American Ice Harvests: A Historical Study in Technology, 1800-1918

Citation preview

Che American

ICE HARVESTS A Historical Study in

Technology, 1800-1918

Richard o’Cummings

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley and Los Angeles

-

1949

Che American \CE HARVESTS

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES

CALIFORNIA

> CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON, ENGLAND

COPYRIGHT,

THE REGENTS OF THE

1949,

BY

UNIVERSITY

OF

CALIFORNIA

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

CALIFORNIA

PRESS

tO history H-10-XD

Nisos

Preface

—

.

much has been written on the history of natural resources and agricultural production in the United States, the ice crop, once harvested year after year by Americans, is now little remembered either from the practical standpoint or in historical literature. There are peculiar reasons for the obscurity of these natural ice harvests. At the opening of the nineteenth century, transportation was slow, and ice could not be carried overland for long distances. Ice was harSoested by farmers in the vicinity of markets, and years passed before any single great harvesting point developed. At the same time there was no large demand for ice in cities, so that ice distribution was usually a sideline only for small retailers. As new markets grew, additional ice businesses appeared, butlittle is known about many the early entrepreneurs. For most industries, either of agriculture or manufacturing, compendiums of national statistics are available which give figures on production. This is not true of natural ice. As a city trade, the ice business was omitted from the federal census schedules

of

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vi

PREFACE

of agriculture. As an agricultural industry, natural ice harvesting had no place on the census schedules of manufactures, excepting in one year, 1859, when the results were so unsatisfactory that collection of figures was not repeated. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, production of plant ice was gaining on natural harvesting, and statistics on this aspect of the ice trade were carefully collected. Study of the ice harvests throws light on the customs of our forefathers. From the economic standfills a gap in our understanding of American point, industrial growth and the development of domestic and foreign commerce. It illustrates the part which the rise individual enterprise and ingenuity played of the great present-day ice and refrigerating enterprises. By indicating the way in which businessmen contributed to marine refrigeration, rail refrigeration, and the cold storage of perishables, it provides fuller understanding of historical phases of dairying, the fruit industry, meat packing, and other large trades. I am primarily indebted to Professor Frederick Merk of the history department of Harvard University for encouraging me in research on the contributions of agriculture to the economy as a whole. In the locating of materials for carrying this project forward, the libraries of Harvard University, the John Crerar

it

in

PREFACE

.

vii

Library, and the University of California have given me help. I am particularly obligated to Arthur Harrison Cole, Librarian of the Baker Library, to Lawrence Clark Powell, Librarian of the University of California at Los Angeles, and to Russell H. Anderson of the Western Reserve Historical Society for their interest and advice. Representatives of industry have provided information on various points. Everett E. Edwards, editor of Agricultural History, has read the manuscript. John Walton Caughey and Louis Knott Koontz, of the history department of the University of California at Los Angeles, have afforded many valuable suggestions. For creative care in making the book I owe much to W. H. Alexander and to Harold A. Small, Editor of the University of California Press. To all who have helped I am grateful. R. O. G,

Contents CHAPTER

PAGE

I. Early Harvests and Trade, 1800-1825

.

1

II. Inventions and Competition, 1825-18386 III. Rail and Marine Transport, 1886-1846 .

88

IV. The Spread of Depots, 1846-1861. V.

Food from the Far West, 1861-1879

VI. The National Market, 1879-1899

.

.

.

51

.

.

65

.

.

79

........ .........

VII. Harvesting and Mechanical Services,

1899-1918.

.

VIII.Conclusion . . Note on Authoritiesand Sources

Appendixes. Wide

[ix]

«

2

6

..........

ts

st

Bw

e

&

.

«e

17

.

6

.

w

9

Lil

115 JLiIg

TD

Illustrations IN TEXT From ship to shore in the tropics

.

.

.

page 10

Harvesting, Fresh Pond, Cambridge

.

.

.

page 20

Storage in the Sierra Nevada, 1890.

.

.

.

page 88

.

From Goodrich’s School Geography, 1832 From the Tudor MSS, 1827

From the San Francisco Morning Call, 1890

1.

PLATES FOLLOWING PAGE 86 Scraping, Fresh Pond, Cambridge

From Scribner's Monthly Magazine, 1875

2. Grooving, Fresh Pond, Cambridge From Scribner's Monthly Magazine, 1875 3. Sawing and breaking off, Fresh Pond From Scribner's Monthly Magazine, 1875 4, Harvesting, New York, early ‘fifties From Gleason’s Drawing Room Com-panion, 1852

5. Harvesting, Massachusetts, early ‘fifties From Gleason’s Drawing Room Companion, 1852

late

6. Harvesting, Indiana, ‘eighties From the Lakeside Directory, 1889

7. Sawing with a rotary power saw Photo courtesy of the Gifford-Wood Company 8.

Icing with a crusher-slinger

Photo courtesy of the Link-Belt Company

[x]

|

Early Harvests and a Trade, 1800-1825 Chapter

FE

businessmen, and technicians laid the foundations of large-scale commercial ice harvesting. People in other lands had experimented with refrigeration long before our forefathers cut the surface of an American pond. Snow had been used for summer cooling by the Romans. Indians on the Hooghly plain in the vicinity of Calcutta had skimmed surface ice from water in unglazed pots ARMERS,

it

in

reed-lined pits, and sold placed overnight to city residents. Methods of preserving ice were known to the Moors Spain. Customs spread northward from Italy to France during the Renaissance, and Parisian aristocrats enjoyed ice cream.’ Wealthy Englishmen kept icehouses, and water coolers with ice compartthe form of ornamental urns for ments were made sideboards." The grandees Mexico had ice brought down from the mountains, and the royal governor of serve his palace at WilVirginia had an icehouse

in

in

in

to

Johann Beckmann, Beytrége zur Geschichte der Erfindungen (Leipzig, 1799), IV, 206-207. * A. Hepplewhite & Co., The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide *

(London, 1789), p. 7.

C1]

2

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

liamsburg. Early American presidents were part-time icemen. George Washington personally supervised ice harvesting for Mount Vernon. Thomas Jefferson designed two icehouses for Monticello, and James Monroe had icehouse on neighboring estate

Ashlawn..’

an

the

of

City ice depots were supplied by farmers who hacked and sawed chunks from near-by ponds and pounded their product into a solid mass for storage. The New York Hospital kept an icehouse. In Philadelphia, where the House of Correction advertised ice, the product was temporarily heaped and covered on the banks of the Schuylkill River. Sales at wholesale rates were made families in the spring. At retail, irregularly shaped fragments were usually sold

to

by measure

in bushel baskets, in summer. Sometimes

they were sold by weight, at prices of a penny or more a pound. Some city dwellers stored their own ice. An icehouse kept by several Philadelphia families served as a sort of community refrigeration center for storage of meats and dairy products in warm weather.’ In some New England homes ice was possibly less used than in mansions to the south. Justin Winsor, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, ed. Edwin M. Betts (Philadelphia, 1944), pp. 278, 565. *“Of Ice and Icehouses,” American Museum, XII (September, 1792), 175. *

EARLY HARVESTS AND TRADE

3

commenting on an eighteenth-century greenhouse along with an icehouse on a Cambridge estate, refers to the latter structure as an “almost unknown luxury.” “Some,” he adds, “thought a judgment would befall thwart the designs of one who would thus attempt Providence by raising flowers underglass in winter, cool the heat of sumand keeping ice underground mer.” Two ponds, Fresh Pond and smaller Spy Pond, about four miles west of Boston, contained fine clear water. A tombstone inscription in a near-by cemetery—on the grave of William Fletcher, who died in 1853, aged 83—reads: “He was the first man that ever carried ice into Boston market for merchandise.” Ice was retailed in the city in 1806 from an ice depot under furniture warehouse.’ The heat of summers along the Atlantic seaboard the several centers were explains why market men interested in refrigeration. Western Europe has relatively mild climate, and, despite the traditional luxice, little that was constructive had ury usages been accomplished there in applying natural ice resources to problems marketing foodstuffs. Investigation of refrigerating methods had hastened death

to

to

a

in

for

of

Memorial History of Boston (Boston, 1886), IV, 627-628. Benjamin and William Cutler, History of the Town of Arlington (Boston, 1880), p. 242. * Independent Chronicle (Boston), July 7, 1806. *

*

4

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

for Sir Francis Bacon, who, in the course of experiments “touching the conservation and induration of bodies” which included burying chickens in snow, caught a chill and soon succumbed.’ British fishmongers sometimes raked ice from local waters and, in warm years, looked for occasional cargoes from Norway.’ In the United States a Maryland engineer, Thomas Moore, who owned a farm some twenty miles from the Georgetown market of the national capital, thought his refrigerating efforts were worth a patent.” Moore had tried transporting butter a can inside a tub of ice, and had found that on a hot morning housewives would pay fancy prices for his product while other farmers were left with melted grease on their hands. To make big refrigerator he fastened a tin ice container at the top of a box surrounded by insulation. He had read about the physics of heat, but was afraid to try ventilation because it melted the ice so rapidly.” This was a mistake, for ventilation, although it hastens melting, is the key to successful

in

a

Francis Bacon, Works (London, 1826), VI, 75. Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, XLI (February 13, 1864), 99. * Thomas Moore, An Essay on the Most Eligible Construction of IceHouses; Also, a Description of the Newly Invented Machine Called the Refrigerator (Baltimore, 1803). See Appendix A, below. “ Benjamin Thompson Rumford, “New Experiments upon Heat,” Society of London, Philosophical Transactions, LXXVI (London, *

*

en

1786), 273.

5

EARLY HARVESTS AND TRADE

ice refrigeration. But ice in the early nineteenth cenobtain in summer. Insulation tury was hard preserve both ice and foodstuffs, rather than ventilation, be stressed was therefore refrigerator construction until ice supplies should become plentiful the

to to

to

in

year round.

Moore's device was useful for short hauls of produce to market. It would, however, be regarded as it very inefficient today. If products were stored for any length of time, they must have become musty. His patent was under the United States patent law of 1798, which had no provision for advance inquiry into the novelty of inventions. Claiming no new principles, he thought himself entitled to reimbursement for use of his methods. With this in view, he advertised in newspapers and published a pamphleton patent legislation of 1798, Whitstorage. Under ney of the cotton gin, McCormick of the reaper, and

in

ice

the

Wyeth ofthe ice cutterall faced trouble. They could only seek redress, when their ideas were stolen, by suits against infringers; originality would then be ju-

dicially considered. Moore reaped little financial reward from his patent because any carpenter could make refrigerator. His pamphlet, however, was for

ayears

the most important in relation to transportation.

many

work

on refrigeration

6

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

To serve southern cities, where ice was prized for cooling purposes, New York and Philadelphia sea captains sometimes ballasted with the commodity. The Charleston, South Carolina, market was large 1799 to justify the establishment an ice enough depot, and one was set up by a hotelkeeper, who supplied the commodity regularly to subscribers.” It had long been known that ice could be manufactured by

in

_

of

machinery, but many years were to pass before markets were sufficiently well developed to justify large investment of capital in ice plants. The pump, basic factor in ice production by mechanical means, had been improved in Renaissance times.” The concept of a compressed-air refrigerating process was advanced by the Marquis of Worcester a description entitled: “Fountains of pleasure, with artificial snow or hail or thunder, and quantity not limited.” Ether a refrigerant had interested men ofscience, and Benjamin Franklin had the rather macabre idea that a man could be frozen to death if he were coated with ether and then stood a ventilated passage.“ William Cullen utilized an air pump, with a

a

in

as

in

* South Carolina State Gazette and Timothy’s Daily Advertiser (Charleston), February 22, 1799. * Abbott Payson Usher, A History of Mechanical Inventions (New York, 1929), pp. 63-64, 292-302. * Benjamin Franklin, Works, ed. John Bigelow (New York, 1904), III, 172.

T

EARLY HARVESTS AND TRADE

basin of water together with an open container of ether under the receiver, for experimental ice making; Gerald Nairne found that sulphuric acid had an affinity for water vapor; and James Leslie of Edinburgh experimented with a pump and an open container for the refrigerant. Oliver Evans, a steam engineer of Philadelphia, after reading the Marquis of Worcester’s description, was inspired to describe a refrigerating machine which utilized a pump with the important feature of a closed circuit to conserve the ether. Evans believed that his process might be advantageous for cooling drinking water at New Orleans or other southern points, and that possibly it could be used for ice production in hot countries.” The profits which might be made by serving exclusive agents between northern ice fields and souththe sons of a distinguished ern markets appealed Boston lawyer, William Tudor. Theidea of entering the ice trade appears have been discussed by Frederic Tudor and his brother William, a Harvard graduate with literary aspirations, at a picnic with their wealthy brother-in-law, Robert Gardiner of Maine.” Frederic, who had left school at an early age and en-

as

to

to

Oliver Evans, The Abortion of the Young Steam Engineer's Guide (Philadelphia, 1805), p. 186. See Appendix B, below. * Henry Pearson, “Frederic Tudor: Ice King,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, LXV (October, 1933), 175. **

8

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

gaged in the spice business, was fascinated by the possibilities of selling ice. His imagination was powideas. erful, and his mind was strongly possessive Before investing in equipment and beginning operations with William and an associate, James Savage, Frederic Tudor corresponded widely concerning methods and markets in the southern United States and abroad. A Philadelphian, W. F. Nichols, informed him that ice “brought a good price in the West Indies,” and enclosed a copy of Moore’s pamphlet on icehouses and refrigeration.” As to icehouses, Tudor announced: “The author correct in principle, but I shall differ in practice.” He had decided on testing icehouse construction noted an aboveground type by his brother William. The idea of refrigerators was of great importance, since they would increase the usefulness of ice and demands for it among customers. Tudor purchased sheepskins for insulation and tin casings for ice, and the supply of refrigerators, manufactured by local carpenters, was to be a regular feature his business. By February, 1806, all seemed ready for the first Tudor ice shipment. Entering Hathe vana, the great population center and market Caribbean, would mean encountering competition. smaller ports, In an effort to establish monopolies

of

is

of

of

of

in

” Baker Library, Boston, Mass., Tudor MSS, Tudor to W. F. Nichols,

December 28, 1805. % Ibid.

9

EARLY HARVESTS AND TRADE

William had gone ahead Danish islands

the French, British, and toabout of the

to inquire possibility exclusive sale privileges. Ordering the captain of his the French island of brig Favorite to drop anchor Martinique, Frederic found himself handicapped by lack of storage facilities, and within six weeks the cargo of ice was melted. William had meanwhile moved on to make arrangements at St. Croix, and Frederic, before returning home, spoke about an exclusive privilege with British authorities at Barbados. Though this venture had not been altogether successful, the Tudors were undismayed. William, talk with home was decided, should go to Europe governments about obtaining monopolies for supplying their colonies. Frederic, hoping that he could gain a share of the Havana trade, sailed for Cuba.” On the December day on which he landed at Havana, he chanced to observe that there had been considerable meltage in an ice cargo brought by some Boston sea captain. Good storage facilities, he thought, might eliminate competition. But before he could get a business firmly established, news came that Jefferson, in consequence of the Napoleonic Wars, had placed an embargo on all American shipping. Tudor, perforce,

at

to

it

* Tudor MSS, “No. 1, General Outline,” September 20, 1806. See Appendix C, below.

10

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

returned to Boston, where affairs had taken a bad turn. William Tudor, Sr., had invested heavily in a real-estate improvement which was now blocked, and the family fortune was swept away. The debtor laws of the time were harsh, and Frederic Tudor

at

ee—not.=“ +6

Goodrich’s School Geography, 1832

SHIP TO SHORE IN THE TROPICS, 1828 Slaves manapeisap ice to depots in the tropics customarily used baskets for carrying the 2fra ctl, Hare, in Cuba, one of a group learning to is being disciplined for carelessness. Two of handle square-cut b his fellow workers find the ice cold to touch. the

intervals faced prison bars. The peculiar qualities of his mind tended under these circumstances harden, and a drive for dollars in the ice trade seemed a posdifficulties. He worked on a family sible way out farm, scraping together funds, until the lifting of the

to

of

ll

EARLY HARVESTS AND TRADE

embargo. Then, determined to impress the Spanish

authorities, he again embarked for Havana, where he erected a substantial depot. Believing that he had obtained an official and exclusive privilege for supplying the city, he stationed Savage there as depot Boston to arrange for the purkeeper and returned chase and shipment ice. Savage was so effective at maintaining monopoly that in 1809 a Philadelphia ship dumped its own cargo ofice into the harbor. At Kingston, Jamaica, Tudor found competition strong, and decided not to attempt a regular depot.” When news came that the United States had engaged war with England, Tudor once again had to return to Massachusetts and incidental activities on the farm. At the close of the war, Tudor reopened his Havana depot and experimented with marine refrigeration. A challenge by a Spaniard, Goberto de Certa, who proposed to supply Havana with natural ice from New York, and to set up mechanical equipment as well, so that if depot supplies ran out he could produce ice on the spot, called for quick action. An English firm was marketing crude household iceproducing devices at five guineas apiece. These machines had open containers of sulphuric acid for a refrigerant. Because loss of that acid by evaporation

to of

in

” Tudor

MSS, Diary,

October 15, 1811.

12

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

is rapid, operation must have been very expensive.

of

this drawback, Goberto may not have been aware but Tudor was prepared out to the Havana point authorities. After denouncing Goberto’s scheme as “absurd,” he succeeded reéstablishing the monopoly.“ As for marine refrigeration, he experimented with storing fruits in the Havana ice depot. When the schooner Parago arrived with a cargo of ice, he dered fifteen tons left in the hold. Oranges, bananas, pineapples, and other fruits were packed in hay with the ice. After three days out, the ice had melted, and fear arose that spontaneous combustion in the damp mass in the hold would set the vessel on fire. Finding that fifteen per cent of the fruit was spoiled on arrival in New York, Tudor concluded for success the hold must be one-third full of ice. Shipment of butter, meats, and other provisions by marine refrigeration to tropical regions rather than from them, he believed, would become important business.” Further invasion of southern cities called for hardto-obtain capital, and in hopes that the city of Charleston would support his effort by an exclusive privilege Tudor published a pamphlet describing the success of monopoly methods in the establishment

to in

it

or-

that

an

of

* Ibid., November 20, 1815. Ibid., March 24, 1816, April 7, 1816; Tudor to William Savage, January 29, 1818. ™

18

EARLY HARVESTS AND TRADE

regular ice service at Havana. At the same time he promised that Charleston would have reliable service if the city authorities would permit a Tudorice depot to serve the city and would bar outside competition.” Other merchants were making profits without a monopoly. A New York sea captain, supplying Charleston with refrigerated beef, sold ice at twelve and one-half cents a pound.” Sale of an ice shipment for enough to purchase a cargo of corn led a Newburyport editor to comment: “Weshall be very willing to exchange this luxury with our Southern brethren for such simple necessities as breadstuffs.”” Charleston authorities, as might have been expected, were not interested in monopoly, but financial aid came to Frederic from an unexpected source. His brother William, who had turned from merchandising to editing the North American Review, desired free time for research and writing, but lacked means. Friends, convinced ofhis literary ability, lent him a substantial sum, which William invested in Frederic’s enterprise. firm of Frederic, with cash in hand, persuaded Davenport and Company, merchants of Charleston, to go into partnership on a depot. He thereupon

ice

the

set

* Frederic Tudor, An Account of the Project of Transporting Ice into the Torrid Zone with a View to the Introduction of the Article into Charleston (Charleston, 1817), p. 1. Tudor MSS, Diary, June 26, 1818. * Ibid., May 15, 1819. ™“

14

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

four Boston carpenters to work making household refrigerators.” While William wrote history, Frederic established ice depots at Savannah and New Orleans. Competition at mainland points was keen. In Havana, the monopoly made possible prices as high as twenty-five cent a pound for ice; but in South Carolina and Georgia, levels of six to eight cents a pound were difficult to maintain because of cargoes

of

from New York. Owners Mississippi River flatboats sometimes packed ice in hogsheads before floating the spring. On reaching the south from Kentucky New Orleans wharves, they cut into the business of shippers from the Northeast.” Price-slashing wars for control of trade at these southern points resulted in larger demands for northhis substantially ern ice. Tudor had an advantage constructed storage depots, for he could sell at a penny a pound until an “interferer’s” ice supply melted at the dock and then raise prices to a more profitable level. In this he took savage glee. For example, when a certain man arrived at Savannah with a supply, he confided to his diary: “This interferer will get about $5.00 in all for what must have cost him at least $100 . . . This business is mine. I commenced this new business [the depot at Savannah], and have

in

in

* Ibid., October 6, 1817, December 2, 1818.

