Vinnie Mendes with his grandfather’s ice tongs.
About 40 years ago I was living in New Jersey and met a “hot” girl who lived on “Ice House Road.”
The original ice house was still there but was no longer in use. This started me thinking about old fashioned block ice and how it came to be.
I have early memories of my paternal grandfather’s tavern. When the 21st Amendment was passed, repealing prohibition, he merely hung a sign out in front of his speak-easy and continued “business as usual.”
Once or twice a week, the ice man’s truck would deliver four or five 25-pound blocks of ice to the bar downstairs. He would place them in the beer cooler, where my grandfather would chip them up so the ice could efficiently surround the cooling coils. The barrels or kegs of beer were stored at room temperature and the beer was cooled as it went to the tap.
About once a week a block was taken upstairs to the ice box in my grandmother’s kitchen.
The ice man had a sort of woolly apron made of sheep skin, which he would wear over his back like a cape to insulate him from the ice. He would grab the block with a pair of ice tongs (think of kitchen tongs on steroids), sling it over his shoulder and plod on into the customer, hoping it was not up too many flights of stairs.
On hot summer days, young children would follow the truck, hoping to get a chunk of ice to suck on. Every stop or two, the ice man would chip off a few chunks and pass them out, making him the most popular guy on the block.
Up until about 100 years ago, before modern refrigeration was developed, ice was harvested from local freshwater ponds. When the weather got too cold for fishing, and I mean salt-spray-freezing-on-the-rigging cold, the fishermen switched to ice harvesting.
Since fishing was the major industry along the Jersey coast, ice was extremely important for keeping the catch cold and fresh for transportation to the markets of New York, by side wheeler ferry boat or to Philadelphia, by rail.
Ice harvesting was usually done by an ice plow, an arrangement of six to eight saw blades, set about a foot apart, drawn by a horse. A man would walk ahead of the horse to make sure that he walked in a straight line across the frozen pond. The plow cut five to seven slabs of ice, about six inches thick. If the ice was thicker than six inches, they used an ice saw instead. Like a two-man crosscut saw, the ice saw had a large handle at one end, instead of two handles. Once the slabs of ice were cut free, they would be poked and prodded by ice prongs, (long handled tools, like boat hooks), across the pond to a waiting sled or wagon to transport them to the ice house.
The ice house was a unique structure. Think of a two-story house with a door running from floor to roof top. Then around that, build another identical house, except a foot larger in every dimension. Fill the space between the outside wall and inside house with sawdust for insulation and make drains in the floor to carry away the melted ice water. This gives you a very well insulated cold box that will keep ice frozen for years. They stacked the slabs of ice from floor to roof with layers of sawdust and straw in between to keep them from freezing together. (This method of preserving ice goes back into the 1700s.)
Starting in the mid-1800s the technology for artificial refrigeration was developing, using anhydrous ammonia gas as a refrigerant but it didn’t gain wide popularity until Dupont developed “Freon 12” gas in the 1930s.
Now, the ice house and ice man are gone, replaced by electric refrigeration. We enjoy subzero freezers with ice, either cubes or chips dispensed right through the door, and ice water on tap whenever we want it.
Oh, yes, about 30 years ago I married the “hot” girl on Ice House Road. She is now my “In House Editor” who makes these stories readable. I’ve been told that I’m a good storyteller, but a terrible writer, so if you enjoy my articles, you have her to thank.
Photo: by Harris Mendes
