Frederic Tudor - The Ice Business

The Ice Business

In 1790, only the elite had ice for their guests. It was harvested locally in winter and stored through summers in a covered well. Ice production was very labor intensive as it was performed entirely with hand axes and saws, and cost hundreds of dollars a ton. By 1830, though, ice was being used to preserve food and by the middle 1830s it had become a commodity. In the 1840s, it began to be used in the production of beer, and by 1850 it was used in urban retail centers. In the early 19th century the “ice box” was invented (See US Patent #3,758 dated September 24, 1844, to Kephart for a “Fruit & Vegetable Preserver” CCL/62/459). By 1865 two homes out of three in Boston had ice delivered every day.

During these years, there were ten main sources of ice around Boston. Some ice came from the Kennebec and Penobscot Rivers in Maine, but most centered around Fresh Pond, Cambridge; Smith's Pond, Arlington; Spy Pond, Arlington; Sandy Pond, Ayer; Horn Pond, Woburn; Lake Quannapowitt, Spot Pond and Doleful Pond in Stoneham, Wakefield; Haggett's Pond, Andover; Suntaug Lake, Lynnfield, Wenham Lake, Wenham and Jamaica Pond in Jamaica Plain where, in 1880, there were 22 icehouses storing 30,000 tons of ice.

In the winter of 1846-47, Henry David Thoreau watched a crew of Tudor's ice cutters at work on Walden Pond and recorded these remarks in his journal: The sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well. . . . The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.

Wenham Lake ice in particular became world-famous for its clarity, and graced the tables of the aristocracy of plush London society. Tudor founded the Wenham Lake Ice Company to promote this demand. It is said without undue exaggeration that no dinner party in London was considered complete without ice from Wenham Lake.