™

Ibid., November 21, 1819, April 18, 1821.

15

EARLY HARVESTS AND TRADE

a right to rejoice in ill-success attending others who would profit by my discovery without allowing me the credit of teaching them.” At the same time, the high-volume sales which accompanied cut-rate prices lowered depot supplies to the danger point. In the first year at Charleston, a few purchases from farmers the vicinity of Boston had sufficed for trade. But in 1818 a warm winter made ice buying less easy. When supplies ran short at Martinique, the captain of the brig Retrieve sailed

in

north to attack a Labrador iceberg. Working with picks and crowbars, his crew were in constant fear that the mass might topple. One roll of the berg lifted the vessel six feet before the cargo was finally secured.” To avoid such problems the future, Tudor got his brother-in-law, Gardiner, to build an icehouse on the Kennebec River in Maine. But getting ice from Maine was a costly business in the early nineteenth century. There was little market there for Massachusetts produce, and so freight had to be paid on a ballast cargo when vessel sailed north, and again on the ice carried in return. A solution lay in harvesting a large crop in the vicinity of Boston and carrying a surplus over to guard against a warm winter and

in

.

_

* Ibid., May 15, 1819. ” Ibid., January 30, 1820; Niles’ Register, XVII (January 15, 1820),

385.

16

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

unusual demands at southern depots. Tudor had had little experience with ice production, but in these circumstances he had the good fortune to meet a young Cambridge man, Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth. Wyeth had learned secret of large-scale commercial ice harvesting and could produce quickly and efficiently large quantities of square-cut blocks of ice.

~ B. Chapter

II # Inventions and

Competition, 1825-1836

an

lox HARVESTING, commented early nineteenth-century observer, was “attended with no other

charge

than the labor of cutting and transporting the

article; for the pond belonged to no man, any more

it.”

than the air which hung above New York and Philadelphia skippers, sailing from ports with rich agricultural back countries, had little need for cheap ballast cargoes. Boston sea captains were in a different position. On sailing south from their land of thin soil they had sometimes stooped to picking up the stones of the Boston breakwater for ballast.’ Wyeth and neighboring farmers had found remunerative the arduous work of harvesting and carting ice to the wharves. By the middle ‘twenties the annual export of ice from Boston was some three thousand tons. Tudor shipped about two thousand tons, and thus had a great lead over all competitors.’ But the onerivals was bothersome because third shipped by

John

his

Wyeth, Oregon (Cambridge, 1833), p. 7. Charlestown Branch Railroad *A Brief Statement Concerning 2. (Boston, 1840), p. * Baker Library, Boston, Mass., Tudor MSS, Diary, March $1, 1827.

C17]

the

18

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

its sale at southern ports drove prices down, drained the Tudor depots, and cut the profits of trade. If a

technician by superior harvesting methods could throttle competition at the principal source of ice supplies, it would be easier to maintain monopoly prices in the southern cities. Wyeth, by reason ofhis demonstrated skill in harvesting, appeared to be the man whocould do this. the first settlers of one Wyeth, a descendant Cambridge, had many interests besides ice. His father, after inheriting part of the Fresh Pond shore, had married into the locally prominentJarvis family and established the Fresh Pond Hotel, a conveniently situated stopping place for farmers attending the Boston market and a summer resort for city folk. Wyeth, growing up by the Pond, with its opportunities for trapping and skating in winter, and fishing and swimming in summer, had acquired a robust constitution. Rather than enter college, he had taken the hotel with its rowboats and over management various other concessions.’ But jovial host though he was, he had a serious side. Among his Cambridge companions were Eliab Metcalfe, a publisher, and James Brown, who, combining a love of literature

of of

of

‘Lucius Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877

(Boston, 1877), p. 705. * Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 1636-1936 (Cambridge, 1936), p. 207.

19

INVENTIONS AND COMPETITION

of

the with business acumen, was to rise from keeper local bookstore to importance in the publishing field. Wyeth’s own thoughts are preserved in journals which he kept during his exploration of Oregon. Some his prose is included in Washington Irving's Adventures in the Rocky Mountains.’ Knowing intimately the birds and plants on the shore of the Pond, he was the guide and friend of Thomas Nuttall, “easily the first man of science in Augustan Harvard.” The hotel had an icehouse, and Wyeth worked out his improved methods of ice harvesting while cutting ice for storage in this structure. As a youngster he must many times have seen the marks left by sleigh runners on the surface of the Pond. His ice cutter, as devised in 1825, had iron runners some twenty inches apart. Each runner was notched saw-fashion with chisel-like teeth, with a mouth at the base of each tooth to discharge ice chips." Pulled by a horse, the device cut two parallel grooves, and repetition of the

of

Washington Irving expresses appreciation for the loan of Wyeth’s journals in The Rocky Mountains: or Scenes, Incidents and Adventures in the Far West; Digested from the Journal of Captain B. L. E. Bonneville and Illustrated from Various Other Sources (Philadelphia, 1837). This work was retitled The Adventures of Captain Bonneville (New York, 1850). * Morison, op. cit., p. 217. * Wyeth et al. vs. Stone et al., I, Story, 278. The term, ice cutter, was to the device set with combinations of cutting teeth, or to each of the teeth, which at a later time were set in a device handled like a plow and sometimes called an ice plow. See Appendix E, below. *

“

20

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

the

action deepened grooves. Then, with a runner in one of the grooves as a guide marker, additional parallel grooves were run. When the horse was driven

s

S

eo Cov

Sa

stall

Foot. fo Sle: Leaedticsy. Go. Ptkn

ee

Tudor MSS, 1827

HARVESTING, FRESH POND, CAMBRIDGE Blocks of ice, floated through a canal cut in the frozen surface of the pond, were raised by horsepower to a platform at the top of Wyeth’s icehouse, whence they were slid down an inside chute for storage. The the right of the sketch reads: “The travershand-written explanation descends into the water about 18 inches so that the cakes of ing frame ice may be floated on.”

at

at right angles to these first grooves, the surface was checkerboarded. After a row of ice blocks had been thus scored, bars were inserted in the grooves, and split-off sections were floated free in the channel of

© ~ 21

INVENTIONS AND COMPETITION

water. Since ice splits readily, tapping each cross groove produced square block which was floated to the end of the channel, where it was raised from the water and deposited in the icehouse by means a special hoisting arrangement (see facing page). Wyeth entered into an agreement to supply Tudor, exclusively, with ice, and to superintend carting, fitting, and loading of vessels, and thus was begun an less close for a association which was to be more score of years.’ To Wyeth it appeared a step toward independence, a problem which weighed on his mind since he had recently brought his bride—his cousin, Elizabeth Jarvis Stone—to live at the hotel. Chores which he had performed as hotel factotum were henceforth seen in a different light. Change from at the Jarvis mansion to the atmosphere a family resort, moreover, was not easy for Elizabeth, and the their own. young couple looked forward to a home Wyeth, while continuing in charge of hotel affairs, turned out an ice crop for Tudor in the winter of 1826-27 in quick time. Though a number captains had been ballasting with ice instead of rocks on their voyages southward, to return with cotton, some shipowners objected to the use of ice because the irregularly shaped pieces shifted, and melting endangered

a

of

or

of

life

of

of

Tudor Allen Pratt to Davenport MSS,

&

Co., January 22, 1827.

~ 22.

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

other cargo. However, since ice blocks were now evenly stacked, securely sheathed with planking, and insulated with hay, prejudice against ice carriage lessened, and Tudor had little trouble in obtaining shipping space when he needed it.” Spread of Wyeth’s basic invention cut costs of ice harvesting from about thirty cents to ten cents a ton and hastened adoption of retailing ice by weight rather than by measure’ An elaboration of the harvesting technique, apparently suggested by Tudor, was tried in the winter of 1827-28. The device employed, a mobile horsepowered circular saw to deepen the parallel grooves, was soon discarded as unnecessary; but it appears that when Tudor mentioned “ice cutter” in his writings he meant this circular saw. An explanation of Tudor’s diary is that, in a sense, the record was a lonely man’s way of addressing posterity. An entry in November, 1827, states that Wyeth was having tools made, particularly a “new ice cutter.” On December 7, Tudor saw the “new ice cutter—It is of iron and steel entire.” The following entry is for January 18, 1828: “I found Wyeth wandering about the woods at Fresh Pond all the lonely perturbations invention and contrivance. His mind evidently occupied in improving the

in

of

Tudor

|

MSS,

Diary, March 2, 1827,

93

INVENTIONS AND COMPETITION

several contrivances which he is perfecting for carrying into good effect improvements in his several machines the ice business. I have, from time to time, given him several hints, particularly respecting the ice cutter which I first suggested to him, and he has improved plan of last year and now he tells

for

the

me

he has improved uponthis year’s improvement.”

Wyeth’s product was widely used when the winter of 1827-28 turned warm. Competitors worked by torchlight to garner Fresh Pond’s melting surface. Mud the banks hampered removal, and gangs men scattered in all directions seeking other ponds with ice. Wyeth with his equipment and a gang of workmen at night for the Kennebec River. Tudor,

on

of

left

blank when competitors asked where Wyeth had gone, was collecting information on the state of the markets.” Supplies of ice at New York, it was believed, would be short. At Philadelphia only six hundred tons were obtained locally and city demands were estimated at seven thousand tons.” A Baltimore merchant sent to Maine for ice. Tudor, offered eight dollars a ton by a Philadelphian, tendered Wyeth a commission for selling the Maine ice stacks. Wyeth visited New York, where Jeremiah Kershow, grocer,

a

* Ibid., November 80, December 7, 1827, and January 18, 1828. See E, below. Appendix “% Tudor MSS, Diary, February 26, 1828. #8 Ibid., March 7, 1828.

24

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

retailed the commodity, and then continued south. Niles’ Register recorded the arrival at Philadelphia and Baltimore of many cargoes from Maine. Though Maine freshets carried away a number icehouses the ice stacks, Tudor, happy over the and some year's operations, doubled Wyeth’s salary, so that the latter had some twelve hundred dollars a year in addition to the hotel income.” Use of refrigeration, as ice supplies became more plentiful, increased among producers, distributors, and users of perishable foods. Conveniences such as wells, cellars, and springhouses were, and still are, used by farmers for keeping foods, but dairymen and market gardeners serving city markets had reason for particular interest in ice harvesting in connection with their trades. Farm journals publicized the process. Timothy Pickering, veteran plowman and fellow member of Thomas Moore in the American Philosophical Society, sent John Lowell a copy of Moore’s pamphlet. Lowell held it to be the “clearest and most useful work on the topics it treats that I have ever seen.” The editor of the New England Farmer

of

of

printed

it

in full in successive issues

“ Niles’ Register, XXXIV (April

of

re-

his journal.”

18, 1828), 122 and (June 28, 1828) 285; Tudor MSS, Diary, December 31, 1828. ** Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Mass., Lowell MSS, PickMSS, John Lowell to Pickering, January 15, 1829. ering ** New England Farmer, VII (January 28, 1829), 212 ff.

INVENTIONS AND COMPETITION

25

Some carpenters who were in the southern refrigerator trade retailed household devices to Boston families. A wharf keeper's advertisement of mahog-

any and pine refrigerators stated that they were “calculated to produce a uniform and powerful effect with the least possible consumption of ice, being intended for the West Indies.” Retail ice dealers cut prices as ice supplies became more plentiful, and housewives were able to buy ice in summer for twelve and one-half cents a hundred pounds, which was less than the cost of delivery.” A livery-stable keeper, Addison Gage of Charlestown, turned his horses to delivery service and emerged from the trade wars between icemen as the leading retail ice dealer of Boston.

In consequence of growing demands for ice and the basic refrigeration, Wyeth, with a hold process of large-scale ice harvesting, seemed in a fortunate position. But he was impatient at being blocked in his aim of relinquishing the family hotel in favor of his own enterprise. He heard much about the technics of abundance. Jacob Bigelow, a Harvard scientist, the ancients consisted in held that “the economy diminishing their technical wants; ours in devising

on

of

* Columbian Centinel (Boston), June 1, 1822. * Tudor MSS, Diary, August 21, 1831.

26 -

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

cheap means to gratify them.” Tudor's brotherin-law, Gardiner, established a school for young mechanics in which they might learn ways of applying science to agriculture.” But Tudor, on the contrary, continued to stress monopoly rather than volume business, and so thwarted Wyeth's desire for personal advancement with the growth oftrade. Five years had passed since Wyeth’s entering Tudor's this position about the service, and he was earning he took in from managing hotel, same amount approximately twelve hundred dollars a year. Carrying out his resolve to give up the hotel would reduce his income to a level which he thought “insufficient for the needs of my home.”™ He had not accumulated capital enough start an ice business of his own. In the ice-harvesting process he had an asset because 1829 a United States patent,” he had been granted the exclusive nature of his agreement but because had little to with Tudor say about the disposition of his invention except as it served Tudor’s interest. If he broke with Tudor, he might lose the merchant's

of

in

as

the

to

of

in

he

* Jacob Bigelow, Elements of Technology (Boston, 1829), p. 3. * Alfred C. True, A History of Agricultural Education in the United States (Washington, 1929), pp. 35-36. ™ Wyeth to Leonard Jarvis, February 6, 1832, Nathaniel Wyeth, “The Correspondence and Journals of Captain Nathaniel Wyeth, 1831-36,” in Sources of the History of Oregon, ed. F. G. Young (Eugene, 1899), p. 44,

* Journal of the Franklin Institute, VII (June, 1829), 418. See Appendix D, below.

INVENTIONS AND COMPETITION

27

of

the patice business. Because of the vague nature ent law there was no certainty that he could enforce

the patent against the man who had employed him. While casting about for some way to accumulate capital, Wyeth met Hall J. Kelley, a Bostonian, who talked about Oregon Territory as a place rich in resources and opportunity. Oregon was a stronghold the British Hudson’s Bay Company, but the United States had a strong claim to its possession, and Kelley dreamed establishing a colony there.” Wyeth was so much impressed that he decided to form a comhis own to trap and trade the region. In the pany trade, course of arrangements to enter the Oregon he kept two ideas in mind. Should his venture prove a success, he might return to Fresh Pond with wealth enough to set up his own business. Even should his stay in Oregon prove fruitless, it was possible that the ice trade while he was away would competition ice harvesting would be a so raise the volume more profitable occupation.” Plans for his departure included building a home and planting fruit trees on the shore of the Pond. With Tudor was careful maintain good relations. Tudorat first tried to argue him out of leaving Cambridge. But the young man

of

of

in

of

in

fur

that

he

to

* John Walton Caughey, History of the Pacific Coast (New York, 1938), pp. 220-221. * Wyeth to James Fenno, June 20, 1834, Correspondence and Journals, p. 133.

28

forged ahead.

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

In the financing of his operations the

patent on the ice-harvesting process played a part. The furs and salmon of Oregon were to be marketed

in Boston, and Wyeth required a vessel to take his catch at the mouth of the Columbia River. A Boston have a vessel waiting for him shipping firm agreed five thousand dolif he could provide a guarantee lars.” Tudor, seemingly reconciled to Wyeth’s leaving, offered to put up half this guarantee.” Wyeth, appears, signed over to Tudor the patent on the icecutting process with what was later judged to be little reservation.” Passages in Tudor’s diary commend Wyeth highly. He was, Tudor believed, in “every way worthy of confidence and esteem.” Tudor’s claim to an interest in the ice cutter did him little good so far as monopoly was concerned, because he found that rival ice producers, now that Wyeth was gone, did not hesitate to use the instrument for piling up harvests. He had had little experito the wharves or ence in transporting loading vessels and so was at a disadvantage in handling problems of production. His rivals shipped large amounts of ice southward, and Tudor, faced with

to

of

it

ice

in

* Wyeth to Dixey Wildes, December 27, 1831, January 23, 1832, ibid., pp. 14, 21. ™ Wyeth to Leonard Wyeth, February 10, 1882, ibid., p. 87. * Wyeth et al. vs. Stone et al., I, Story, 273. See Appendix E, below. * Tudor MSS, Diary, January 25, 1832.

29

INVENTIONS AND COMPETITION

in

his southern depots, problems both at home and decided to turn from the ice trade and devote his energies to monopolizing coffee, a beverage which was growing rapidly in popularity. Loading a vessel in May, 1832, he wrote, “This is I believe the last ice I shall ever ship.” Turning the managecargo ment of the ice business over to a young relative, Francis Richards, he converted his assets into coffee.” This was a mistake. The coffee corner broke and burdened him with debts of more than two hundred thousand dollars. Fortunately, debtor laws had been relaxed, and hand over his property to his although he had creditors, he was permitted to continue in the ice order trade discharge his obligations.” The effect rivals to the southern of the heavy shipments by cities had been to force down prices, at intervals, to as low as a fraction of a cent a pound. Demands, the same time, had increased greatly. Purchasing as much as he could in the Boston area, Tudor found to his surprise that he was making more money under conditions of competition than he had when pursuing a monopoly policy.

of

to

in

to

all

his

at

ice

* Ibid., May 12, 1882.

” Ibid.,

January

7, 11, 12, 1833.

" Frederic Tudor to Robert Hooper, January 22,

1849, Massachusetts

Historical Society, Proceedings, 1855-1856 (Boston, 1859), p. 53.

|

30

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

In the foreign ice trade he retained the business at Havana

and hoped to establish a monopoly in the

East Indies. Opportunity to enter the latter market had appeared in the spring of 1833, when Samuel Austin, a wealthy merchant in the East India trade, announced plans for establishing an ice depot in Calcutta.” When Austin, with a partner, W. C. Rogers, who was to erect and maintain the depot, his diary: offered a share, Tudor rejoiced. He wrote “This undertaking has long been my wish to make. it, It now comes me without effort and I engage taking an interest of %, S. Austin % and Rogers %.™ More than a year passed before news came that the ship Tuscany, after twice crossing the equator, had landed one hundred and twenty tons of Tudor ice which undersold the native product. Tudor risked a main chance by falling out with his partners over money, and Rogers, who had established the Calcutta ice depot, returned home. Tudor now learned that he the East Indies would have to doa volume business because, before he could make peace with Austin and again send out a cargo, a half-dozen rival Boston merchants had shipped ice to Calcutta and Bombay.”

in

to

. . in

in

* Samuel Eliot Morison, The Maritime History of Massachusetts (Boston, 1921), pp. 279 ff. * Tudor MSS, Diary, April 29, 1833. * Ibid., March 31, 1835.

INVENTIONS AND COMPETITION

3l

Faced with the necessity of harvesting larger and larger crops of ice, he was delighted to hear that Wyeth, after a long struggle with the monopoly of the Oregon fur trade, the Hudson’s Bay Company planned return home.

to

in

Chapter III #* Rail and Marine Transport, 1836-1846

Masons of large-scale ice harvesting were further developed after Wyeth’s return from Oregon in 1836. Like the depot keepers in southern cities, marketmen in northern centers were demanding more ice. Wholesale food dealers and producers along newly built rail lines hired freight cars and distributed fresh fruits and vegetables over lengthier seasons. Dairy farmers made regular refrigerated milk shipments over distances of more than a hundred miles to the New York City market. Express companies supervised shipments of perishables, which lines of several companies bewere made over difcause in the early days tracks were sometimes be unloaded and goods ferent gauges and cars had transferred at terminal points.’ In the 1840's, express sea food agents were shifting small iced containers from railroad line to railroad line between Atlantic seaboard and western markets.’

the

to

of

of the

*John Ringwalt, Development of Transportation Systems in the United States (Philadelphia, 1888), pp. 91-92. * Henry Wells, Sketch of the Rise, Progress and Present Condition of the Express Service (Albany, 1864), p. 21.

[33]

34

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

Wholesalers and retailers, receiving perishable food supplies rail terminals, made use of ice depots established at central markets. At Faneuil Market in Boston, John Hill, a market gardener of Spy Pond, established a substantial ice business. City butchers

at

maintained their own icehouses for meat storage, and Thomas De Voe, butcher and later superintendent of markets in New York, remarks that portable refrigerator chests came into use in the meat trade in the 1880's.’ As old city ordinances which had concentrated trade at central markets fell into disregard, green groceries and produce shops were established in outlying city sections, and ice dealers extended their delivery services to storekeepers and housekeepers. In consequence of lower ice prices, household refrigerator construction was improved in the interest of food preservation rather than ice economy. Circulation of air is mentioned in the patent of a Philadelphian, Job Gold, and a “Union Refrigerator Depot” in New York, advertising various types improved refrigerators, held the principle of a “selfventilating refrigerator” to be “unquestionably the greatest improvement ever made in the above article.”

a

of

Thomas De Voe, The Market Book (New York, 1862), Journal of the Franklin Institute, XXIX (May, 1841), Fount and Rechabite Reporter, IV (May 8, 1845), 128. *

‘

p.

