional 20 men stacked blocks in the icehouse. In some cases, a lake shore was lined with multiple icehouses and harvesting operations. When the local workforce was inadequate, outside workers were transported in to get the job done.
Where possible, ice was loaded directly onto railcars for shipping. Sometimes the railroad itself used the ice for shipping perishables or to cool passenger cars. Transporting ice to the southern states (by rail or water) was common, but dramatically increased the cost of ice. At $20 to $75 per ton, ice was a commodity only the very wealthy could afford. Everyone else did without. Understandably, the advent of manufactured ice and later, electric refrigeration, took hold first in the south.
Tools of the Trade
As the demand for ice grew, tools to improve the efficiency of the harvest were developed. Nathaniel I Wyeth.of Boston is credited with inventing the ice plow in 1825. Drawn by a horse, the plow was made up of cutting teeth fitted in a straight line, with each tooth being just a little longer than the one in front of it. It was steered by plow handles along a straight line marked on the ice.
With each successive pass of a longer-toothed plow, a groove was plowed a few inches deeper than before, to a depth of about two-thirds the thickness of the ice. The thickness of the ice determined how many passes the plows had to make. An additional 1.5-2 inches of depth could be gained with each pass, depending on how many teeth the plow had.
An ice plow with short teeth was called a marker plow, and was used to mark the area in a grid pattern. The marker plow had a guide attached to it to keep each line parallel with the next. Chisels, hooks, saws, sieves, break-off bars and tongs added to the large-scale efficiency of the harvest operation.