Ice Harvesting – Cool currency of bygone pre-fridge time

Today Magazine Online
3 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

• Before the Fridge, Ice Harvesting was Key Commodity of Forgotten Era

Special to Today Publishing

• Source – Simsbury Historical Society

For Connecticut residents today, receding ice on lakes and ponds is a signal that winter’s bitter cold has begun to lose its grip, and little thought is given to the value of that ice. In past decades, though, the state's residents would have been actively harvesting this ice to provide refrigeration for perishable food during the upcoming warm months.

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Until the early decades of the 20th century, natural ice was important for food preservation. Icehouses like the one found on the grounds of the Simsbury Historical Society, located on Hopmeadow Street, kept harvested ice frozen during the summer months.

Built in 1889, this Simsbury icehouse could store more than 40 tons of ice each winter.

An icehouse served as an effective insulator thanks to thick walls, and in some cases a double wall filled with sawdust. The ice might also be covered in sawdust for further insulation. Ventilation holes at the top of the icehouse allowed vapor and heat to escape.

Any fresh body of water that froze over could be a source for harvesting ice. A “scorer” marked the ice in a checkerboard pattern, and then men used ice saws to harvest the ice into separate blocks. A pond’s layer of ice would have to be at least 12 inches deep to allow workers to safely harvest the ice.

Ice was harvested on Eaglewood Pond, located behind Simsbury Public Library. While Antoinette Eno Wood, the property owner, did not sell ice from this source, the commercial ice business was a significant part of Simsbury’s economy.

Horace Belden had an icehouse behind the First Church of Christ, where blocks of ice were loaded onto railroad cars for shipping to other locales. While only those with ownership rights to ice ponds would have icehouses, nearly every family in Simsbury had an icebox in the home.

The ice man would deliver ice weekly, and the ice block would be stored in the upper compartment. Food would be stored in the lower compartment. Water from melting ice would be drained daily.

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Modern refrigeration became available and more common in industrial settings in the 1870s — in the brewery, meatpacking and shipping industries. This decade is when transporting perishables via refrigerated ships and railroad cars became possible, per various sources.

Regarding residential use, electric refrigerators replaced iceboxes for most American households during the 1920-to-1940 time frame.

In Europe, most middle-class households didn't regard the refrigerator as a necessary kitchen appliance until the 1950s or 1960s.

The next time you see waterways across the state frozen over during winter’s cold, remember that only 100 years ago the harvesting of ice on these waters made it possible to keep perishables fresh through the warm New England summer months.

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Editor's Note

• In New England, a properly constructed and managed icehouse could preserve harvested ice throughout the summer and sometimes into early fall, according to various online historical sources •

• By the late 1880s, this ice was a major commodity and ice harvesting was a huge business: the second-largest U.S. export behind cotton, per one source — so the natural ice from New England lakes and ponds was apparently a more valuable currency in that era than it is today •

• World War II was a key reason for the delayed introduction of modern refrigeration in European homes, relative to the United States — manufacturing resources in Europe focused on the war effort rather than consumer amenities and conveniences like a plug-in refrigerator +

This story is a revised version of a feature contributed by Paula Ryan that first appeared in the April 2019 edition of Simsbury Today Magazine, a forerunner of Today Magazine — at that time, she was the executive vice president of the Simsbury Historical Society — to see ice-harvesting photos, click the edition link and turn to page 15

Ice Harvesting – Cool currency of bygone pre-fridge time

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