347. 886;

Crystal

35

RAIL AND MARINE TRANSPORT

New York City ice dealers, including Kershow and John Ascough, a baker, were served by Alfred Barmore, who towed ice down the Hudson from farmers cutting on Rockland Lake near Nyack. A stock company, the Philadelphia Ice Company, organized in 1838, took advantage of rail line along the Schuylkill River to deliver its product to a central ice depot in Philadelphia. Although ice-storage facilities were designed by Wyeth’s friend, Eliab Metcalfe, who, on retirement from publishing, had taken an interest ice, the Philadelphia Ice Company continued use antiquated methods of haphazard harvesting and sold ice by the bushel basket.’ The foundations a more progressive Philadelphia concern were laid by a member the Kershow family who credited with introducing improved ice-harvesting methods from New York. In Cincinnati, Ohio, at the opening the 1830's, crushed ice was being sold by the bushel basket. About 1838 the use of ice cutters was introduced, and the practice was established ofselling square-cut blocks by weight.’ Southern ice depots were well supplied because Wyeth was piling up large harvests, and another Tudor employee, an attorney, James Fenno, was

a

its

to

in

of

of

is

of

. Philadelp hia Ice Company, “First Annual Report, December 12, 1833,” Hancend s Re liter of Philadelphia, XIII (January 25, 1834), 50. * Ice Trade Journal, VI (January, 1873), 3.

86

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

keeping watch over sales and shipments. At New Orleans, demands justified the establishment of a second Tudor ice depot to meet competition in an outlying part of the city. In the foreign trade, Tudor had comAsia. Rivals supplied petition in South America and Egypt and Gibraltar in the Mediterranean, and made detours from theice route to India in order to provide Australia with ice supplies. Among Tudor’s foreign depots Havana was dark spot, for his depot keeper John Damon, having worked for many years at a small salary, had wanted a raise. Damon had helped to get the exclusive privilege for supplying ice to Havana, but Tudor, far from making any concession his diary that harshness was required, to him, noted and refused a salary increase.’ Damon then brought a lawsuit, which was to last for years, overtitle to the

in

a

in

Havana business.’

re-

To offset this Havana situation there were fine ports from India. At Bombay there was much competition, but Calcutta was the bright spot of the Tudor enterprises. Tudor, after buying out Austin, stationed his own depot keeper there, and Fenno kept careful check on accounts of trade. Experience gained Baker Library, Boston, Mass., Tudor MSS, February 5, 1835. Francisco Viudes Gardoqui, Memorial Respecting the Right of Mr. John Wade Damon, an Inhabitant of Havana, to the Ownership of the Contract He Made with the Municipality (Boston, 1844); John W. Damon, The Havana Ice House Controversy (Boston, 1846). *

*

RAIL AND MARINE TRANSPORT

87

in the West Indies was put to careful use, and the white population was encouraged to buy household refrigerators and water coolers. Shipment of perishables with ice cargoes became an important feature of the India trade. Tudor had learned from his work in the West Indies the dangers of overloading ice cargoes with large quantities of foodstuffs.’ Small but well-preserved shipments of apples, butter, and cheese delighted the European colony.” Two native dealers, Rajiebolah and Shaik Tenno, continued in the ice business, but the Tudor depot was the center of the retail ice trade of Calcutta.”

In supervising harvests for the Tudor depots, Wyeth worked with a will, but he kept in mind his

own aim of becoming an independent ice merchant. His financial position was becoming stronger, because, though years in the western fur trade had netted small profit, the sale of one of his western trading posts, Fort Hall, to the Hudson’s Bay Company had permitted a satisfactory closing of the books on the Oregon venture.” His view that his services in ice harvesting would appreciate in value with the growth

the

p. * Tudor MSS, Diary, January 30, 1836. “ The Bengal and Agra Annual Guide and Gazetteer for 1842 (Cal*

See above,

12.

51. cutta, 1842), 2 On Wyeth and trade in Oregon see Clement W. Eaton, “Nathaniel J. Wyeth’s Oregon Expeditions,” Pacific Historical Review, IV (June, p.

1935), 101.

88

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

of the ice trade had been realized when Tudor had offered him three times his previous salary for field operations. His ingenuity had, anything, been renewed by the change scene. One of the first of a series of new inventions was an ice scraper to clean the surface of the ice before harvesting and so produce a more standardized product. Sawdust from the Maine lumbering industry was

of

if

in

on

the market beginning to come large quantities, and Wyeth worked on various methods of stacking and insulating the ice blocks after removal from the Pond.” Tudor drew up specifications and applied for a patent, in his own name, on use of insulating materials in the storage and transportation of ice. A new United States patent law, passed by Congress 1838, called for inquiry into the novelty and usefulness of inventions. There was nothing novel in using sawdust for insulation, but the Patent Office examiners nonetheless passed on the application. The specifications, however, were in one sense novel, because, after clearly stating the object of reducing waste of ice by filling the interstices between ice blocks with insulating material, they became so unclear and so needlessly involved as to attract remark in various quarters.

all

in

* Tudor MSS, Diary, October 14, 1837.

39

RAIL AND MARINE TRANSPORT

~* The editor of the Journal of the Franklin Institute took the liberty of commenting: “It will be admitted by all who are acquainted with the career of the the best practical patentee, that he must be one the world of the most advantageous modes judges of stowing and transporting ice, as he has been the the torrid regions. great transporter of icebergs cannot be doubted that by excluding the or preventing the interchange of its particles among the blocks of ice, it will be more effectually preserved than without such precaution; but had the theory of the specifications, it would its actions been omitted have been equally valid, and we should have been spared the attempt to guess what are the ‘vapours’ generated by ice, whose ‘altitudinal pressure’ affects it with consumption.” Wyeth’s plans for establishing himself independently had so far matured by 1840 that he was prepared to break with his employer. He had increased his capital by setting aside savings from his salary; backing his relatives; and he had dehe had veloped a profitable sideline by shipping garden produce from his own land and neighboring farms the tropics. The fruit trees which he had planted behis income. fore leaving for Oregon were adding

of

in

to

air

It

in

the

of

to

to

Journalof the Franklin Institute, XXVII (April, 1889), 245.

40

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

Though the quantity of produce shipped with each ice cargo was small, the aggregate was considerable. A single shipment Jamaica in 1840 included thirtyfive barrels of fresh vegetables, and a quantity of fish, butter, and eggs.” In one year in the late 1840's, eighteen cargoes of fruits and provisions, invoiced at Boston at an average of $2,500 each, were sent with the western Pacific.” ice to the Caribbean and The immediate occasion for Wyeth’s break with Tudor was a suit instituted by Wyeth in the federal circuit court to clear title to his original invention for ice harvesting. The specifications of the patent granted in 1829 had included, in addition to this machine, the rotary ice saw suggested by Tudor. Both machines had been grouped under definition covering the cutting of ice “by any other power than human.” Wyeth had learned that such a definition could not be enforced in law, and had drawn up a disclaimer that part of the specifications.” The fact that Tudor refused to sign this disclaimer was a serious matter. An array of legal talent was present

to

to

a

of

* Tudor MSS, Wyeth to Frederic Tudor, August 7, 1840. * Nathaniel Wyeth, “Ice Trade,” United States Commissioner of Patents, Report for 1848 (Washington, 1849), p. 698. ** See Appendix D, below. * Disclaimer recorded in United States Patent Office, Washington, D.C., October 24, 1840, U, S. Commissioner of Patents, List of Patents for Inventions and Designs, Edmund Burke, comp. (Washington, 1847), p. 170. See also Appendix E, below.

® et ~ 41

RAIL AND MARINE TRANSPORT

when United States Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story opened the trial. Professor Simon Greenleaf of the Harvard College law faculty was counsel for the defendant, Leonard Stone, who was charged with having infringed the patent by use of cutter at Fresh Pond. Greenleaf, with associated counsel for the defense, maintained that Wyeth’s invention had been an imitation of a carpenter's plane. Experts on woodworking were called, and Justice Story, after giving consideration to this point, held Wyeth’s device to have been an original invention. But by this decision Wyeth lost, for all practical purposes, exclusive title to the device. Justice Story, after taking cognizance of the fact that Wyeth had made assignment 1832 to Tudor, held that, since the latter had not disclaimer, no decision favorable to Wyeth signed could be rendered.” Nevertheless, this decision cleared the air for Wyeth, whose subsequent steps had an important bearing on the technical phases of ice harvesting in the nation as a whole. They included not only further improvements in harvesting machinery, but the tablishment of a legal basis for determining rights on ice-harvesting fields, the development of efficient methods for transportation of ice by rail, and the

a

the

of

the

es-

Wyeth al. vs.

Stone

et al., I, Story, 278. See Appendix

E,

below.

42

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

erection of a large-scale ice-storage plant at Fresh Pond. Among devices patented by Wyeth for ice harvesting were a single-beam ice cutter to be drawn by horsepower and handled like an ordinary farm plow, raise blocks from the water, an ice an arrangement plane, and an arrangement for distributing blocks in the icehouse.” The practicability of the improved ice cutter was demonstrated in a spectacular way in 1844 when the Cunard steamer Britannia was frozen solidly into Boston Harbor. Local icemen contracted with the cut a two-hundredleading businessmen of Boston foot channel for seven miles to open water in three days. Crowds turned out to see the operation, and there was much excitement when the Britannia steamed down the channel the ocean.” The days of free-for-all ice harvesting passed in 1841 when Wyeth and his neighbors made agreeestablish legal rights to the surface of Fresh ment Pond. Harvesters who owned property at the Pond had been cutting and storing ice in icehouses rented from farmers whose lands abutted on the shore. In 1840, one of the farmers announced plans for an icehouse with a capacity greater than the amount of ice

to

to

to

to

®

an

no

Journal of the Franklin Institute, XXIII (February, 1842), 124-129.

= Evening Transcript (Boston), February 1, 8, 1844.

43

RAIL AND MARINE TRANSPORT

he could harvest if the Pond’s surface were divided proportionately to ownership ofthe shore line. Wyeth and his family owned largest amount of the shore, and their rights would be steadily encroached upon if such a practice should become general. To prevent this, Wyeth called a meeting of owners at his home. Tudor, who had purchased a farm of one hundred twenty acres, was represented by Fenno, his attorney. The owners, at the suggestion of Wyeth, agreed to establish a commission headed by the Harvard law professor, Greenleaf, to allocate harvesting rights.” Levi Farwell, a local engineer, measured the shore line and aided the commission by surveying lines which marked individual rights on the ice-harvesting field. The completed survey was deposited by the the office of the registrar of Middlesex commission County. Individual ice rights were now important assets which could be used, leased, or sold. The survey itself was an important precedent for the determination of harvesting rights on ice fields in other parts of the country. divide the surface In the year of their agreement of the ice-harvesting field, Wyeth and the associated the Pond succeeded getting the property owners

the

in

to

at

in

Middlesex Registry, East Cambridge, Mass., MSS, Fresh Pond, Division of Land among Proprietors, October 4, 1840; James B. Read with Josiah Coolidge et al., Agreement, November 18, 1841. **

44

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

a

rail line conMassachusetts legislature to charter necting the Pond with the docks at Charlestown. Their promotional literature included a pamphlet which asked: “If England has enriched herself by railroads to develop her coal mines, and Massachusetts has gained wealth by giving a railroad to her granite quarries, why should not she gain an equal railroad to her ice mine whichrivals advantage coal and granite in its importance to the shipping the terest, and contributes as much to refreshment South as coal does to comfort in the North?” Construction of the track to the Pond was undertaken by the Charlestown Branch Railroad Company, and in December, 1841, the first ice was carried from the Pond by to Charlestown. Wyeth, who had been elected to the board of directors of the rail-

by

inin

rail

road, company, designed special equipment

for load-

ing ice on the cars, and a special type of car insulated in such a way that when was carried to the docks in summer there would be little waste by melting.” Once the railroad was built, property at the Pond rose in value, and investments there in ice harvesting appeared to have an assured future.

ice

"A Brief Statement Concerning the Charlestown Branch Railroad (Boston, 1840), p. 8. * Charlestown Branch Railroad, “Sixth Annual Report,” Massachusetts, Senate Document 23 (Boston, 1842), pp. 22-25; Journal of the Franklin Institute, XL (July, 1845), 24, XLVIII (December, 1849), 502.

RAIL AND MARINE TRANSPORT

a

45

Wyeth made very large investment by capitalizing on his extensive holdings and building an icehouse covering thirty-six thousand square feet, with a capacity of forty thousand tons. Icehouses had usually been built of wood, but now there was danger that sparks from the railroad locomotives might set woodenhouses on fire. Wyeth entered the brick business to provide himself with building materials. The brick walls of his icehouse were made double and three feet thick. The roofing was double, and vaults forty feet deep could hold ice over for season after

season. A system ofinclined planes for storing ice and removing it from the vaults by horsepower was patented. People came from various parts of the country to observe Wyeth’s methods, and great icehouses, frequently equipped with steam power to work an endless chain, were to become commonplace in the second half of the century. Wyeth had worked out the techniques of largescale ice harvesting. His business abilities were now

to be tested. Tudor, a far shrewder man, had taken no interest in improving storage facilities at Fresh Pond or financing railroad. Wyeth had hoped that profits from sales to the ice retailers of Boston and the ice shippers would enable him to build his own southern depots. Freights on ice from Maine

in

the

46 were

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

still high, and in the event of a warm winter such

as that of 1828 he stood to make much money. He

was, however, depending on his fellow directors of

the Charlestown Branch Railroad to keep freight rates on his own ice shipments favorable. This proved a mistake. In the year after his icehouse was completed, the citizens of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, persuaded the Massachusetts legislature to charter a railroad between their city and Boston.” The Charlestown Branch Railroad was absorbed link in this larger project, and the directors of the new corporation squeezed the Fresh Pond interests off the board. This Fitchburg railroad skirted Walden Pond, fine field for ice harvesting in Concord. Tudor and other harvesters purchased harvesting rights at Walden, and soon trains loaded with Concord ice were passing Wyeth’s property. Large natural ice crops were a reason for small interest in experiments with compressed-air and ether processes for ice making. In Apalachicola, Florida, Dr. John Gorrie experimented with compressed-air which fever patients ice making for cooling rooms were placed. He succeeded in patenting a machine, but when went to New Orleans get backing for the construction of a commercial ice plant, bankers

as

a

in

he

to

* Charlestown Branch Railroad, “Tenth Annual Report,” Massachusetts, Senate Document 21 (Boston, 1846), p. 38.

RAIL AND MARINE TRANSPORT

47

pointed to well-supplied ice depots.” In England, also, ice machines were ignored commercially because natural ice was available. A New England inventor, Jacob Perkins of Newburyport, Massachusetts, while working as an engraver for the Bank of England, had learned that ice was a luxury in London and built a machine similar to that described by Evans.” It had a closed-circuit system by means of which the refrigerant, after discharging its heat in a tank of water, was condensed and automatically returned to cool the ice chamber. Seeking to utilize work the pump, Perkins mounted the water power device on raft in the Thames River. It aroused some curiosity, but investors were wary about backing

to

commercial operations.

Other New Englanders, Jacob Hittinger of the Boston, and Eric Landor who Gage Ice Company harvested on Wenham Lake, near Salem, Massachusetts, sought to increase English interest in natural ice. A Wenham Lake Ice Depot was established in the Strand, and the product, thicker and clearer than some English ice, was advertised as “Concentrated

of

* Gorrie’s contribution won him statue in Statuary Hall in the National Capitol. United States Commissioner of Patents, Report for 1851 (Washington, 1852), pp. 163-164; Ice and Refrigeration, XII (May, 1897 ), 351; Ruth E. Mier, “More about Dr. John Gorrie and Refrigeration,” Florida Historical Quarterly, XXVI (October, 1947), 167. * Greville and Dorothy Bathe, Jacob Perkins: His Inventions, His Times and His Contemporaries (Philadelphia, 1943), pp. 149-151.

48

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

Wenham.” A wag in Punch held that Wenham ice must be poisonous, for he read the announcement “concentrated venom.” According Hittinger, Englishmen who were served iced drinks in a bar called out, “A little ‘ot wataw, you please.” The advertising helped to make the term Wenham synonymous with purity. Indirectly it stimulated trade in ice between England and Norway, where canny harvesters designated Lake Oppegaard, for trade purposes, Lake Wenham. Some thought was being given to shipment perishables from the American west by rail and to marine refrigeration. Wyeth’s development of special insulated railroad cars for ice carriage inspired Massachusetts rail officials to talk of sending cars built like refrigerators to the Ohio Valley to bring back return for fish.” American shipwestern produce ments of grain and salt meats to England mounted the United Kingdom reduced tariff barriers. Perishables were occasionally carried by steamers. Fresh ice tubs, and peaches were transported in cans kept cases of poultry packed in ice were set down at the London docks. A New York ship’s carpenter in 1846

to

if

of

in

as

in

* Punch, IX (August 80, 1845), 102. *¥F. H. Forbes, “Ice,” Scribner’s Monthly Magazine, X (August,

1875), 465.

” Pennsylvanian

(Philadelphia), June 8, 1842.

RAIL AND MARINE TRANSPORT

for

49

in

patented a method cooling provision chambers the hold of a ship with a current cold air.“ In the Edinburgh Journal a writer discussing the successful supply of refrigerated luxuries to Calcutta said: “If means could be contrived transporting fresh meat in ice at small cost, Europe would present a steady market for the surplus beef and mutton of America.”

of

for

Journal of the Franklin Institute, XLI (May, 1846), 328. * Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, XI (February 10, 1849), 94.

™

#* The Spread of Depots, |846-186I

Chapter

IV

Te New EncLanb ice trade continued to

grow,

and

became

in western agricultural areas ice harvestingof

of greater significance in the development

a refrigerated food supply for large population centers. Wyeth had set high standards for large-scale commercial ice production. His abilities as a businessman, however, had not proved commensurate with his skills as a technician. Profits on his stored ice were good in warm years, when Boston dealers had to pay high freight rates on ice from Maine; but fixed charges on his investment in equipment continued, regardless of temperature. The Fitchburg railroad would make no special concessions on traffic between Fresh Pond and the Charlestown docks. It charged low freight rates on ice in winter, when many harvesters shipped ice directly to the wharves to icehouses on the waterfront, and high rates in summer, deliver ice from his icehouse when Wyeth sought

or

to

to Boston shippers.’

‘Baker Library, Boston, Mass., Tudor MSS, R. Cabot to Tudor, October 17, 1848.

