Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, Wakefield, Mass.

Title

Ice harvesting :circa late 1880s

Description

Frederick Tudor, a prominent Boston merchant referred to as the "Ice King of New England" in the early 19th century began harvesting ice from ponds and lakes across Massachusetts beginning in 1805. He harvested ice from both Lake Quannapowitt and Crystal Lake, as well as several other area lakes and ponds, that were shipped to areas as far south as Charleston and New Orleans, and as far as the West Indies. Ice harvesting in Wakefield increased with the creation of the Quannapowitt Railroad Company in 1849 to transport ice from storage to the main railroad and to points beyond. By 1855, 27,000 tons of ice were harvested from both Lake Quannapowitt and Crystal Lake for an estimated value of $13,500, employing 20 men, making the town the fourth largest source of commercial ice in Middlesex County. In its heyday, there were more than three dozen ice houses operating at one time: the 24-ice house Boston Ice Company, the People's Ice Company, the Whipple-Morrill Company, Morrill-Atwood Company, and the Nichols Ice Company, all on Lake Quannapowitt; and three on Crystal Lake: the Philpott houses near the "Greenwood Bridge", a "set of houses" on [sic] at the corner of Crystal Lake Park near the Town nursery, and another on the east shore near the Junction railroad station. The picture shows the workers getting the cut ice into the ice house. According to Alonzo Colson's accounts published in the Wakefield Daily Item in 1947 and 1948, the connecting links between the ice houses and the "ice fields" were called runs, which were two 100-foot platforms of heavy boards, each five feet apart, five feet wide and two feet above the water. The ice cakes would float between them and long chains would go down into the water to pick up the cakes that workers had "poled" along and put on the chains, which were two "flat-faced" link chains five feet apart and seven to eight inches long. A hardwood cross bar connected the two chains which picked up the ice cake from the "submerged big wheels upon which it rolled." The ice was then slid onto iron tracks to the desired storage level.

Photo courtesy of the Wakefield Historical Society.

Contributor

Institution: Lucius Beebe Memorial Library

Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department (Wakefield, Mass.)

D'Onofrio, Jayne M.

Coverage

Massachusetts--Middlesex (county)--Wakefield

Date

1887-1889

Format

image/jpeg

Language

eng

Publisher

Wakefield, Mass. : Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light Department

Subject

Ice industry

Type

still image

Photographs

Original Format

1 picture :black & white

Extent

33 x 17 cm.