Comments on: Past Occupations: Ice Cutters in Massachusetts

By: Pam Seavey Schaffner

Pam Seavey Schaffner — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:18:59 +0000

I wrote a blogpost recently about my great Uncle Arch’s ice business in Orange, Mass. If interested, it’s at
http://diggingdowneast.blogspot.com/2012/06/ice-man-cometh-arch-hamilton-and-orange.html

By: walter toney

walter toney — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 01:06:17 +0000

My grandmother left a sign in front room all the edges had different price so the ice man knew how large a cake of ice should be and would then carry block into the house and place in the ice box. ice was 25
cents for the piece

By: MarkB

MarkB — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:35:26 +0000

That is, during the Depression, not depressing.

By: MarkB

MarkB — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:34:47 +0000

Here’s an article from the Jamaica Plain Historical Society about harvesting ice on Jamaica Pond:

http://www.jphs.org/locales/2004/6/2/harvesting-ice-on-jamaica-pond.html

My mother remembered following the ice man in the summer during the depressing and catching chips of ice to suck on and play with when he carved apart a larger block to deliver a smaller piece to a home. When my parents bought their first house in 1961, there was still an ice chest in the back hall on the second floor landing. It was so heavy that no owner since had ever bothered getting rid of it. We left it there as well when we left in 1971.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:56:43 +0000

Great minds think alike. I’ll leave that one to you. As I said as kids Gage’s was probably in its final days. When my dad was a kid, Gage would have local boys out on the river helping to cut and haul the blocks to the ice house. The huge blocks that we would get for a quarter were the predecessor to the cubes we get today. We’d have a hammer and pick to cut chunks to put in our Coca Cola cooler for a trip to the beach.

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 20:40:56 +0000

A very interesting post. A neighbor told us that years ago ice used to cut on the pond on our property.

By: Jody R. LaGreca

Jody R. LaGreca — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:02:37 +0000

Thanks for an amazing post. It is so interesting and really brings me back to those days. Having recently experienced Hurricane Sandy made me realize how ice is also an important commodity nowadays during this type of emergency, without it our food would have perished.

By: Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Heather Wilkinson Rojo — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 12:58:56 +0000

I have a distant relation, Fredrick Tudor, who was known internationally as the “Ice King”. He shipped ice from Wenham, Mass to Cuba and made a lot of money. He developed a system to ship ice to the tropics, using close packed blocks and insulation of wood shavings and straw (as mentioned by another commenter above).

By: Forgotten New England

Forgotten New England — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:01:40 +0000

I read somewhere that the ice was packed in straw to slow down melting in the warm weather. Did it ever refreeze into the ice? I’m hoping to write a post about Gage’s one of these days.

By: Forgotten New England

Forgotten New England — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:55:44 +0000

Thanks Bill. At some point soon, I’m hoping to put up a post on the Gage Ice Company.