[517

52

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

Tudor, rather than give his business to Wyeth, harvested supplies of his own at Walden Pond. It was Tudor’s cutters who stirred Thoreau to pen the frequently quoted passage about water from his bathing beach traveling halfway round the globe to become the beverage of East Indian philosophers. Bearing directly on Wyeth’s downfall is Thoreau’s observation that some of the thousands of tons of ice which Tudor’s men had merely stacked and covered with hay were still to be found on the Walden shoreeighteen months later.’ Wyeth bore no grudge against his old employer. When chosen by the United States Patent Office to describe the ice trade, he dwelt on Tudor’s exploits, and omitted mention of his own ice producconnection with the processes name tion.’ The significance of his western trading venture in increasing American knowledge Oregon, as well as his many contributions to the ice trade, were called in 1856, the year of his death. His boyhood friend Brown, now a partner the Boston publishing house, Little, Brown and Company, was executor of his will." James Russell Lowell, a Cambridge neighbor who had seen him leave for the West Coast, penned

in

of

of

re-

in

Walden (Boston, 1854), p. 457. Nathaniel J. Wyeth, “Ice Trade,” U. S. Commissioner of Patents, Report (1848), p. 696. “ Middlesex County Registry, MSS, Nathaniel J. Wyeth’s Will, April *

*

29, 1856.

in ~ 53

THE SPREAD OF DEPOTS

an epitaph: “A born leader of men, he was fitly called he lived.” Captain Nathaniel Wyeth as long Tudor, at the time of Wyeth’s death, still led Boston shippers in supplying ice to the southern United States and depots in foreign lands. Having won suit for the possession of the Havana icehouse and settled his coffee obligations, he was prepared retire and ride his hobbies. Taking a businessman, Charles Minot of the firm of Weld and Minot, as a partner, he formed the Tudor Ice Company. His fortune was no small part composed of realty values. In New Orleans, for example, where ice depots had new locations and the sites turned over been moved at a profit, he retained, at the opening of the 1850's, five properties. In addition to the values of land owned by him on the shores of ponds in Massachusetts were those of the water rights which could be leased at such rates that the water surface was calculated to be worth nearly as much as the land itself. Of his local holdings he states that “the astonishing growth of Boston—now the center of four cities, in the railroads—has caused these lands, consequence which I have purchased, rise in value.” As an excited Fresh Pond, where, having paid $130 ample Quoted Wyeth, Correspondence and Journals, p. iii.

as

his

to

in to

of

he

to

Frederic Tudor to Robert Hooper, January 22, 1849, Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, III (Boston, 1859), 56. *

54

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

an acre for his holding, he had refused an offer of $2,000 an acre for twenty-five acres of the farm. At his home the Nahant peninsula he created a park, carried out improvements in reforestation of seashores, and took such pride in his early accomplishments that not even his closest relative could hint that anyone had ever dreamed of trade in ice before he arranged the first Tudor shipment. But reports of the commercial success of an ice plant in Australia in the second half of the 1850's foreshadowed the passing the sea-borne New England ice trade. Australian graziers had a particular interest in mechanical refrigeration because, though they had great wool trade, their mutton, for lack of adequate means of preservation, was going to waste. James Harrison, journalist of New South Wales, had built an ice machine which, like the devices described by Evans and Perkins, had a closed compression system to conserve the refrigerant. In the United States, Alexander Twining,’ a Connecticut Yankee, set up a similar machine in Ohio. Both of these plants were dangerous to operate since the refrigerant used by the inventors was volatile, and hence highly explosive, ether. The value of a safe and efficient refriger-

on

of

a

Alexander Twining, The Manufacture of Ice on a Commercial Scale (New Haven, 1857), p. 9; Hunt's Merchants’ Magazine, XXXVI (June, 1857), 46-47. "

THE SPREAD OF DEPOTS

55

ant, ammonia, was soon to be made widely known by two Frenchmen, Ferdinand Carré and Charles Tellier.’ Carré was responsible for using ammonia in a machine constructed on an absorption principle; Tellier utilized ammonia in a machine with a compression system.’ Twining’s plant soon succumbed to competition from natural ice. The product of Harrison's plant replaced relatively high-cost New England ice in the market of New South Wales, and Australians looked forward to shipping their meat the United Kingdom.” But even before this surplus was accomplished, the refrigerated produce of the American west was being served on English tables. One of the most significant extensions of the ice trade had occurred in 1850 whena part of the Fresh Pond crop was landed at San Francisco and Sacramento, California. There is little freezing weather along the Pacific coast south of the Canadian boundary, but Wyeth, while in Oregon in 1834, had expressed a belief that ice from further to the north might be sold in southern markets." The demand

to

for

*Sylvanus Thompson, Michael Faraday (London, 1898), p. 171; Eugéne Welten, “Le Promoteur de la production du froid en France,” Premier Congrés International du Froid, Résumés en francais des rapports (Paris, 1908), p. 38. *Charles Tellier, Histoire dune invention moderne, le frigorique (Paris, 1910), P- 6. * Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, XLI (February 18, 1864), 100. * Wyeth to Frederic Tudor, October 6, 1834, Correspondence and Journals, p. 143.

56

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

in

the product was demonstrated the summer of 1850, when Boston bark Zingari discharged fifty refrigerators along with two hundred seventy-five tons of ice. A San Francisco commission firm, Flint, Peabody and Company, inaugurated an ice-delivery service for homes and restaurants. Its covered delivery editor to wagon, lettered Boston Icz, was held by be one of the “most refreshing sights presented to the public view.” Another Boston vessel, the Lucas, after disposing of ice and refrigerated apples at a large profit, is reported to have headed north to investigate Alaskan discouragingly sources, but the Russians demanded high price for supply.” An American-Russian Commercial Company, formed by San Franciscans and incorporated in 1858, possibly as a blind for provisioning Alaska during the Crimean War, worked through the great Russian-American Company.* The Russians, who had long used crude ice-harvesting techniques on the Neva River for supplying St. Pe-

the

an

a

California Courier (San Francisco), August 5, 12, 1850; Evenin Picayune (San Francisco), August 19, 1850; U. S. Commissioner o Patents, Report (1850), Il, 531; Hunt's Merchants’ Magazine, XXXIII *®

(August, 1855), 177.

4 Ice Trade Journal, XXI (December, 1897), 1. Bancroft, History of Alaska (San Francisco, 1886), p. 587; Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, “Alaska,” pp. 116-118; San Francisco Directory, 1859-60 (San Francisco, 1860), p. 399; Edward L. Keithahn, “Alaska Ice, Inc.,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, XXXVI (April, 1945), 121-122.

“ Hubert Howe

57

THE SPREAD OF DEPOTS

tersburg, trained Aleutian islanders to work on Alaskan ponds, set up a sawmill to supply sawdust for insulation, and shipped fish along with ice. Ice shipments were costly. Whereas on the Atlantic seaboard ice was return ballast for ships sailing northward with southern produce, there was small market for California produce in Alaska, and as a consequence northbound vessels sometimes ballasted with stone. Their return cargoes were retailed at as much as twenty-five cents a pound by the American-Russian Commercial Company's depots. Across the central valley of California, east of Sacthe foothills ramento, where ice could be harvested of the Sierra Nevada, M. Tallman of El Dorado, who named his concern the Nevada Ice Company, began harvesting on Pilot Creek. His Sacramento depot 1856 brought ice prices down to seven cents a pound.” By the 1860's the exclusive wholesale price of the Russians to the American-Russian Commercial Company had dropped from $35 a ton to $7 a ton, whereas other middlemen on the Pacific Coast were not to have ice from the Russians at less than $25 a ton.” Ice from San Francisco was driving New England ice from markets in the Hawaiian Islands and Central

in

in

George H. Derby in “The Pioneer” (March, 1855), Phoenixiana, ed. Francis P. Farquhar (San Francisco, 1937), p. 198; Daily California Chronicle (Sacramento), January 9, April 28, 1856. * Keithahn, loc. cit., 128. **

~ ™ 58

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

America.” Further drops in Pacific Coast ice prices were to occur when the Central Pacific Railroad fields at the summit of the Sierra Nevada tapped

ice

for the shipment of perishables from coast to coast of the United States. Meanwhile, methods the use of refrigeration in and paved the

way

for

the large-scale distribution of perishables were being worked out the Ohio Valley. Improved methods of ice harvesting, used in Cincinnati in the 1830's, had spread to the Chicago River before the close of the following decade.” One of the river icemen, Hiram resources of Crystal Lake, a body Joy, developed of water comparable Fresh Pond, lying some miles west of Chicago. Following the extension of the Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac Railroad, Joy’s Crystal Lake Ice Company became an important concern in the Chicago market.” Peru, on the Illinois River, was another important harvesting point for the midthe river continent, and barges, filled when frozen with blocks of ice insulated with hay, were towed downstream at the time of the spring thaw.” Demands for ice tools and refrigerators were met by large eastern concerns as well as by local black-

in

the

to

in

Magazine, LV (October, Hunt’s Chicago Daily Journal, September 5, 1848. Merchants’

1861), 402.

**

* Chicago Tribune, February 27, March 15, 1861; Ice Trade Journal, V (February, 1882), 1. * Hunt's Merchants’ Magazine, XXXIII (August, 1855), 172.

THE SPREAD OF DEPOTS

59

smiths and carpenters. A farmer cutting ice for his own use could use a handsaw; but companies engaging in harvesting operations to meet ice contracts with city distributors required efficient equipment, because, with a warm spell, the crop might belost. The horsedrawn ice cutters, ice plows, and ice scrapers were not complicated in design, and the diagrams which appeared in the Patent Office and agricultural reports were of assistance to local mechanics who turned out implements on order. Among blacksmiths building up specialized ice-tool businesses in various communities were William Wood of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Elihu Gifford of Hudson, New York." The Philadelphia Knickerbocker Ice Company, also, developed a large ice-equipment supply business.

Household refrigerators were shipped westward by eastern manufacturers. Darius Eddy, a Massachusetts carpenter, started making refrigerators in the 1840's. So successful were his improved “Upright Refrigerators” that his establishment became the largest of its kind in Massachusetts.” Another refrigerator, patented by Winship, a Bostonian, and pictured by Baker Library, Boston, Mass., Wood MSS, Wyman and Wood, Account Books, 1884-1850; William E. Wood, A Few Recollections re. Ice Tool History (1982). * Library, Boston, Mass., Eddy MSS, Ledgers and Journal ™

igs

( 1842—

).

60

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

in

Professor Silliman of Yale as an example his First Principles of Physics, was marketed from the seaboard Illinois.” Meat packers led the food processors of the Ohio Valley in applying refrigeration in trade. “Sweet,” exclaimed a writer on the food of London, “is the din of war to the pork curer or meat-salter.”” When England and France entered the Crimean War, Americans had reason to agree. Dealings mounted on the the produce exchanges of Cincinnati and Chicago telegraph flashed war news. Pork packers had been able to work efficiently in winter, but had been handicapped in summer when warm temperatures increased danger spoilage. More efficient methods of avoiding this danger were devised by John L. Schooley, a pork packer of Cincinnati, who modeled his entire packing room on the principle of a house-

to

as

the

of

hold refrigerator.” Methods of cooling packing rooms with natural ice, so as to make possible year-round operations, were adopted at Chicago before the close of the decade.” * Benjamin Silliman, First Principles of Physics, or Natural Philosophy (Philadelphia, 1858), p. 428; Chicago Press and Tribune, August 18,

1858. * George Dodd, The Food of London (London, 1858), p. 278. * John Schooley, A Process of Obtaining a Dry Current of Air from Ice (Cincinnati, 1855), p. 5. * Bessie Louise Pierce, A History of Chicago (New York, 1940), II, 98. ;

61

THE SPREAD OF DEPOTS

Fruitgrowers in Central Illinois, a great garden region reached by the Chicago railroads, glutted the market at first in the growing season. Benjamin L. Nyce, of Decatur, took steps toward overcoming this marketing problem by building a cold-storage warehouse in the shape of large natural ice refrigerator in which considerable quantities of fruit could be carseason.” Lager beer, deriving ried over from season quality from storage at an even temperature, grew in popularity with German immigration; by the early 1860's the brewers were consuming more than a million dollars’ worth of ice a year.” Linkage of the refrigerated facilities of the Ohio Valley and the East became more feasible as means were devised for the through movement ofrailroad various railroad comcars over the lines belonging panies. Meat on the hoof was moving eastward more and more by cattle car, and some private car companies were developing cars with axles so designed that the wheels could be adjusted to fit the varying track gauges of short lines.” Construction of the Allentown Creek Railway, linking the New Jersey Central with the Pennsylvania Central lines and connect-

a

to

to

” U. S. Commissioner of Patents, Report for 1858 (Washington, 1859),

II, 476. * New York Tribune, November 24, 1864. * American Railway Times, October 18, 1855.

62

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

ing roads to Cincinnati, permitted shipment of goods without break of bulk for the whole distance to New York.” Crude but not unsuccessful refrigerator-car shipments of perishables, inaugurated in 1857, included dairy products and one hundred eighty sides of mutton which remained within the car for nineteen days.”

So far as refrigerating facilities were concerned, food distributors in New York were well equipped to handle increasing receipts of perishables. A visitor to the large markets ten o'clock of a summer morning

at

saw no fresh provisions on display, but added that “every variety is to be found in hundreds of ice chests in which they are stored.” New York as the great population center appears to have been the chief marketing point for ice in mid-century, but because of the peculiar nature of the ice business, the occasional stacking of ice on pond and river banks, and the fact that ice distribution was frequently connected with ice production merely by contracts shifting from season to season, statistics are difficult to interpret. It is certain that ice sales per capita were relatively small, as compared with those of the late » Ibid., September 4, 1856. " Scientific American, XIII (November 7, 1857), 70; New American Cyclopedia (New York, 1862), XIV, 17. Hunt's Merchants’ Magazine, XXXIII (August, 1855), 176. "™

~ 63

THE SPREAD OF DEPOTS

nineteenth century, though they appear to have been more than keeping pace with city growth. The Knickerbocker Ice Company, New York City’s leading concern, formed in 1855 by bringing together the holdings of former grocerymen and bakers with those of the producer, Barmore, had two houses on Rockland Lake. Each of these was comparable, in storage capacity, to Wyeth’s Fresh Pond structure.” Trade figures seem preferable to government returns as guides ice-harvesting activities because census takers, in attempting tofile their schedules on time, might miss rural storage houses. The time factor was also important in the evaluation of ice, since melting was large not only at production points butlikewise at each stage of delivery. The fact that Boston shipping ice fails wholly to account was the leader for a difference between valuation of the Massachusetts ice crop by the Massachusetts state census of 1855 at $639,100 and the value of the Empire State’s harvest set by the New York census only $140,000." Ten years later, New York establishments were ported to have sold 104,500 tons of ice and to have 57,500 tons in storage, whereas Massachusetts re-

Trade to

in

at

Ice 1.

re-

Journal, XV (August, 1891), 4; ibid., XXI (January, 1898),

“ New York Secretary

of State, Census of the State of New York for 1855 (Albany, 1857), 415; Massachusetts, Compendium of the Census of Massachusetts, 1875 (Boston, 1875), p. 211. p.

64

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

ported a harvest of 650,589 tons of ice valued at $735,077." Although in New York State ice harvesting was scheduled by the census under “Manufactures,” and canvassers located nine establishments, they submitted reports from only four. Comparable figures on ice harvesting are not obtainable from the federal census because only once, in 1859, was ice harvesting placed on the census schedules. The results tabulated under “Manufactures” are startling. A value of only $95,175 was found for the entire Massachusetts harvest. Moreover, while the output of New York was valued at $44,800, no less than $123,100 was given as the worth of the Pennsylvania harvest.” According to trade figures, ice delivered to New York families, allowing for wastage, was 1847 at 65,800 tons.” The 1855 harvest computed in the Hudson River vicinity was set at 285,000 tons, and a total consumption of somewhat more than 100,000 tons was estimated for New York City.”

in

New York Secretary of State, Census of the State of New York for 1865 (Albany, 1867), p. 478; Massachusetts, Compendium p. 211. » Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, “Manufactures,” pp. 35, 112, 253. ™ cit., p. 701; a common trade allowance for wastage beop.and hewvest tween delivery to consumer in the latter part of the cen 40 50 Ice Trade Journal, I (October, 1877), 1; ibid., VI cent. to was per **

...,

Wyeth,

(May, 1883), 1. * Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine, XXXIV (February, 1856), 232. A higher estimate, apparently making no allowance for wastage, is in the Scientific American, XI (July 12, 1856), 350.

+ ~ Food from the * I861-1879

Chapter V Far West,

Was

EXTENSION

and improvement of the

railway network, natural ice harvests were used ineastern marcreasingly in moving western produce this profitable traffic kets. Trunk railroads shared by purchasing the refrigerated facilities of existing private-car companies or organizing their own subsidiaries for fast freight. Cars were painted distinctive colors and sometimes marked with symbols, to facilitate return after interchange on roads. The Star Union Line, purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1878, had started with cars built “like ice-boxes on wheels.” These were roughly insulated, and the ice was stored in a central box draining through a hole in the floor.’ The refrigerator cars used in the 1850's and early 1860's had not been patented, but after the Civil War various inventors, including John Bate of B. SutherBrooklyn, New York, and the Detroiters land and William Davis, took out patents to protect the improvements which they had effected in refrigerator car design.

in

to

J.

Pennsylvania Railroad

[65]

Company, Annual Report for 1874, p. 47.

66

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

a facilities because the

In Detroit there

special interest in refrigerated Michigan Central Railroad had added a third rail so that its Blue Line cars could run on standard-gauge tracks between Chicago and the East.’ Sutherland’s insulated car, fitted with ice bunkers the ends, was designed to use rather than to provide a “consave ice, and was so arranged stant circulation of air.” George Hammond, a meat packer, used a car designed by Davis, who had sucfish transport, cessfully operated refrigerator chests for shipment of meat to Boston.‘ The eaves the car

at

was

as

in

of

are said to have been cut to permit passage through the Hoosac Tunnel in Massachusetts, and the shipment was declared a success. But cattle-car interests, railroad policies, opwhich had an influential voice posed refrigerator-car shipments of fresh meat in bulk. Moreover, eastern butchers, profiting from slaughtering cattle and selling the by-products, were not anxious to handle bulk shipments of fresh meat. In 1878, three carloads of fresh beef daily were moving eastward from Chicago.’ In 1877, Hammond opened a warehouse for dressed beef in Worcester, Massachusetts, and before the close of the ’seventies

in

Bessie Louise Pierce. A History of Chicago (New York, 1937), II, 62. U. S. Commissioner of Patents, Report (1867), II, 1248, 1886. ‘J. M. Culp, “Perishable Goods,” International Railway Congress, Proceedings (Brussels, 1911), III, 11. * Railroad Gazette, V (August 16, 1878), 333. *

*

67

FOOD FROM THE FAR WEST

a Kansas City packing firm, Nofsinger and Company, shipped dressed beef to Boston and Philadelphia. Natural ice was harvested an increasing number of rural communities for use in refrigerated shipments. Egg packers in the vicinity of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, built icehouses. Multiplication of cheese factories and creameries in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota was accompanied by growth of local ice businesses. Harvesters purchased tools from the Knickerbocker Ice Company Philadelphia and the

in

of

of

New York, which specialGifford-Wood Company ized in the manufacture of ice-harvesting and ice-

_

distribution equipment. Producers and distributors subscribed to the Ice Trade Journal, which was published in Philadelphia to carry news of ice and refrigeration throughout the country.’ The quality of western butter was greatly improved by refrigeration, and sales of the product mounted. Refrigerator cars developed by the Star Union Line were used by the Wisconsin Dairymen’s Association.’ Five to seven Blue Line refrigerator cars of butter moved from Chicago to New York daily.’ The Ice Trade Journal, in *

Rudolf Clemen, The American Livestock and Meat Industry (New

York, 1923), pp. 230-232.

"Ice Trade Journal, I (October, 1877),

2.

Frederick Merk, The Economic History of Wisconsin (Madison, 1916), pp. 24-30. . road Gazette, V (August 16, 1873), 333. *

-

® ~ 68

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

1879, noted that western butter received at New York

by refrigerator car was being shipped to Europe.” Total exports of butter that year were some sixteen thousand tons. The largest European customer was the United Kingdom, whose imports from America her total imported amounted to about 15 per cent

in

of

supply. Methods of refrigeration were sometimes regarded as trade secrets by produce dealers, meat packers, and brewers. A Chicago produce dealer, in the 1860's, spied on the storage room of a New York firm using ice and salt mixtures in V-shaped tanks, and, on his return to Illinois, installed a similar system.” Food processors and warehousemen who experimented with substituting mechanical refrigeration for ice bins in cooling processes, purchased equipment in Europe. Some European machine shops were becom-

Trade ing full-fledged factories for turning out refrigerating machinery. In the United Kingdom, Harrison machines were being built by the Siebe Iron Works, and the Haslam Foundry was manufacturing ammonia absorption machines, patented by Pontifex and Wood. The British firm of J. and E. Hall produced machines using air compression and carbonic-acid

Ice

Journal, Ill (November, 1879), 8. B. Beemer, “Practical Cold Storage,” Ice and Refrigeration, I (August, 1891), 97, VII (September, 1894), 164-165. “DPD.

69

FOOD FROM THE FAR WEST

compression. Among German inventions was an aircompression device originated by Windhausen. An ammonia compression machine by Carl von Linde subwas manufactured in the United Kingdom by sidiary of a German concern, the Linde British Re-.

a

frigeration Company.” While food processors in northern centers wereinstalling mechanical equipment, the natural-ice trade supplied a growing number of marketmen who shipped ice southward to bring back fresh fruit by refrigeration. The regular ice trade between Massachusetts and southern ports had been interrupted by the Civil War. Northern speculators, operating from Maine, had profited highly by supplying ice to Union southern fields of action, where army headquarters the Medical Corps and the Sanitary Commission distributed the commodity to troops the interest of health and morale.” Southern civilians, however, had suffered for lack of ice, and at New Orleans two Carré ice machines had been imported from France." Fol-

in

in

* Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, XLI (February 13, 1864), 100; James T. Critchell and Joseph Raymond, A History of the Frozen Meat Trade (London, 1912), pp. 337-338. * Joint Committee on Conduct of the War, “Report on Ice Contracts,” U. S., 38th Cong., 2d sess., Senate Report 142, passim; Sanitary Commission, Bulletin I (February 15, 1864), p. 241; ibid. (June 1, 1864), 158; C. Smart, Medical and Surgical History of the War of Rebellion the (Washington, 1888), Vol. I, Pt. III, p. 965. ** James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States (New York, 1902), V, 351-352. the

p.

