Love history. Love history stories most of all. I'm sure battles and dates and famous people have value but they do lack the human element of pure story-telling. Maybe if the Battle of Waterloo started out "Once upon a time..." a lot more people would read about it.
I often go for walks around Fresh Pond, where Fred started his venture, and also got fascinated by this history. The best book on the subject is "The Frozen Water Trade", worth reading. Some more factoids - at its height it was the largest international business in the world; the War of 1812 was a big problem for Fred; then as now the Brits liked their beer warm; the biggest early customers were in India where they wanted it for fevered Malaria patients; the first railroad line in the Boston area was put in to transport ice from Fresh Pond to the wharf in Charlestown; at one point ice was harvested from the lower Hudson river (ugh). My own takeaway - the coming of the "ice box" to regular folks was a very large improvement in the quality of life, and, thanks to a Yankee entrepreneur, it happened first to Americans.
These are some fascinating factoids, thank you for sharing Dino! I'm just astonished by how enormous an industry this was and yet how little people today know about it. The ice trade literally melted out of our collective cultural memory.
Love history. Love history stories most of all. I'm sure battles and dates and famous people have value but they do lack the human element of pure story-telling. Maybe if the Battle of Waterloo started out "Once upon a time..." a lot more people would read about it.
I like this
I often go for walks around Fresh Pond, where Fred started his venture, and also got fascinated by this history. The best book on the subject is "The Frozen Water Trade", worth reading. Some more factoids - at its height it was the largest international business in the world; the War of 1812 was a big problem for Fred; then as now the Brits liked their beer warm; the biggest early customers were in India where they wanted it for fevered Malaria patients; the first railroad line in the Boston area was put in to transport ice from Fresh Pond to the wharf in Charlestown; at one point ice was harvested from the lower Hudson river (ugh). My own takeaway - the coming of the "ice box" to regular folks was a very large improvement in the quality of life, and, thanks to a Yankee entrepreneur, it happened first to Americans.
These are some fascinating factoids, thank you for sharing Dino! I'm just astonished by how enormous an industry this was and yet how little people today know about it. The ice trade literally melted out of our collective cultural memory.