From Ice Cutting to Ice Box – A Bit of Frozen History

Although today’s refrigerators and freezers are taken for granted, in the past keeping food cold or storing ice for use during the summer months took a lot of hard work and planning. Ice was harvested from creeks, rivers, lakes and privately owned ponds. Families with means had ice houses built with a brick or Jersey sandstone foundation approximately ten feet below ground and about the same height above ground. Sawdust from a local sawmill or straw would be put on top of the ice for insulation. Capacity would vary depending on how much ice would be needed for the coming year. The goal was to have enough ice to last from about January until late autumn. The stored ice was unpalatable due to whatever was in the water source. This ice was not meant for human consumption but for keeping things cold.

Everyone needed ice. Some needed large quantities such as butchers, hotel and tavern keepers and entertainment venues. Billy Thompson at the Washington Park Amusement Park in West Deptford often employed as many as fifty men at a time to fill his large ice house with tons of ice for the coming season.

Elwood Borden Heritage, born about 1898 in the Bodo Otto house in Mickleton, reported that he believed winters were colder when he was a boy with the water freezing over to a thickness of 1214 inches. If ice was too thick, it was impossible to move, and if too thin, it was dangerous for the men and animals. When his father, John C. Heritage, decided it was safe for men with horses and wagons to traverse the ice, he would round up farmers who were out of work during winter. Time was of the essence as a sudden warmup could thwart all efforts.

Cutting Lake Ice

The first step was for a man with an icecutter and a pair of mules (mules weigh less than horses) to cut out cakes of ice. The icecutter was similar to a long sled with very sharp steel runners. The cutter would be run both ways to cut out cakes about 24 inches square for easy handling. The cut would not be made down to the water but just far enough to break off the cakes. This would be accomplished with a longhandled bar with a sharp spadelike end. A channel would be cut through to float the cakes across the water to a platform at the level of the wagon. A heavy iron clamp was placed on the back of the bottom cake and a rope, attached to the clamp, was run through pulleys and attached to the mule’s swingletree (a crossbar attached to a harness and used to balance the pull of a horse or mule).

Then came the slow transport over snowcovered roads to the ice house which could be miles away. As wagons were emptied, others were being loaded at the water so that there was a continuous operation. It was hard work with temperatures sometimes so far below freezing that the ice would dry out between the time it was removed from the water until the time it reached the wagon.

Importance of the Ice House

The men were provided with hot food and drinks throughout the day and when the ice harvesting was complete, a big dinner was held for all who had a part. To not have a full ice house could be disastrous for both commercial and residential users.

The Mickleton Heritage family, makers and sellers of ice cream, would usually run out of their own ice supply by midsummer at which time they would purchase ice from the Woodbury Ice Plant on Russell Street. The ice was stored in a walkin insulated ice box attached to the ice plant. The supply would last a few days and then another trip to Woodbury would be necessary.

Rollin Shinn of Swedesboro reported in 1966 that he had once worked cutting and storing ice for $1 per day for George Rode. Rode had two large icehouses at the lake’s edge in Swedesboro. Much of it was used to refrigerate train cars of produce transported from Swedesboro to market.

Many farms had their own icehouses into the twentieth century. In his 1966 news column, writer Amos Kirby listed a few ice houses still standing on farms in Gloucester County at that time but all were used for other purposes.

Gloucester County’s Ice Houses

Besides small ice houses for individual use, commercial ice houses abounded in Gloucester County. To name just a few were C.D. Bozorth, Almonesson, Freschcoln & Kircher, Mantua, William Poinsett, Mullica Hill, Pitman Ice Company, R.B. Whitaker’s Ice House, Silver Lake (Clayton), Rodes, Swedesboro, Brooks Ice House, Westville, Lang’s Ice House, Westville, Tice & Son, Williamstown and Rachor’s, Woodbury. Many of these businesses also sold coal, feed, hardware, paint, farm implements and seed to stay busy yearround.

At the end of 1897, the State of New Jersey enacted a law regulating and controlling ice cutting and selling. Cutting from public bodies of water required a permit issued by the local Board of Health. The Board of Health would determine whether the ice was safe for use. If convicted of the misdemeanor of cutting ice without a permit, the guilty party could be sentenced to a term of up to six months in the county jail or a fine of $500 or both.

Wooden Ice Boxes

Before refrigerator/freezers, there were ice boxes in homes. Ice boxes were in use as early as 1830, though not commonly. By the late 1800s, the outer casing was often made of oak or another wood while the inside was lined with zinc, slate, porcelain, galvanized metal or wood with an insulation wall of either charcoal, cork, flax coal fiber or mineral wool.

The ice was stored in the top compartment and the provisions were in the bottom. More expensive models featured more compartments and shelving and was often a decorative piece of furniture. As the ice melted, it would drain into a pan under the ice box to be emptied. During the summer months, the ice man in his horse and wagon usually made daily deliveries. Residents would put a placard in their doors showing the amount of ice they needed that day. If the ice man did not see a sign, he would not stop there.

During the time when refrigerators were first becoming popular, many Woodbury merchants advertised to install a mechanical unit to “turn the ice box into a Frigidaire” for about $170 or to sell a refrigerator for $225. In today’s dollars, $225 would be over $7000. As prices became lower, so did the demand for the ice man.

When the electric refrigerator was introduced in the early 1900s, the ice box started to became obsolete. By the 1930s1940s, they were few and far between. The ice man and the ice house were things of the past. As we use our icemakers to top off a cold drink or stop at a convenience store to pick up a bag of ice for a summer picnic, remember the days of the ice man.
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Barbara Price is the Librarian of the Gloucester County Historical Society.