70

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

lowing Farragut’s victory, the Massachusetts trade the Carré ice to New Orleans was resumed. One machines was taken to Austin, Texas; the other mained within the city, and soon additional ice plants

of

re-

were established there.” The possibility of marketing Texas beef by marine refrigeration interested Thaddeus Lowe, who, as the Civil aeronautics adviser to the Union armies War, had become familiar with gases and their use in refrigeration. Problems involved in the marine transport of fresh meats had been debated by Australians ever since the establishment the Harrison ice plant in New South Wales. Use of a Tellier machine for cooling meat compartments ona vessel between Argentina and France had been tried by a French concern.” Lowe inaugurated his Texas service by installing a carbon dioxide refrigerating process on a steamer to New Orleans. His effort to establish a regular meat-marketing service was crippled by the financial depression of 1878, but he rose above commercial failure to establish the Lowe astronomical

in

of

Henry Hall, “The Ice Industry of the United States,” Tenth Census United States, 1880, XXII, 1. the of ** Pedro Berges, “Methods of by Water Meat under Refrigeration from 1868 to 1913,” Third International Congress of Refrigeration, Proceedings (Chicago, 1913), III, 328-333; J. Davy Postle, “On the Application of Cold Resulting from the Expansion of Compressed Air to the Preservation of Animal Food,” Royal Society of Victoria, Transactions and Proceedings: 1868 (Melbourne, 1868), pp. *®

xiii, 47.

oe

71

FOOD FROM THE FAR WEST

observatory well known to all tourists in southern California.” Operators

7

of ice plants in the South found it very

difficult at first to compete with natural-ice shipments from northern companies. Ice plants east of the Mississippi River faced competition, in particular, from the Knickerbocker Ice Company of Philadelphia.”

of

the fact that barges and railway Taking advantage cars carrying Pennsylvania coal northward could be ballasted with Maine ice, this Philadelphia concern at the close of the Civil War purchased the holding of a large-scale ice speculator on the Kennebec River and advertised ice at wholesale to points throughout truck produce in the South.” In the 1860's, growers South Carolina were using ice imports for sending refrigerated chests of fruit to northeastern markets.” The Knickerbocker Company, by reason of its harvesting privileges in Maine, by-passed Massachusetts in supplying southern ice consumers. Bostonians, however, still led in exporting ice to foreign depots. But the foreign ice trade, amounting to forty-five thousand tons the close of the 1870's, as compared

of

at

* Ralph Bates and Blake McKelvey, “Lewis Swift,” Rochester History, IX (January, 1947), 18-19. * The distribution of ice plants is indicated in Appendix F, below. ” Ice Trade Journal, XIII Necmary 1890), 5. ” F. S. Earle, “Development the Trucking Interests,” U. S. DepartYearbook of (1900), ment Agriculture, pp. 444-445.

of

72

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

with sixty-five thousand tons ten years earlier, had passed its peak.” Tudor, who died in 1864, the commercial heyday of the business, remained to the end a masterful figure in his local community, Nahant, wherestill flourishing trees are a testimonial to his creative energies.” His drive, when coupled with sound technical advice, had contributed toward a trade which continued to grow. Addison Gage, who was now the great iceman of Massachusetts, had formed with associates large local business, the Bosthe Tudor line, the ton Ice Company. When ships Ice King, the Ice Land, and the Ice Berg, in the face of profitable East Indian ice plants, found last harbor, the Tudor Company, after experimenting with local retail business, sold its icehouses and equipment

a

of

to

Gage’s concern.”

In the interior of the country, Chicago icemen supplied ice to fruit distributors who invested refrigerated car lines to southern and western points. Illinois fruitgrowers imported a Davis refrigerator car designed for meat, but found that refrigerated their berries unevenly. Theytried a car from Chicago fitted with a lengthwise V-shaped overhead tank, and found that performed the task offruit carriage

in

it

ice

it

See Appendix G, below. 210. Pearson, loc. cit., * Ice Trade Journal, II (March, 1879), III (May, 1879), 1-2, IV (May, 1881), 5. ™

™

p.

73

FOOD FROM THE FAR WEST

efficiently.“ Soon, cars of this type were being run

over the Illinois Central Railroad by a Transconti-

to

nental Transportation Company carry early fruits from Crystal Springs, Mississippi, to the Chicago market.

of

In commenting in 1869 on a shipment strawberries from Chicago to New York by refrigerator car,

the Scientific American said: “We shall expect to see grapes raised in California and brought over the Pacific Railroad for sale in New York this season.” Refrigerator cars dispatched to Sacramento from Chicago could be re-iced at Omaha, again in Utah where streams in the Wasatch Mountains were sources for ice harvesting, and yet again in the Sierra Nevada in California. In the year following completion of the railroad, California fruit was on sale in the Chicago market. Californians had begun harvesting ice in 1868 at the line then Boca, a railroad construction camp known as the Central Pacific, at an altitude of some five thousand feet.” Competition between foothill mountain ice and the product from Alaska had

on

“Edward Ward and Edwin Holmes, “Rates of Charge for Trans-

g Garden Truck,” U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 21 18. 1901), Sclentific American, XXI (July 17, 1869), 44. * San Francisco Directory, 1870 (San Francisco, 1870), p. 632; Ice Trade Journal, V (Feb , 1879), 2, XIV (September, 1890), 1; Harry L. Wells, History of N County (Oakland, 1880), p. 166.

-

p.

74

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

brought

ice prices down to five cents a pound in San

Francisco and Sacramento. Now, further price drops occurred. Deciduous fruit, oranges, and salmon were carried from Sacramento to Chicago, where fruit dealers, including the firm of Porter Brothers, profited by distribution. A Davis refrigerator car brought 8,100 dozen eggs, Crawford peaches, and Concord grapes from St. Joseph, Michigan, to San Francisco. Shell oysters became transcontinental pioneers in 1870, and in 1871 a refrigerator carload of eastern bivalves were planted in San Francisco Bay.” Ventilated cars attached to fast trains were for

some

years the principal means employed in the mar-

keting of California fruits, but the leading Sacramento fruit firm, M. T. Brewer and Company, loaded refrigerator cars as well for eastern dealers.” Small quantities of ice were being turned out by a plant at Sacramento to supplement ice supplies from the mountains, where activities had grown bythe close of the 1870's to an annual harvest of one hundred thousand tons. One of the mountain ice companies, the Summit, with two icehouses storing some thirty thousand tons, took advantage of California hillside construction by setting its buildings so that blocks of * Sacramento Daily Union, September 23, October 5, 1870, March 22, 24, 1871; Chicago Tribune, March 4, 1871; Pierce, op. cit., II, 55. * Pacific Rural Press, XXIII (June 3, 1882), 442.

FOOD FROM THE FAR WEST

ice floated to the edge of a dam could be p

to

and guided down an inclined plane th ate storage pile. (See picture on page 88. Ice prices at points near the coast, though higher, in part because of railroad rates, than in the northeast, dropped to as low as a penny a pound.” The depot of the American-Russian Commercial Combusiness until the 1880's. An Oakpany remained land factory, equipped with machines patented by David Smith, turned out large blocks of clear plate

)

in

ice.

The growth of the natural-ice trade in the Northindicated in the report of a special investigator east for the federal census. Ice prices to householders in Chicago and Philadelphia were, in 1879, about forty cents a hundred pounds.” The great cities had a per capita consumption of about two-thirds of a ton of ice a year, while in centers of nine thousand or more inhabitants, “owing to the greater simplicity of life and lack of industries dependent onice,” per capita consumption was not more than one-quarter a ton annually.” Supplies for New York City were 1,885,000

is

of

* Wells, op. cit., p. 166; History of Sacramento County (Oakland, 1880), p. 152. ” Ice Trade Journal, III (June, 1880), 2; Ice and Refrigeration, Blue Book and Buyers Guide (Chicago, 1926), p. 16. ® Hall, loc. cit., pp. 36-41. * Ibid., p. 5; Ice Trade Journal, IV (June, 1881), 2.

76

|

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS|

tons. In Chicago, the Washington Ice Company and E. A. Shedd and Company now led the supplying firms. Harvesters operating from Fox Lake, Indiana, to Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin, delivered 710,000 tons for use by householders, packers, and various commercial firms.” In very small communities which received their ice supplies from neighboring largecity depots byrail, ice delivery was an unlisted business carried on by the local fuel dealer or even the shoemaker.” Some the ice supplies of New York and Phila-

of

delphia were being used by produce dealers for reocean liner to Europe. frigerating meat shipment Early experimenters in Argentina and in Texas with fresh plant installations for bulk marine shipments meats had lacked their own established meat-trade outlets, and speculators had been fearful of investing funds in enterprises which were poor commercial risks. But American and British cattle dealers on both sides of the North Atlantic, where use of natural ice had long been familiar, were prepared utilize supplementary transportation services. On the transatlantic route, Timothy Eastman, conthe Bell Brothers, cattle dealers of Glasgow, signor utilized a method patented by Bate, the Brooklyn

by

of

to

to

* Hall, loc. cit., pp. 33, 39. ™ Ice Trade Journal, I (October, 1877), 2.

~ 77

FOOD FROM THE FAR WEST

refrigerator-car inventor. Bate, in a test on the White Star liner Baltic, had fitted the end of an insulated compartment between decks with an ice bunker and air.” Six quarters of beef, and a fan for circulation some mutton and pork, shipped to the United Kingdom in 1875, arrived in good condition. Eastman, securing the Bate patent right, consigned on the White Star and Anchor lines to the Bells. Other dealers quickly followed. Gillett and Sherman, a New York firm, installed on the Cunard Line a refrigerating apparatus patented by James Craven of Jersey City.” A brine solution, cooled a coil of pipes set in an ice bunker, was forced through a closed system of pipes in the meat compartment, with the result that the air in the compartment was kept cool and dry. In 1876, shipments of beef to the United Kingdom from.New York and Philadelphia firms, by several steamship lines, amounted to 9,888 tons.” To facilitate the handling of meats from British wharves to consumers, the Bell Brothers erected cold-storage warehouses and operated a chain retail meat stores known as Eastman’s Limited.” Some Englishmen feared that their home market would be

of

*U, in

of

S, “James

p. 5.

Office, Official Gazette, VI (October 27, 1874), 583. Macdonald, Food from the Far West (New York, 1878), Patent

* U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture, Report for 1876, p. 320. * Macdonald, op. cit., p. 256; Critchell and Raymond, op. cit., p. 352.

78

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

flooded by meat from the United States, and Punch reflected popular feeling by picturing a British butcher tossed high in the air by a long-horned Texas steer on which all “cuts of beef” were labeled with lower than British prices.” It was true that the golden age of grazing commoncattle was coming to an end in the British Isles. James Macdonald, a cattle authority who published observations for the Scotsman, concluded correctly: “What the repeal of the Corn Laws has been to the cultivation of grain in this likely to be to country, the invention of refrigerators the raising

is

But he gave surprisingly little ofthecattle.” herds of the Southern

thought to

Hemisphere. Actually, as the development of refrigeration progressed, greater part of the United Kingdom’s meat supply was to come from Australasia and Argentina than from the United States.

a

* Punch, LXXI (March 10, 1877), 108. “ Macdonald, op. cit., p. 292.

The National 2 1879-1899

Chapter VI Market,

Nissans harvesters and ice-plant op-

erators continued to find their great field of service in the national market. Refrigerated shipments to the Atlantic seaboard centers increased when the Chicago meat-packing firms of Armour and Company and Swift Company, which had large by-product businesses and firmly established eastern agents, entered the private refrigerator-car business. Both firms had capital with which to build refrigerator cars on good designs, erect icing stations on railroad sidings, and combat cattle-car interests. Swift cars were run at first over the Grand Trunk Railway.’ In 1880, 15,680 tons of dressed beef were shipped from Chicago to New England. Services were extended rapidly as the packers vied in building cars and equipment, and shipments to the four principal eastern cities in 1884 amounted to 173,067 tons.’ In transatlantic service, both the New York dealer Rudolf Clemen, The American Livestock and Meat Industry (New York, 1923), pp. 236-237. * James Nimmo, “The Range and Range Cattle Industry of the United States,” U. S. Treasury Department, Report on the Internal Commerce of the United States (1885), p. 57. *

[79]

80

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

the

Bells of Glasgow had been anxious Eastman and to replace bulky natural-ice bunkers with machines.’ The Bells sought advice from Lord Kelvin, the physicist, who introduced them to a technician, J. Coleman, and patents were registered for a Bell-Coleman compressed-air machine." A trial of the machine was made at Glasgow before installation for transatlantic use in the Anchor Line steamship Circassia. The Anchor Line installed a considerable number of its ships, and the Cunard compressed-air machines Line adopted Hercules ammonia compression devices. Chicago packers ran refrigerator cars alongside the liners, and stevedores transferred the meats to refrigerated compartments. Chicago products in British the early days of this trade were wholesaled middlemen, but the packers soon acquired their own

in

by

stalls in London’s Smithfield Market.’ Even more spectacular than the growth of the American transatlantic trade in perishables was the rise in volume shipments from the Southern Hemisphere. The feasibility of shipping meat from this firm of McIlwraith, area was demonstrated when

of

the

James Macdonald, Food from the Far West (New York, 1878), p. 255. ‘James T. Critchell and Joseph Raymond, A History of the Frozen Meat Trade (London, 1912), pp. 25, 339. * Philip D. Armour, “The Packing Industry,” in One Hundred Years of American Commerce, ed. Chauncey Depew (New York, 1895), II, 887; Nimmo, loc. cit., p. 158. *

© ~ 81

THE NATIONAL MARKET

McEachern and Company installed a Bell-Coleman machine, tuned up freeze rather than merely chill, on the steamer Strathleven, which arrived at London from Sidney in 1880 with forty tons of frozen beef and mutton. Two years later, the Dunedin, fitted with a Bell-Coleman machine, brought the pioneer shipment of mutton from New Zealand. After the acquisition of the Bell-Coleman patents by the Haslam Foundry, installations were made onships the Orient and Steam Navigation Company, which, together with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, inaugurated regular refrigerated service between the Australian colonies and the United Kingdom.° The firm of James Nelson and Sons competed with the Bells in meat shipments across the equator. One of the Nelsons handled family sheep holdings in New Zealand; another kept his hand on the home business. After noting the favorable reception of fresh meat from overseas, they stored produce in the London vault of the London and Katharine Dock Company, and issued the prospectus of Nelson Brothers, Limited. Freezing works were established in New Zealand and Australia; refrigerated barges were used for lighterage on the Thames; a cold-storage ware-

to

of

St.

Critchell and Raymond,

op. cit., pp. 129-184, 837, 870.

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

82

house was established in London; and a retail chain reached consumers.’ About 1886 the Nelsons invaded Argentina, where a British firm, the River Plate Fresh Meat Company, was competing with the concern of an Argentine tallow melter, S. G. Sansinena. Here the Nelsons established their own refrigerated slaughtering facility at Zarate.’ Soon they branched out into maintetheir own line of steamships, using Hall and nance Hercules machines handle their own frozen produce and that of other meat packers. In supplying refrigerated dairy products to the United Kingdom, Russians and Australasians competed with American farmers.’ The grasslands of Siberia were a source of butter, carried westward in the 1880's by insulated cars and in the 1890's by refrigerated cars for shipment from cold-storage plants in St. Petersburg.” In Australasia, whence the Strathleven on her initial voyage, after installation of refrigerating equipment, had carried butter, salesmen from Sweden sold DeLaval cream separators, and

of

to

*J. Thom, “A Brief History of Insulated Barges for the Carriage of Refrigerated Produce on the River Thames,” Fourth International Conon Refrigeration, Proceedings (London, 1925), II, 1386. gress * Simon G. Hanson, Argentine Meat and the British Market (Stanford, 53. 1938), 7 lennal of the Royal Agricultural S , XLVII (1886), xxiii, xxv. * Comité Russe, “Application de la refrigération 4 la viande de boucherie,” Premier Congrés International du Froid, Résumés en francais des rapports (Paris, 1908), p. 155. p.

83

THE NATIONAL MARKET

representatives of an American manufacturer marketed churns. Among New South Wales concerns, the South Coast and West Camden Coéperative Company built a Sydney warehouse with six cold-storage chambers, providing a total of thirty-four thousand cubic feet of storage space, cooled by Haslam refrigerating machinery.” American exports of butter and cheese dropped sharply in the 1880's. Immigrants from Switzerland and Italy retained a taste for homeland cheeses, and the United States was on the way to becoming a net importer of cheese products. In view of the expanding home fruit market, Florida and California fruitgrowers were primarily concerned with domestic trade. The distance of Florida from the northern ice fields was a reason for interest among her citrus growers in the establishice plants. Pacific Coast growers formed a ment marketing organization, the California Fruit Union, and in the 1880's increased their fruit shipments by improved cars equipped with ventilation and refrigeration. Edwin T. Earl, founder of the Earl Fruit the Company Sacramento, joined with members California Fruit Union in dispatching, in 1886, the first all-green-fruit train to Chicago.”

of

of

of

* G. W. Griffin, New South Wales (Sydney, 1888), pp. 233-236. * Pacific Rural Press, XXXII (July 3, 1886), 13.

84

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

The meat-packing firm of Armour and Company, which had established a provision outlet in San Francisco, took an interest in the California Fruit Line, whose refrigerator cars served Porter Brothers, the Chicago agency of the California Fruit Union.” By 1888, New York fruit dealers, including E. L. Goodsell, were handling through transcontinental shipments of refrigerated ripe apricots and cherries from Sacramento.“ From southern California the Inter-Ocean Cold Storage Company, which erected an ice and precooling plant at Riverside, used Chicago refrigerator cars for successful fruit shipments to Illinois.” Railroad company refrigerated subsidiaries served both central and southern California. In 1891 the American Refrigeration Transit Company, Missouri Pacific Railroad subsidiary, which ran its own refrigerator cars between Chicago and Texas, extended service westward and began setting up icehouses at San Jose, Sacramento, Stockton, and Los Angeles for icing shipments by way of Summit and E] Paso.” The Santa Fe, with connecting roads, formed a Pacific Fast Fruit Line, and erected an ice plant at San

a

its

* Ibid., XXXI (June 5, 1886), 549, XXXIV (May 21, 1887), 448, XLI (May 23, 1891), 502. “ Taylor, loc. cit., p. 576. * Pacific Rural Press, XXXIV (May 14, 1887), 422. * Ibid., XLI (June 20, 1891), 596.

85

THE NATIONAL MARKET

for

Bernardino.” Earl, who a while utilized refrigerator cars sent westward by F. A. Thomas and Son, Chicago competitors of Porter Brothers in thefruit trade, organized his own subsidiary Continental

Fruit Express, which constructed and rented combination ventilated and refrigerated cars.” On a September day in 1895, two carloads of grapes were dispatched eastward, one from El Cajon and the other from Redlands.” To service the growing refrigerator-car traffic and to supply the needs of householders, both natural-ice harvesters and ice-plant operators broadened their operations. At the close of the 1880's, on the Hudson River ice fields adjacent to New York City, some three million tons of ice were to be found in storage normal years, and at the same time about one million tons stacked in the icehouses of Maine.” were recorded Along the Hudson, the Knickerbocker Ice Company of New York led all New York companies, including the Consumers’ Ice Company and the New York City Ice Company, in employing the fifteen to twenty thousand men, who, using electric light at nightime,

in

as

Tbid., XLI (May 28, 1891), 502. * Charles E. Russell, “The Greatest Trust in the World,” Everybody’s, XII (March, 1905), 296-298; Evening Express (Los Angeles), March 10, *"

1919.

* Evening Herald (Los Angeles), September 28, 1895.

” Ice Trade Journal,

XXII (April, 1899), 6.

86

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

made quick harvests. Steam-powered endless chains elevated the product to icehouses ranging in storage ninety thousand tons, capacity from ten thousand and tugs towing chains of ice barges down theriver in navigation season were picturesque sight. Fifteen hundred wagons and three thousand horses were deliveries in the city area.” used A growing number large city companies were harvesting in Maine. The Boston Ice Company, whose local harvesting opportunities had narrowed when Fresh Pond and other near-by waters were added to city reservoir systems, had privileges on the Kennebec River. There were also independent Maine operators who had established harvesting privileges arid built icehouses at points such as Boothbay Harbor and along the deep waters of both the Kennebec and the Penobscot, whence ice barges could be towed directly from icehouse wharves ports not too far distant.” Among independent Maine ice operators, Charles W. Morse of Bath, whose shipbuilding family had plowed back profits from lumber shipping and towing into ice-harvesting privileges, played an impor-

to

for

of

to

Robert Maclay, “The Ice Industry,” in One Hundred Years of American Commerce, ed. Chauncey Depew (New York, 1895), II, 468. ™1L. C. Ballard, “Maine Ice Industry,” Maine, Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Annual Report for 1891, p. 161; Ice Trade Journal, VII (April, 1884), 2. ™

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87

THE NATIONAL MARKET

tant part in strengthening services between harvesting fields and city distributors.” At the time of keen

competition for Maine supplies by smaller city ice companies which followed a warm winter in 1890, when the amount of ice stored on the Hudson dropped from more than two million tons to fifty thousand tons, Morse, by reason of his commanding position in Maine, had been able acquire control of the New York City Ice Company and the Consumers’ Ice Company of New York, These he merged, together with outlets at more southern points, in a Consolidated Ice Company.” The operations of this company bridged those of the Knickerbocker Ice Company Philadelphia and competed directly with the distribution activities of the Knickerbocker Ice New York in New York City. Harvesting Company both on the Hudson and in Maine continued on the 1896, when Robert Maclay, president upgrade, and of the Knickerbocker Ice Company New York, sold his interest in that concern to Morse, the combined Hudson River and Maine harvest was some four million tons.” Faced with this formidable consolidation, the Knickerbocker Ice Company of Philadelphia

to

of

of in

of

Ice Trade Journal, XII (April, 1889), 8; Owen Wilson, “The Admiral of the Atlantic Coast,” World's Work, XIII (April, 1907), 8718. Trade Journal, XIV (June, 1891), 4, XX (November, 1896), 5. “Ice ™ Ibid., XIX (February, 1896), 4, 5. ™

~ 88

#8 THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

chose alliance. In 1899, when the harvest stored in Maine was somewhat more than a million tons and that of New York four million tons, Morse announced

San Francisco Morning Call, 1890

STORAGE IN THE SIERRA NEVADA, 1890

In the Sierra Nevada, icehouses were sometimes built below the level of the near-by ice fields, so that blocks could be slid by gravity into the topmost part of the storage structures. The field pictured here was on Prosser Creek, Nevada County, California.

a heavily capitalized trust, the American Ice Company, which included the great northeastern ice distributors who, together with ice-plant operators, served the entire Atlantic seaboard.”

Tbid., (February, XXII

1899), 2; Wilson, loc. cit.

89

THE NATIONAL MARKET

On the Pacific Coast, an official of the Central Pacific Railroad, Edward Hopkins, nephew of the railroad magnate Mark Hopkins, was well aware of the key position of the Summit ice fields. Bringing the 1880's the interests of the Summit Ice together Company and other mountain firms, he formed in San Francisco a Union Ice Company. Shipping to both northern and southern points for refrigeratorcar and local use, this concern was held to be second extensiveness only to the American Ice Company

in

in

of operations.” The Consumers’ Ice Company, a firm operating ice plants in San Francisco, charged that Hopkins’s company was a monopoly allied with the Southern Pacific Railroad. As a large shipper of ice the Union Ice

freight rates, but the charge that it was a monopoly was denied by the railCompany may have enjoyed

low

road and dismissed by the California Board of Railroad Commissioners.” In the Middle West, a Knickerbocker Ice Comice-harvestpany, formed at Chicago, purchased ing properties of E. A. Shedd and Company. It advertised its icehouses at Wolf Lake, Indiana, to be

the

* Morning Call (San Francisco), August 3, 1890, December 15, 1892; Ice Trade Journal, XV (February 7, 1892), 1. ™ California Board of Railroad Commissioners, Report for 1891 (Sacramento, 1891), pp. 80-82; Ice Trade Journal, XV (February 7, 1892), 1; Pacific Rural Press, XLIII (February 20, 1892), 124.

90

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

“the largest in the world,” and, in 1898, merged some twenty Chicago ice companies, to take the lead in servicing refrigerator cars and supplying local ice needs.”

Installation of icemaking and refrigerating equipment was proceeding rapidly at many points. Chicago, the great central marketing point, was the leader in manufacturing equipment, but machines were turned out by shops from Georgia, where the Stratton Company of Columbus made installations, to California. The De La Vergne Company of New York competed with the Hercules Corporation of Chicago in supplying ammonia compression machinery.” A trade journal launched at Chicago, Ice and Refrigeration, circulated among machinery manufacturers, food processors, and warehousemen. Brewers, meat packers, and cold-storage warehousemen continued to shift over from ice bins to machine installations. In the Northeast, a Boston cold-storage warehouse had been equipped with machinery in 1879; and in Chicago, the Western Cold Storage Company, which had shifted over from ice bins to an ice-cooled brine pipe system in the * Lakeside Directory of Chicago: 1894 (Chicago, 1894), p. 2041; Ice Trade Journal, XXI (April, 1898), 4, XXI (May, 1898), 1. ” Ice and Refrigeration, I (July, 1891), 24; Critchell and Raymond, op. cit., p. 889; Ice and Refrigeration, Blue Book (Chicago, 1926), p. 16.

"8 91

THE NATIONAL MARKET

1880's, installed ammonia compression machinery.”

On the Pacific Coast, there was a cold-storage plant at Los Angeles, and before the close of the 1890's machine installations were at work in population Seattle.” centers from the Mexican border Plant ice and refrigerating machinery were of growing importance in long-distance produce shipments. Refrigerator-car lines had sometimes charged producers high rates for icing cars because they had been unable to gauge in advance the amount of ice which might be needed for carrying fruit harvests. In 1889, for example, after Armour and Company had shipped natural ice from Maine to houses in Georgia, the peach crop failed and the Armour line lost money on the ice.” With the establishment in Georgia of ice plants at Macon and Atlanta, Armour had an opportunity to supplement shipments of natural ice by purchases on the spot. At Charleston, in 1890, a local company announced plans for a plant of forty tons daily capacity to serve the needs of refrigerator-car lines.” In the Florida fruit trade, killing frost in the 1880's upset all calculations on

to

Trade Icevn

a

Journal, III (September, 1879), 2, 5; William Taylor, of on the Fruit Industry,” U. S. Department “Influence of Agriculture, Yearbook (1900), p. 568. ™ See Appendix F, below. * Louis D. Weld, Private Car Lines and American Railways (New York, 1908), pp. 104, 106, 132. “ Ice Trade Journal, XIII (January, 1890), 1.

92 amounts

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

of ice needed to movelocal crops. Ice plants

in Florida increased nearly fourfold in the 1890's." In the Northwest, Armour and Company, before the establishment of efficient plants in Oregon, sometimes purchased ice as far east as Boise, Idaho, for use in icing cars at Portland.” Before the close of the 1890's, salmon from Kamchatka were being transported successfully to the New York market. Refrigerated links were utilized over a span of more than five thousand miles in 1892 when twenty-four refrigerator carloads of California peaches, pears, and plums were shipped

to in refrigerated compartments Caliwell

as England.” Three years later, Oregon as fornia fruit was selling in the Covent Garden market of London.”

in

the ice Although great companies had appeared trade, there was no national ice trust comparable to the concentrations control which had developed in other branches of industry. Large operators in ice might manipulate prices within their own regions, but an independent ice plant could bring prices down rapidly at a southern point. The great ice-harvesting

of

* John W. Nix, “The Fruit Trade,” in One Hundred Years of American Commerce, ed. Chauncey Depew (New York, 1895), II, 604-605. See Appendix F, below. * Ice Trade Journal, XXI (September, 1897), 1. * Pacific Rural Press, XLIV (October 8, 1892), 294; Taylor, loc. cit., . 579. Pe Evening

Express (Los Angeles), September 30, 1895.

93

THE NATIONAL MARKET

fields were services for refrigerator-car lines which fields. The lines might discriminate used many

ice

car

as among producers, but the interest of icemen lay in

of

the nation the growth of the perishable-food trade as a whole. Ice was, thus, a commonand improving denominator in the competing food services. When eastern fruit growers were troubled by western competition, they took steps to improve production and marketing. In the New York apple region, for example, Cornell University engaged fruit expert, George Townsend Powell, to do agricultural extension work among local producers. Western producers, faced with the threat of eastern fruit, also took steps to improve marketing. As efficiency increased at home, fruit imports from abroad dropped. When Mediterranean citrus imports fell, in the 1890's, ice harvesters on lines leading from California and from Florida to points in the national market were finding greater opportunity to dispose of ice crops.”

* Charles Evans, “Imports and Exports,” U. S., 53d Cong., 2d sess., Senate Report 259, p. 278.

Chapter VII #* Harvesting and Mechanical Services, I899-I918

As THE total amount of refrigerated

space

in the nation continued to expand, natural-ice harvesting played a relatively smaller part in its development. Refrigerating machinery in industry, together with the advance of ice plants from warm regions into ‘e ice belt, was creating difficulties for natural-ice ‘butors who had pay both winter labor charges ,arvesting and long-distance railroad transporta.on rates from ponds to their depots. Some distributors endeavored to make up for losses in volume of business by raising prices. But the relation between adequate refrigeration and reliable supplies of perishables in the home, such as children’s milk, had been emphasized by health officers; hence city authorities watched ice dealers carefully and stood ready to prosecute. Local ice dealers at the opening of the twentieth price investigacentury were subjected to a wave tions under state antitrust laws. An arbitrary rise in prices in New York led to a summons for Charles W. Morse from the state attorney general. Rather than

to

of

[95 ]

96

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

face an inquiry, Morse preferred to quit the ice trade permanently for shipbuilding and other interests, in which financial mistakes led to his conviction by law.’ Fear that the decline of Maine ice harvesting was a consequence of monopoly did not quickly abate. But the basically sound and rapidly growing American Ice Company carried forward utilization of plantmade along with natural-ice harvesting in operating the Knickerbocker Ice Company of New York, the Knickerbocker Ice Company Philadelphia, the Boston Ice Company, and other subsidiaries.’ Production of plant ice in New York City during the first decade of the century was more than doubled.’ Alindictments of ice though popular opinion resulted dealers in Baltimore, and in Toledo and a number other midwestern points, plant establishments in many places were contributing to competition and

the ice

of

in

of

trade growth.’

ape

for an Order Petition of John C. Davies, Attorney General, Charles before W. Morse, Rspt., to Appear a Referee for Directing Laws of 1899, 168, New Examination Pursuant to Chapter 690 of York, 89; “Charles W. Morse,” Fortune Magazine, VIII (May, 1933), 1

74.

Rhode Island Commissioner of Industrial Statistics, Annual Report for 1906 (Providence, 1907), p. 19; Moody’s Manual of Investments: Industrial Securities, 1915 (New York, 1915), p. 1001. * Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, IX, 685; Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, IX, 861. ‘Sterling Beeson, “Prosecuting the Ice Men,” World Today, XI *

(September, 1906), 941.

97

MECHANICAL SERVICES Some

ice distributors found it cheaper to abandon

set

to

natural ponds and cut up plants. Others sought harvesting costs by timesaving devices. Tudor's old idea of a circular ice saw was revived. Made practicable by gasoline power, it conserved both time and labor in harvesting. But, since plant-ice processes were being constantly improved, natural harvesters were in a losing fight.’ Those who stood their ground faced competition from regional plant-ice associations such as the Eastern Ice Exchange, whose members advertised a distilled-water product, “Hygeia Ice.” In self-defense, natural-ice harvesters formed their own Natural Ice Association of America to trumpet their product's virtues.’ Where existing ice services were inadequate, towns experimented with municipal ice plants. Unrestricted competition between plant operators was not advantageous in southern communities dependent on plant ice because, when price-cutting wars drove operators to the wall, ice supplies were interrupted. In Oklahoma, the Corporation Commission, which in a limited way regulated prices and services of the ice industry under a state antitrust law, recommended

in

*On machine processes see John E. Starr, “Forty-four Years of Refrigerating Engineering,” Ice and Refrigeration, CI (July, 1941), 1113. On plant installations see Appendix F, below. * Natural Ice Association of America, Proceedings, I (New York, 1910).

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THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

1911 that special legislation should be enacted to

govern ice production.’ Refrigerator-car lines were making greater use of plant-ice facilities. In the California fruit trade, Ar-

mour and Company, after absorbing the Porter line of refrigerator cars, purchased from Edwin T. Earl the Continental Fruit Express and the Earl Fruit Company. Turning from the ice field, Earl acquired the Los Angeles Evening Express and remained until his death an influential figure in California.’ The Thomases surrendered the California Fruit Transportation Company to the Swift Company.’ In 1902 the Santa Fe Railroad, by organizing a subsidiary, the Santa Fe Refrigerator Dispatch Company, to build and operate cars, turned to greater use the ice plants and icehouses which it had previously erected.” In the course of investigations by the House and Senate committees on interstate commerce it was When a 1925 ice law of Oklahoma, providing for limitation of the plants in localities, was held unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, Justice Brandeis, in a dissenting opinion, cited much history on the special character of the ice industry. New State Ice Co. vs. Liebman, U. S. Reports, 285, October Term, 1931, 262. *Federal Trade Commission, Food Investigation, Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Meat Packing Industry (Washington, 1920), IV, 287; Evening Express (Los Angeles), March 10, 1919. * Charles E. Russell, “The Greatest Trust in the World,” Everybody’s, XII (March, 1905), 298. * Federal Trade Commission, Food Investigation, Report of the Federal Trade Commission on Private Car Lines (Washington, 1920), pp. 201-208. ™

number

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MECHANICAL SERVICES

99

alleged that operators of refrigerator cars were discriminating in icing charges against small shippers in favor of large shippers of perishables. This resulted in a clause in the Hepburn Act of 1906 which required that icing charges be included by railroads in the freight rates for shipments of perishables.” In this same year a Pacific Fruit Express was established by the Harriman lines, namely, the Southern Pacific and the Union Pacific, each holding half the stock.” An initial order for six thousand cars was placed by this Pacific Fruit Express, which established headquarters at Roseville in the Sacramento Valley.” Here, one hundred miles below Summit, an ice plant with a capacity of one hundred fifty tons of ice a day was established for cooling shipments, while re-icing was continued at Summit to prepare cars for long runs to eastern points. Railroad company refrigerator car subsidiaries gradually gained on the meat packers in handling fruit movements from the Pacific Coast and the Southeast. Naturally, therefore, when irrigated lands in the Imperial Valley of California were threatened by a break-through of the Colorado River, it was rock * Louis D. Weld, Private Car Lines and American Railways (New

York, 1908), p. 180.

# Ibid., p. 29. * William B. Lardner, History of Placer and Nevada Counties (Los Angeles, 1924), p. 214.

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THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

dumping by the Southern Pacific Railroad that restrained the waters in a channel. Canalization of Colorado water made previously arid lands a great garden of lettuce, peas, and early fruits. At desert centers where the mercury rises high, plant ice was used for the icing and precooling ofrefrigeratorcars. More efficient distribution methods were promoted by the fruit-marketing organizations. The California Fruit Growers’ Exchange found an efficient manager, G. Harold Powell, who on the advice of his applethe research activities expert father had engaged of the Department Agriculture and made significant headway prevention of blue mold, a disease

of

in

in affecting oranges.”

In moving Pacific Coast fruit crops, the Santa Fe

Refrigerator Dispatch Company utilized natural ice where a Santa Feline crossed a stream in the mountains of Colorado. The Pacific Fruit Express so much expanded refrigerated lines, by way of Summit from the central valley of California, and by way of North Powder from the Columbia River region, that icing stations, including a North Platte natural-ice harvesting field, were servicing, by 1910, ten thou-

its

*“G. Harold Powell, The Decay of Oranges While in Transit from California, U. S. Bureau of Plant Industry, Bulletin 123 (1908), passim;

“The Extension of Markets Through Improvements in the Handling and in the Refrigeration of Horticultural Products,” Premier Congrés International du Froid, Rapports et communications (Paris, 1908), II, 786.

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sand cars.” Armour and Company, retreat from the Pacific Coast fruit trade, sold the Earl Fruit Coma Californian, Joseph Di Giorgio, who operpany ated it as a subsidiary of his fruit corporation. The southeastern fruit trade was served by an Armour facility called the Fruit Growers Express, Inc. From Florida northward this Fruit Growers Express managed icehouses and icing stations for Armour cars carrying fruit. Another facility, the Utility Operating and Supply Company, performed like functions for Armour meat cars. Ice for the stations of various railroad refrigerator-car lines carrying perishables northward was supplied by independent Florida ice plants which contracted to provide it.” Just as foreign outlets for the natural ice crops of the United States had been closed whenforeign ice plants were set up, so the domestic market was narrowing. Exports of ice to foreign ports had dwindled by 1910 to less than fifteen thousand tons, and more than three times this amount was entering annually from Canada.” In 1914, a trade estimate placed the

to

* J. S. Leeds, “Refrigeration of Citrus Fruits in Transit from California,” Premier Congrés International du Froid, Rapports et communications (Paris, 1908), III, 602; Lardner, op. cit., p. 215; Federal Trade Commission, Food Investigation, Private Car Lines, p. 236. *° Federal Trade Commission, Food Investigation, Meat Packing Industry, I, 141; Federal Trade Commission, Food Investigation, Private Car Lines, pp. 267-269. * See Appendix H, below.

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THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

national harvest of natural ice at twenty-four million tons, and the total production of plant ice at twentysix million.” The Ice Trade Journal converted early in the twentieth century to a cold-storage publication and, retitled the Refrigerating World, gave attention to various applications of ice in trade. Opportunities for wider application of refrigeration in food supply were discussed at series international congresses inaugurated in 1908. Delegates to the first international congress of refrigeration, sponsored by France with hopes obtaining suggesher tropical emtions on developing the resources pire, included G. Harold Powell, John Starr, of the American Society of Refrigerating Engineers, Mary AgriculPennington, a chemist of the Department Ice and Refrigeration, J. F. ture, and the publisher Nickerson, who represented regional ice dealers’ associations.” A suggestion by the president of the congress for formation of a permanent association was supported by Powell, and the constitution of an International Association of Refrigeration was drawn up at a special session.” National refrigeration associations for bibliographical activities and correspond-

a

of

of of

of

Estimate

of

from Leslie C. Smith, National Association of the Industries, October 31, 1934. * Premier Congrés International du Froid, Comptes rendus du Congres (Paris, 1908), I, 23. * Ibid., 653. The constitution of the Association is included on pages

681-692.

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various countries immediately ence were formed after the congress adjourned. In the United States, the Natural Ice Association of America, together with the American Society of Refrigerating Engineers, the American Warehousemen’s Association, the Railroad Refrigerator Service Association, the American Meat Packers’ Association, and a number regional plantice associations, came together in an American Association of Refrigeration, with Nickerson of Ice and Refrigeration as secretary.” Americans, accustomed to the freedom existing in the great tariff-free continental domain of the United States, found it difficult to understand the views of delegates from the tariff-and-regulation-ridden continental countries of Europe on applications of refrigeration in world trade. The British were better situated so far as grasping the situation was concerned. One the British delegates, after contrasting the relatively high levels of per capita meat consumption existing in the United Kingdom with those on offer a resolution statthe Continent, went so far as ing: “The Congress expresses its opinion that in order to reduce the cost of living to the working classes and

of

of

to

* Alois Schwarz, “The Organization of Refrigeration Societies,” Second International Congress of Refrigeration, Reports and Proceedings (Vienna, 1911), pp. 1124-1128; American Association of Refrigeration, Proceedings, I (New York, 1909).

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THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

to promote international trade, regulations which hamper the introduction into any country of frozen. or chilled produce in any such country should be modified or abolished.” Delegates from national associations on the Continent expressed official attitudes. A Dutch delegate conceded that the Netherlands might import refrigerated beef. But this would interfere with Dutch consumption of a “wholesome and cheap foodstuff for the people,” horseflesh. He advanced practically as the Society of Managers of Mufiat the statement nicipal Slaughterhouses in the Netherlands: “From the first place with an eye sanitary conditions and to the health of the Dutch people and the Dutch cattle, the import of chilled or frozen beef into the Netherlands positively not to be advised, because an inspection of the meat with due regard to the above-mentioned interests in the Netherlands not possible, while no value can be attached a possible inspection in foreign countries, if proper considerathe tion is not paid to the conditions demanded

~~" of

in

is

to

is

by

Netherlands.”

Equipment of refrigerator cars with adjustable

Premier Congrés

International du Froid, Comptes rendus du

Congres (Paris, 1908), I, 570. *F. B. Lonnis and D. A. deJong,

eet

and Export of Meat in Second International Various Countries,” Congress of Refrigeration, Reports and Proceedings (Vienna, 1911), pp. 561-562.

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MECHANICAL SERVICES

axles to fit the varying track gauges at the Russian-

German frontier was described by Alfred de Wendrich, a senator of the Russian Empire. But when an American delegate, E. F. McPike ofthe Illinois Central Railroad, presented a resolution prepared by the American Association of Railways, that European countries utilize uniform regulations for railway shipment of perishables, delegates from Germany and Russia immediately objected. A Russian delegate declared himself to the effect that the time had “not yet arrived for formulating such proposals in so general a manner.” A German delegate objected to free discussion of the hygienic qualities of refrigerated foodstuffs. “It is extremely displeasing,” he stated, “that in this commission for three days it has been endeavored to bring trade political conditions to the front, and that the representatives of meat exporting countries have so often been given occasion to speak.” Then, forcing his argument by combining one statementchilled and frozen meats, he dogmatically continued: “The question as to whether frozen and chilled meat are value cannot be considered in fresh meat equal the affirmative. The difference in value in London no chance difference but a natural one, for when the

in

to

in

Alfred

de

is

Wendrich, “Statistics of Transportation,” ibid., p. 989.

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THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

is

it

thawed does not look like meat any frozen meat longer but like a wet, dirty rag.” American refrigerating services had great opportunities to handle domestic commerce, but not meat trade restrictions and comexports, which, owing petition, had declined since the close of the nineteenth century. There was, however, for a short while following revision of the tariff in 1913, a very considerable increase in perishable imports. The United States had been host a session of theinternational congress on refrigeration at the time that Congress was debating the tariff, and a Middle Western delegate had made a stump speech to the foreign experts on refrigeration. In his opinion, it seemed “preposterous” that the United States “should be even considering the necessity of importing meats.”™ Rates on meats and dairy products were cut, and vessels carrying refrigerated beef entered the ports of the United States from Australasia and, also, from Argentina, where Chicago packers in competition with British firms had forwarded development the meat industry.” Total beef imports increased to more

to

to

of

Second International Congress of Refrigeration, Reports and Proceedings (Vienna, 1911), p. 652. * James E. Poole, “The Future Meat Supply of North America,” Third International Congress of Refrigeration, Proceedings (Chicago, 1913), III, 656, 664. See Simon G. Hanson, Argentine Meat and the British Market (Stanford, 1938), pp. 165-185. **

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of

than three times the amount the previous year.” The United States became a net importer of butter. Shipments came from Canada and Australasia. Though refrigerated

rail shipments of butter had for-

merly moved from east to west, as supplies were landed. from Australasia at western American ports the direction of movement was reversed.” This foreign-trade situation changed quickly when, with the outbreak of war in Europe, German war vessels interrupted the food flow from the Southern Hemisphere to the United Kingdom. Price became secondary consideration in England as obtaining essential foods was concerned, and American agricultural production was greatly stimulated by foreign demands.” To carry increasing American exports of fresh beef and dairy products, British cargo carriers and ships equipped with refrigerated space were shifted to the short northern transatlantic route,

a

so

where naval convoy was relatively simple." When

far

_

the United States entered the war in 1917,

increased traffic in perishables was taxing

the capaci-

yon YS R. Edminster, The Cattle Industry and the Tariff (New York, 1926) BE Hanson, cit., p. 182. op.Butter Edwar d Wiest, The Trade in the United States (New York, 1916), pp. 155-157. » Edwin G. amacioon Agriculture and the European Market

rag

(New York, 1924),

“ Charles E. Fayle, ‘San borne Trade

278, 825.

(New York, 1924), I, 145 #f., III,

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THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

ties of refrigerated facilities from production points to seaports. At the request of the United States Food Administration, G. Harold Powell obtained a leave the California Fruit Growfrom the managership ers Exchange to enter the government service. His

of

of

all perishable task was to expedite the movement supplies. Marketing practices were simplified, refrigerator cars were pooled, and efficient standards were set for new refrigerator-car construction.” Shipcivilments of perishables from the United States ians, as well as to the military forces, both in the British Isles and on the Continent, rapidly increased. The last boom in natural-ice harvesting was a patriotic effort. Ice plants needed fuel and ammonia, and the latter in particular was essential for munitions manufacture. For household refrigeration more than a dozen types devices, powered by electricity to make their own ice, had been developed by refrigerating-machinery manufacturers, but distribution of them to consumers had been interrupted by the war.” An ammonia-conservation campaign, planned by the Food Administration and the War Industries Board to meet the emergency, called for greater use nat-

to

of

of

* Federal Trade Commission, Food Investigation, Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Wholesale Marketing of Food (Washington, 1920), p. 88. * Ice and Refrigeration, XXIV (November, 1916), 202-209.

MECHANICAL SERVICES

109

ural resources. Leaders in both plant and natural ice businesses, at the suggestion of the editors of Ice and Refrigeration, came together in a National Association of Ice Industries which aided the government by ice crops throughout the promoting the harvesting country.”

of

“ Ibid., LIII (September, 1917), 91; New York Times, February 5, March 12, 1918.

Chapter VIII Conclusion

he

of the ice trade had been accomrate of obsolescence perhaps unequaled panied by in any other large-scale American industry. Management, in dealing with problems of production, had first organized harvests of individual farmers; had

a

RISE

the

then passed, with corporative development, through a state of exploiting its own natural harvesting fields; and had then entered an era bringing the ice fields to consumers by tapping city water mains and erecting efficient mechanical plants at strategic points. In dealing with problems of distribution, had used the Wyeth-Tudor ice blocks in developing the mechanical facilities of modern food-processing concerns, cold-storage warehouses, stations operated by the great refrigerator-car transportation companies, and city markets. householders the postAs increasing numbers war period installed mechanical equipment, the membership of the Natural Ice Association of America made common cause with plant operators and the newly formed National Association of merged Ice Industries. The educational activities of this Na-

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[1117]

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THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

tional Association, along with those of the utilities, contributed to mounting sales of household refrigerators.. Maine

ice harvests in the 1920's were far below

the million-ton mark, and insulated icehouses stood empty along the Kennebec River. In the Hudson River Valley, as ice-harvesting activities scattered, experiments were made using vacated ice-storage structures for mushroom growing. Chicago had bemechanical come great point in the development refrigeration. On the Pacific Coast, householders were served with plant ice, and Southern Pacific trains no longer stopped at natural-ice harvesting

in

a

of

fields.”

Depression conditions following 1929, installations of mechanical equipment, and applications solidified carbon dioxide, so-called dry ice, in motor-truck transportation of perishables, were not without effect on ice sales.’ But the great ice corporations branched

of

*

Annual sales of household refrigerators utilizing outside ice, which

totaled 737,000 in 1920, amounted to 1,053,000 in 1929, when sales of rival mechanical household devices, which, in the same period, had risen from 10,000 to 840,000 units, forged ahead.—Andrew Cruse, “The Electrical Goods Industries,” National Resources Committee, Technological Trends and National Policy (Washington, 1987), pp. 8316-317. * Federal Trade Commission, Food Investigation, Private Car Lines, p. 144; New York Times, February 16, 1923, February 8, 1925, February 8, 1929. *Ice sales, reported by the United States Census as $210,000,000 in 1929, were $130,000,000 in 1939.— United States, Statistical Abstract (1946), p. 817.

1138

CONCLUSION

out into activities such as laundering and thereby maintained financial stability. Whether or not Americans could in the future equal the record of continuous extension of services made by their forefathers remained to be seen. Shipment of refrigerated produce to points abroad had undergone competition in the late nineteenth century. But businessmen and engineers, working together, had demonstrated their capacity for handling the years a greatly expanded volume of perishables 1914-1918. They were to do secagain during ond of the great twentieth-century wars. The observation of the scientist, Bigelow, that “the economy the ancients consisted in diminishing their technical wants; ours in devising cheap means to gratify them,” remains a challenge for today.

so

in

the

of

Note on Authorities and Sources O>rx THE practical

aspects of this subject the twentieth-century bibliographies compiled by the American Society of Refrigerating Engineers and the American Association of Refrigeration contain full and authoritative materials. For the European historical background, Johann Beckmann, Beytrége zur Geschichte der Erfindungen (Leipzig, 1799), has a chapter on ice. Early American references may be found diaries, travel accounts, and newspaper advertisements. Samuel Eliot Morison has told of the significance of Tudor exportations in the Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783-1860 (New York, 1921), and a memoir on Tudor by Henry G. Pearson is in the Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, LXV (October, 1933). Howard L. Keithahn has written on a phase of Pacific Coast activities in “Alaska Ice, Inc.,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, XXXVI (April, 1945). The Tudor papers and manuscripts of firms dealing in ice tools and refrigerators are available in the Baker Library of Harvard University. Primary published accounts include Nathaniel J. Wyeth, “Ice Trade,” U. S. Commissioner of

in

1157

116

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

Patents, Report (1848); Leander Wetherwell, “The Ice Trade,” U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture, Report (1863); Henry Hall, “The Ice Industry of the United States,” United States, Tenth Census (1880), XXII; L. C. Ballard, “Maine Ice Industry,” Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Fifth Annual Report (1891); Robert Maclay, “The Ice Industry,” in One Hundred Years of American Commerce, ed. Chauncey Depew (New York, 1895), II; and “Ice Industry of Rhode Island,” Rhode Island Commissioner of Industrial Statistics, Twentieth Annual Report (1906). The Journal of the Franklin Institute, the reports of the Patent Office, and the publications of the DeAgriculture are excellent sources on the partment development techniques. Niles’ Register, Hazard's Register, Hunt's Merchants’ Magazine, and the agricultural press, including the New England Farmer and the Pacific Rural Press, contain many items on applications. Among foreign periodicals, Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal has several articles on the trade. Personal reminiscenses and business transactions in ice, cold storage, and transportation are recorded in the Ice Trade Journal, which, the close of a quarter century following 1877, became the Cold Storage and Ice Trade Journal, subsequently absorbed by

of

of

at

the

117

NOTE ON AUTHORITIES AND SOURCES

Refrigerating World, and the current trade periodical, running since 1891, Ice and Refrigeration. Reports in the proceedings of the Natural Ice Association those of America, beginning 1910, are continued of the National Association of Ice Industries. County indiand city histories and directories are guides vidual and corporate businesses. Railroad journals contain transportation references, and Louis D. Weld’s Private Freight Cars and American Railways (New York, 1908) may be supplemented by reports of the Federal Trade Commission. Aspects of marine refrigeration are treated in James T. Critchell and Joseph Raymond's A History of the Frozen Meat Trade (London, 1912) and Simon G. Hanson’s Argentine Meat and the British Market (Stanford, 1938). The proceedings of the several congresses of the International Association Refrigeration, starting with the meeting of 1908, contain articles and discussions their activities in the by experts on world aspects

in to

in

the

of

field.

of

F appended illustrate how a fusion of elementary concepts contributed toward the development of great national services. Moore's rare pamphlet brings together information on the techniques the north at the opening of using natural ice available of the nineteenth century, and points to the chances of THE DOCUMENTS here

in

extended application in land and marine transport. Evans outlines a practical mechanical process for refrigerating plants in hot countries. Tudor, interested in merchandising ice, indicates that he is indebted to Moore for suggesting the commercial possibilities of refrigeration in trade. turn had been helped by Tudor, deWyeth, who scribes a process for efficiently harvesting large crops of ice, which made growth in all fields of refrigeration. The original contribution of Wyeth is acknowledged in the legal decision of Judge Story, but its use is left open to all. His process was to the refrigerated-food industry what the gin was to cotton manufacture or the reaper to bread production. In the use refrigeration there was unbroken extension. Declines in the table of statistics on ice exports signify the rise of ice plants in various parts of the world. The extent of the domestic natural-ice trade in the 1870's has been shown in the text. Appendix indicates that, while use of plant ice first supplemented use of natural ice in the southern region, rapidly became of importance in the industrialized areas of the country.

in

for

of

it

APPENDIX A THOMAS

Moore

ON ICEHOUSES AND THE

REFRIGERATOR,

1803

[Excerpt from An Essay on the Most Eligible Construction of Ice-Houses and a Description of the Newly-Invented Machine called the Refrigerator (Baltimore, 1803). The pamphlet of twenty-eight pages includes digressions on “the laws of heat” and details of ice harvesting. ]

consideration of the following subjects, I have been led into some investigations rather more abstruse than I was at first aware of, and probably to the correct eye of science, some awkwardness in the management of them may be discoverable; this is what might be expected when the farmer affects the philosopher. Alis certainly necessary that the intelligent farmer though his operations, yet should understand the tendency of I can cordially unite in the sentiment, that in general he his farm, than had better be attending the business to nice philosophical disquisitions; for my own part, as the height of my ambition is to become good practical farmer, I have mostly believed it proper for me to leave them to the discussion of the professors of science, and my time to avoid giving up much or attention thereto. But having in very early life acquired a small stock of philosophical knowledge, and at times since paid a little attention to new discoveries, I am enabled in my own way, simply to investigate subjects which sometimes present something in which the comfort of mankind seems to be involved, and when any useful hints appear to be

In

THE

it

all

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[ 121)

of

a

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THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

thereby developed they certainly ought not to be withheld merely because they cannot appear in the most elegant dress.... Agreeably an intimation given the public some time since I shall now endeavour to give some practical directions for the construction of Refrigerators, and (as being connected therewith) also attempt an investigation of the theory and practice of the art of preserving ice through the summer. I stated in a publication which circulated through several newspapers in the United States (See the American Citizen [New York] September 16, 1802), that I had no pretensions to the discovery of new principles in the construction of the Refrigerator. The particular mode of all I applying some before known and understood, claim as my invention; the utility of which has been fully proved during the last summer. What have observe on the keeping of ice is merely an attempt to carry improvements already begun a step further than I have yet heard of. I have apprehended, has not progressed faster, is bethe reason why the cause no one has yet fully investigated the principles this has been done indidepends; or, upon which viduals, they have not favoured the public with a knowledge thereof. This is my present object, and for reasons which will hereafter appear, I prefer going through it, before I enter on the subject of Refrigerators. In treating this subject, It will be necessary to lay down certain positions relative to heat; some of which have not been well understood until very lately. All that I shall offer, have however been fully established by actual experiment. And in order to be as concise as possible, I

to

is

I

to

it

art

if

by

123

APPENDIX A

shall avoid referring to the different writers who have published those valuable discoveries to the world. Philolook for them, and sophical readers will know where those a different class, it is presumed, will not wish to be troubled with such references or quotations. This is the difference between water and in their capacities for heat. As I would wish to be clearly understood by every class of readers, and as I may probably have occasion to repeat this term, it will perhaps be proper to give a definition of it. The capacity for heat which a body said to possess; is, its propensity or power of imbibing and retaining a greater lesser quantity of that fluid, and at the same time appear to be of the same temperature as a given standard, which may contain a much greater or smaller quantity.... The most favourable situation is a north hill side near the top. On such a site open a pit twelve feet square nine feet deep: Logs may top, ten at bottom and eight be laid round the top at the beginning, and the earth dug out raised behind them so as to make a part of the depth of the pit. A drain should be made one corner; the spout carry off the water should descend from the pit except a short piece at the outward extremity which rise thus, ————/ the depressed will alought ways stand full of water and prevent communication with the external air. Dig holes in the bottom of the pit and set therein four perpendicular corner posts and an intermediate one on each side; let the insides of these eight feet in the middle of the pit. posts form a square Then in order to avoid dampness from below, cover the bottom three or four inches deep with dry sand, it can be conveniently got. The next thing to be done, I con-

to

of

ice...

is

'

or

at

or

at

to

to

part

of

if

124

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

sider as the most material and also expensive part of the business; which is fixing a proper floor for the ice to rest on. In order to do this, let three or four sleepers supported at the ends be placed across the square included by the posts; their upper edges about a foot from the bottom, but so that the plank laid thereon may have a dethe sides next the scent of a few inches toward one drain. The plank should be two inches thick and about half seasoned; jointed, grooved and tongued or lathed and grooves cut near the joints, in the upper side as to prevent any water from going through. The floor must extend a little without the inner sides of the posts; so that the water dripping from the sides mayfall on the floor. Then fix a plank, or spout at the lower end of the floor in such a manner to convey the water into the drain. The floor being compleated, begin at the bottom and plank up on the insides of the posts with % or % plank, eacha little on the one below lapping the lower edge kept on the inside: this done to so that the water may the top of the posts (which should be even with the top of the pit) and the inside will be completed; except that it will be proper to cover the floor with loose plank previous to putting in the ice. The roof may be composed any materials, and in any form that will defend the contents of the pit from wet, from the direct rays of the sun, and also admit a free circulation of air: I do not think any could answer the purpose better than one made thatch, supported byposts a few feet from the ground.... The preservation of ice and the economical use of depend on application of principles so nearly similar, that a treatise on ice-houses ought to lead to an understanding the construction and use of Refrigerators (this

of

so

as

of be

of of

the of

it,

125

APPENDIX A

being the most appropriate term I have thought of for the machines intended to be here described) and the common method of defending our bodies from the inclemencies of the atmosphere by clothing, attended to, will instruct us in both. Heat supposed to be excited or generated in animals by the continued action and re-action of the vessels; if

if

is

it that certain portion then

absolutely necessary it should be conveyed away, or the

is continually generating

is

a system would soon be destroyed: on the other hand conveyed or extracted faster than generated, the system would also be destroyed by the contrary extreme wit) the fixidity of all its fluid parts. Nature alone has defended brutes from the effects of these two extremes, and nature and art combined have effected the same thing for man. The surrounding atmosphere serves as a conductor to carry off the surplus heat; but when the atmosphere becomes so cold as to absorb it faster than it is generated in the body, in order to prevent inconvenience from the change, art has introduced use of clothing, which renders its escape from the body more

if

(to

the

difficult.

Now if we can by any means in summer, reduce the temperature of a portion of atmosphere a little below 50° of Farenheit’s scale, and can enclose the same with such a clothing as will prevent any accession of heat from without, we have refrigerator in which fresh meat when reduced to the same temperature will not putrify; and if we can still reduce the temperature to little below 32° and preserve so, we shall then have one in which water and some other liquids will freeze. To effect these purposes at a small expense has been the object of my

it

126

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

enquiry; and may say I have succeeded quite equal to my expectations. I knew a tight vessel composed of some good sides with conducting substance was surrounded on ice, that the heat of its contents whatever they were, would pass rapidly through its sides to the ice, until either the ice was all melted, or the vessel and its contents were reduced to the same temperature; but then, while this process was going on, the ice, if exposed in warm weather would also receive large quantities of heat from the atmosphere; so that to preserve a vessel and contents in this situation, would require such change a quantity of ice as to render it both troublesome and expensive; it therefore appeared necessary to contrive such a covering for the ice, as would defend it as much as possible from any heat, except what was received from the thing intended be cooled. In order to do this, and at the same time to have a vessel of a convenient shape, I had a cedar vessel made in the form of an oval tub, nearly as wide at bottom as top; in this was fitted as large the a straight sided tin vessel as it would contain, open top: This of course left interstices between the sides of the tin vessel and the wood, and also at the ends; these interstices were covered by an edging of tin, which was soldered to the upper edge of the tin vessel, and extended on to the upper edge of the wooden vessel, to which it was nailed; (but this edging which connected the two vessels at top, would have been better of wood.) Through this last was cut a hole about an inch and a half square on eachside, for the purpose of putting in ice. Over the whole was fitted a wooden fastened by a hinge on one side. A coat or case was then made it which consisted

thatif

all

its

of

to

at

lid

for

APPENDIX

127

A

of coarse cloth lined with rabbit skins, the fur side next the cloth and the pelt next to the wood. The coat was in two parts for the convenience raising the lid; the part attached to the lid had an edging which hung down and covered the joint when shut. This being only an experiment, was made on a small scale; the tin vessel being only 14 inches long, 6 wide and 12 deep: It was used for carrying butter to market, and contained 22 lb. Before the butter was put in, small lumps of ice were introduced through the holes into the open sides of the two vessels; the butspaces left between ter, weighed off in pounds, by a peculiar and very expeditious mode of printing, was formed into the shape of bricks, with a device and initial letters in cypher on one side; these being wrapt separately in linen cloths as usual, were put in edgewise: The first tier always became so hard in a few minutes, that the remainder might be built was in, upon it without injuring the shape. When pieces of cloth were laid over the holes made for putting in the ice, and the lid shut down and fastened. In this condition it was put into a carriage and carried twenty miles to market; but because there was always butter put up in the usual way, and other things to take at the same time, it was carried in the night; had it not have been for this circumstance, there would have been no occasion for going in the night. The butter in the hottest weather was always delivered so hard, that it was difficult to make any impression on it with the finger. Sometimes, after having been exposed in market and frequently opened, when was sold out, it has been again filled with other butter so soft as scarcely to admit handling, which in a little time has been taken out nearly as hard the other;

of

the

all

all

as

~

128

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

and after this, ice has remained in the machine most of the day. When the ice is melted, the water is drawn off at the bottom, or poured out at one of the openings in the top. The quantity of ice made use of in these experiments, be least was not fully ascertained; but was proved twice as much as would have answered the purpose, had the spaces left for it have been only half as large. The whole cost of this machine was about four dollars: The butter always commanded from 4d. to 54d. per Ib. higher price than any other butter in market; so that four times using it paid the cost. In this machine, the heat passes freely from the butter the through the tin (which is a good conductor) ice, and the ice being surrounded by several good nonconductors, it can receive but little in any other way. The nonconductorsare first, the cloth; secondly, the fur on the rabbit skins; thirdly, the thin sheet of air confined between the pelts and the wood; and fourthly the wood itself. Yet through all these, a small quantity of heat will find its way; which we are to expect will be the case in any arrangement that can be made; but with proper care the quantity will be so small that its effects may be easily

to at

,

to

overcome. The following are some the useful purposes to which the machine may be applied, besides the one already mentioned. Every housekeeper may have one his cellar, in which, by daily use of a few pounds of ice, fresh provisions may be preserved, butter hardened, milk, or any other liquid preserved at any desired temperature; small handsome ones may be constructed for table use, in which liquids, or any kind of provisions may be ren-

of

in

129

APPENDIX A

dered agreeable, as far as it is possible for cooling to have that effect. Butchers, or dealers in fresh provisions may these machines preserve their unsold meat within one out salting, with as much certainty as in cold weather; and I have no doubt, but by the use of them, fresh fish may brought from any part of the Chesapeake bay, in the hottest weather and delivered at Baltimore market in as good condition as in the winter season. But for some of these purposes, and perhaps for all, it will be found eligible to alter the arrangement materials, and also to make use of some other kinds; particularly for those which are large and are not intended to be often

of

be

of

removed.

...

The following I think would be an eligible mode of is required to have one whose construction. Suppose content shall be equal to six cubic feet clear of the ice vessel: let a box of wood be made three feet long two the clear: let anfeet wide and sixteen inches deep such dimensions that the first may other box be made stand within it; leaving an interstice between, on all sides, and also between their bottoms of about an inch. The sides and one end of the outside box should also stand an inch or more above the other. Then put as much dry sifted ashes, or, rather charcoal dust it can be had, into the large box as will cover the bottom an inch deep; set the small box within the large one, leaving the space equal on all sides. Then prepare lid, which may rest on the top of the inside box, after thin strips are nailed on the upper edges thereof, in order to cover the spaces left between the boxes; the edges of the lid confined by a the outside box, or by a groove, and made ledge nailed to slide endwise; cut a hole of a convenient size near the

it

in

of

if

a

to

130

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

middle of the lid for the purpose of putting in the ice, and connect a door it by a hinge. The ice vessel must then be fastened to the lid: this should be made tin or sheet iron, about two feet long, eighteen inches wide, one inch of which must have a square turn outwards to admit of its being nailed up the lid, which will form the top will be necessary to cut of the vessel. This being done both boxes as to admit the lid with away one end the ice vessel nailed to its under side to draw out. Then fill the space between the boxes at the sides and ends, with the same material used between their bottoms; nail on the strips to confine it in, and the wood-work will be finished. The whole may then be covered with coarse blanketing, duffle, or the cloth called lionskin; so cut as cover all the to admit of the lid being drawn out, and joints when shut: at the end cut down, to give room for the ice vessel, it will be necessary to have a flap of several thicknesses of cloth, attached either to the end of the lid effectually to close the openor box in such a manner lid is pushed in.... ing when When is required to produce a great degree of cold suddenly, will be proper to beat the ice small and add add about X its weight of salt; the mixture will melt much sooner than ice alone; and because the freezing point of the brine their union will produce, is 38° below the freezing point of fresh water, and its capacity for heat being greatly increased on its passing to the fluid state, the mixture while melting, must necessarily be abundantly colder than ice; which constant experience verifies. After is no colder the brine has taken up so muchheat that than ice, it may be drawn off and used for cattle or any other necessary purpose. I should suppose this practice

to

of

of

to

it so

to

the

itit

as

it

131

APPENDIX A

would be always proper for fishermen when their fish

were

first put in....

After this digression, we will return to the subject of refrigerators. Twenty pounds of ice per day for four months is 2400 Ib. a small portion of the quantity recommended be stored in the ice house; but we are remember, that after all precautions, we must expect a great deal more will be melted in the ice house than will be taken out for use. The mean temperature proposed for the inside of the refrigerator and its contents to be kept, (to wit) about 48°, and on which the calculation grounded, is below the point at which the putrefactive flesh can commence: fresh meat may therefore process be preserved a week, or longer desired, in good condiother kinds of protion, in the hottest weather; and visions, fruits, or liquids will be found to be quite as cold as will be agreeable. ... Keeping these leading principles in view, refrigerators may be constructed of light materials, to contain, not sorts of small only butter, but poultry, veal, lamb, and marketing, which are liable to be injured by carrying in hot weather; one of these may filled, and its contents cooled; then draw off the water and add some more ice: in this condition, it may be on the road the whole of a hot summer's day, and be delivered at market as good condition as in the winter season. This would entirely supercede the necessity of the unhealthy, and disagreethe able practice of travelling to market night. If such refrigerators should happen to be made imperfectly, a blanket or two thrown over them and plenty of dry straw

to

‘

to

is

in

if

all

all

be

in

in

around them would be useful. In the publication alluded to in the beginning of the

132

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

to

renessay on ice-houses, I expressed an unwillingness der any invention of mine, in the least degree expensive to the poorer class of citizens; but I also expressed my time the benefit inability to expend either money of the public without remuneration. I have therefore adopted the following plan, whereby every citizen will be at liberty to profit by the invention on his own terms with respect price. The exclusive right is secured by patent. Any person will be at liberty to use gratis, for the purpose of carrying butter to market, one Refrigerator, of a size not exceeding nine inches cube, or 780 cubic inches in the clear, which if made a suitable shape will contain 18 lb. For one of any other size, not exceeding a cubic foot, or, 1728 cubic inches; (which will contain 42 or 48 Ib. ) to be used for the same purpose, the price proposed for a permit, 2 dolls. 50 cts. For one any larger size, to be used either for carrying provisions to market, or for family purposes; or both occasionally, 5 dolls. small ones for table use for one For any number family only, 5 dolls. any Or, for any number size or description for the particular use of one family only, 10 dolls. But if any person in low circumstances, wishes to use any of the above mentioned sizes, for the purposes of marketing only; and who cannot well afford to pay for the privilege; he may on producing certificate; signed by three reputable neighbours, certifying that such are his circumstances, obtain a permit gratis. Or, if any more wealthy person, shall apply for a permit for any of the sizes; to be used for any purpose; and will

or for

to

of

is

of

of of

APPENDIX

183

A

declare, that he believes the terms are hard and improper, and is therefore not willing to pay anything, he shall

obtain a permit gratis. But in order to prevent the abuse of the foregoing plan, (which I think most of my fellow citizens will acknowledge a liberal one) there will be a regular record kept of each person’s name, his place of abode and the will be an terms upon which he obtains a permit; and indispensible condition, that in every case, even in the first mentioned, a permit must be obtained. Those who act contrary to this condition will make themselves liable to the penalties of the law. If on further trial the invention is approved, and ap-

is

it

plications become numerous from a distance; I propose appointing agents in several of the large towns in the United States; at present I have appointed none; but any letters covering the proposed fee, certificate, or declaration, as above mentioned, post paid, directed to, Thomas Moore, Brookeville, Maryland, will be duly attended If it were necessary, the names a large proportion of the citizens of George-town and Washington, might be offered, who would testify to the truth of the description of the refrigerator used by myself last summer; a certificate to that purpose from three the principle innkeepers of these places, and another well known charthe foot of the first publication on the acter, appeared subject; but after the explanation which has been given of its principles, I believe intelligent readers will hardly think it necessary.

of

of

at

to.

APPENDIX B OLIVER

Evans’ DESCRIPTION OF A MACHINE Coo inc Ligunps, 1805

FOR

[Although this transcription, in which Evans mentions the Marquis of Worcester, is a prototype of plans for compression systems which have closed circuits, it is probable that, like the marquis, he did not construct description is from The Abortion of the Young a working model. Steam Engineer's Guide (Philadelphia, 1805), p. 136.] The

Water boils in vacuo at the temperature of 70 deg. and

to to

the fluid from vapour may by compression be reduced whence arose: hence we may infer, that water will the pressure keep cooler in vacuo than when exposed of the atmosphere. an open glass vessel be filled with ether and set water vacuo, the ether will boil rapidly and rob the water of its latent heat until it freezes. It is cold that not right to say that the ether becomes freezes the water around The heat the water enters the ether, causing it to boil and the ether is converted into vapour, carrying off the heat to fill the vacuum. This is a positive proof that a vacuum will receive and retain in a latent state more heat than a plenum. These principles may probably be applicable to useful purposes. For instance, to cool wholesome water, such as that of the Mississippi, rendering it palatable for drinking, to supply the city of New Orleans; or of the Schuylkill to supply the citizens of Philadelphia. A steam engine may work large air-pump, leaving a perfect vacuum behind it on the surface of the water at every stroke. If ether be used as a medium for conducting the heat from

it

in

If

in

it.

[ 134]

in

so

it

APPENDIX

135

B

the water into the vacuum, the pump may force the vabe empour rising from the ether, into another pump ployed to compress it into a vessel immersed in water; the heat will escape into the surrounding water, and the vapour return to ether again; which being let into the vessel in the vacuum, may thus be used over and over repeatedly. Thus it appears possible to extract the latent heat from cold water and apply it to boil other water; and to make ice in large quantities in hot countries by the power of a steam engine. suggest these ideas merely for the consideration of those who may disposed to operation. investigate the principles, or wish them put And, lest I should be thought extravagant, as was the Marquis of Worcester, I give a

to

it

I

bein

DESCRIPTION OF THE MACHINE

air-pump and close the lower end of the cylinan der by it with a globular vessel, if metal Make

connecting

as

glass

well: fix the lower end of the cylinder will not answer of this pump, so that the glass vessel shall be immersed in the water that to be cooled, and which to be contained in a tight vessel. Near to this pump another much smaller, called the condensing pump, and connect it with a small vessel, called the condenser, immersed in water, fixing a valve between them. Connect the upper end of these working cylinders by a pipe with a valve therein at the top of the exhausting pump, and connect the bottom of the condenser with the glass globe, by a small pipe, in which insert a cock, called the ether-cock. The piston rods of the pumps must work through stuffing boxes made air-tight, and each piston must have a valve fixed in it, one to shut downward and other up-

is

is

fix

the

186

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

ward: work these pistons by lever that is to be put in motion by a steam engine or any other power. THE OPERATION

Fill the glass globe with ether, so that the piston will touch its surface at every stroke; expel the air from the pumps and condenser, making a complete vacuum in them. Set the machine in motion and every time the piston rises the exhausting piston leaves a perfect vacuum behind the ether then begins to boil and carry off the latent heat from the water; the steam of the ether fills the vacuum, which is again exhausted by the pump, and driven into the condensing pump which compresses in the condenser, forcing out the heat which robs the vato pour of its essential constituent part, and reduces ether again; the ether-cock being opened just sufficient to let the ether return to the glass globe to undergo the same operation; and so on ad infinitum. The machine might be simplified by connecting the top of the exhausting cylinder with the condenser, dispensing with the condensing cylinder and piston. The condensation might be sufficiently effected by the exhausting cylinder and the piston alone forcing the vapour into the condenser. air be not expelled it will be forced into the condenser, and remain above the ether formed there without injuring the working orthe effect of the engine: but I presume the condensing pump would be necessary to carry the principle to such extent as to boil water by the heat extracted from cold water. A small pump may be fixed so same lever, to extract the water as to be worked by from the vessel as fast as necessary after it is cooled. The vessel may kept full by the pressure of the atmosphere forcing the water through a valve at the bottom.

it:

it

it

If

the

be

©

% APPENDIX C

Tupor’s OUTLINE

OF PROPOSALS RESPECTING

Ice, 1806

[Tudor MSS, “Draft 1, General Outline,” September 20, 1806]

In Aucust last my brother and I determined upon the

plan and associated with us James Savage upon the principle that as reward for his services he should receive % of the profits (he has however since resigned his conthe expenses until the profits should cern ) and we pay exceed the disbursements. Our object was that they should secure the privilege from the different governments previous to mysailing with the cargo from Boston conceiving that we should stand a much better chance then than after the experithe W.I. ment should be tried. They accordingly went They visited either together or separately, Martinique,

of

all

to

Guadaloupe, Antigua, St. Croix, St. Thomas, St. Domingo and Jamaica. From Martinique I went up to Barbados where introduced the business to the Government. At the French Islands they obtained the grant excluif sive of other foreigners, this is nearly the same against every one. At Antigua we have every reason to think an act has passed in our favor—at Barbados and well asJamaica the thing is yet to come on but we sured of an act in our favor, having friends at both places particularly at the latter—at St. Croix and St. Thomas the government refused, but from conversation with W. BatBoston, telle a very respectable man now was probably owing to my brother's asking a grant exclusive of

I

as

are

in

[187]

it

188

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

their own subjects—He thinks if asked exclusive of other foreigners they would grant us the privilege so far which is all we want. If we are to fear competition at all it is only from Americans—I am of opinion decidedly that we have, at least for number of years, the exclusive privilege from our information I have before observed you in conversation and I form it from these facts. The general the construction of ice-houses and the true ignorance is preserved. principles upon which That a man at Charleston, S.C. has made a fortune out of the article and there is now but one other who has set up the business there. That this last spring as I have been informed a subscription was raised at Savannah of $1500—a cargo was lost in a few days owing to the badness of carried and the ice house. If you will take the trouble to examine my model you will I think find it perfectly consonant with the principles of nature. The ice-houses upon the old construction in Europe have become obsolete, they cost great sums and kept ice badly—those underground in this country kept it better by an improvement upon them without costing a tenth part as much—mine upon the same principle pursued further is an improvement upon them. Moisture is the great destroyer ice in ice-houses it is a great conductor of heat from the surrounding bodies—all the moist air flies off from the top in my ice house and cannot communicate heat to the ice below because warm air cannot descend or cold air ascend. Butter, fresh fish and fresh provisions but especially the former will become objects of very great importance in this business. The gentleman I mentioned before of

to

as

in

_

ice

all

of

as

is

APPENDIX

189

C

opinion that for butter alone this thing is of more conseice itself. quence than for With respect to ice-houses above ground I have never seen one but I have heard of several, one in particular near Philadelphia which my brother saw some years ago was so and he says remarkable for keeping the article well—You will find mine correct according to the opinion of a person who has published a pamphlet on the subject in Baltimore. He is for building below ground but principle is the same as mine. South America, where they have ice though In Lima the air is temperate, yet it lies within 12 degrees of the and the monopoly equator. Also in Mexico they have is worth to the king we have been told $15,000 a year. I will now concluded [sic] what relates to the cargo I carried the last year. On my arrival I found my brother had been exceedingly discouraged in the enterprise, every one assuring him no person would purchase any it came. He accordingly left a letter telling me I had better coast along the islands and that he should be preme at St. Croix. But I thought they would not pared buy the first instance they never would and therefore determined to make the trial. I accordingly published a hand-bill and got permission from the Prefect to sell on board the vessel in small quantities. The inconveniences attending this mode were great and the result from $20 to $50 daily. I received several offers for my cargo equal to three, four and $5000, but I was fearfull of trusting them with it for if by bad management they should have other it might met with a loss I thought some how operate to our disadvantage, eventually. At the end of five days I determined leave the place accordingly I

the

his

in

ice

if

if

for

in

to

or

140

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

cleared out the brig. She had got under way and was take leave I went laying off waiting for me—when of the collector who had been a particular friend to me through the whole business, found several the principal people assembled who entreated me not to go and receiving a proposal from a man by the name of Decon that he would advance me $3,000 and take the cargo on my account on consignment, I thought best to accept and the brig came to anchor again. I expected to have the place prepared in three or four days—instead of this it was a fortnight before the place was ready. In the the cargo had already been broken in upon meantime it is easy to suppose situated as the vessel was that the loss was very considerable. I suppose it amounted to near one-third of the cargo. The loss attending the carrying on shore and conveying to the ice-house not only from the influence of the sun but also from theft (notwithstanding the government allowed me a guard) you may easily conceive of and finally being obliged to put it in a common store with only surrounding it with some straw and no means of conveying off the moisture, de-

I

to

as

it

it

as

it

cayed rapidly. ice was all gone I arrived on the 5th of March and between the 12th and 15th of April. After the ice was all discharged there I improved an occasion of going up to Barbados which I knew was an island of considerable importance and found it when I got there to be of greater than I thought. I tried to carry ice there but the vessel stopping atSt. Lucia we did not arrive until four days after it was barreled up and was all lost. I left however petition there and publishing the notice which was taken of the ice in

the

it

a

APPENDIX

C

I I

141

returned after a Martinique in the Bridgetown paper week’s stay to Martinique where found the vessel nearly ready and was informed that the ice was nearly gone. This I regretted much but assure you there was not in that time a doubt as to the inevitable result my mind of the undertaking. I felt well satisfied my brother had been misinformed. The truth is that ice is so beautiful a thing in countries where it has never been seen before that even penny-saving Martinique creoles cannot help buying. I was gratified to see there was so much sold in the latter of the time as at first when the price was raised the disadvanto a quarter of a dollar the pound. Add tages that I arrived just after the carnival, the worst season of the year for anything of this kind. I have made definitive arrangements at Guadaloupe and Barbados, also Martinique probably also at Jamaica and am now train for it at New Orleans. At that place it is to be done by subscription by a man by the name Touro, brother of Abraham of this town. I am possitively [sic] assured by a Mr. Shepherd of that place and Nat. will answer very well there. I shall probAmory that ably not get an answer from Touro for some time yet. With respect to what islands it will be best to ship to the ensuing winter provided we make an agreement, that another time. But I think now two can be determined for Jamaica, two to Havana, one to Barbados, one to Martinique, Guadaloupe and New Orleans and probably one to St. Croix, St. Thomas and Antigua. At any of those where we feel some doubt we shall be able to ship upon half profits by which means we insure the exertions of the vessel. I have no doubt the captain and owners being able to make this arrangement necessary.

I

at

all

to

in

of

it

at

of

if

of

142

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

For reasons which I have before expressed to you, I wish you to take a general concern in the whole business. I therefore propose to you to resign three quarters of your present concern in the Havana and receive one eighth concern in all the other islands and every other place by which you will have one-eighth in the whole business, let it hereafter become ever so extensive, and that will I have no doubt. I think all the large cities in tropical latitudes will require this article such as those in the Dutch and Spanish possessions on the South American coast, Trinidad, St. Vincent, etc., etc. I consider Jamaica equal to the Havana for the business as there are two large towns, Kingston and Spanishtown—which reduces your concern one-half. I consider Barbados as equal to your other quarter concern. All the rest, New Orleans, Martinique, Guadaloupe, St. Croix and St. Thomas's, etc., for the sake of your making preparation at Havana the ensuing winter, the increase of risks by being concerned at different places, and that you will take upon you the part of the business of contracting for the necessary vessels. I on my part will undertake the rest of the business say % of necessary disbursements,

it

all

etc. etc. etc. etc.

I think you must consider this as favorable when you

take into consideration the butter business and as we

in

it

extending to all the gradually succeed our advance tropical places. Or I will make you another proposal—you shall resign one-half of your concern in Havana, retaining a quarter of the whole of that place and be concerned one-quarter in the whole business which brings you upon nearly equal terms with my brother and myself—we having one-

148

APPENDIX C

quarter and one-sixteenth each should this arrangement take effect. The condition of this is that you shall pay the expenses that shall occur in sending say eight carhave goes off the ensuing winter and repay me what already disbursed since the accounts were closed of the [crossed out original] cargo sent last winter. for our part in the conAfter this year we to come cern of necessary disbursements. Memorandum of all the possible expenses

in

I

all

in

Cost of 82 cords of ice, which the next winter need not be so much except for the first cargo

bccascewsweneweieaweverwarumeres $ 162.05 23 loads of shavings ...........-.s00see00s 15.50 25.50 Carpenter preparing the 40.00 Stevedore (too much) ..............ee000: 16.00 Say for wharfage 50 cents $ 258.05 [sic]

OF TWO:

wis

hold.............. load.........

I wish omitted above

.................55.

_

611

Expenses which occurred the last year preparing and loading the Favorite, 134 tons.. $ 264.16 [sic] It will be necessary to employ a man to after the shovel off the snow which may ice begins to make for ice made from water is much better than snow overrun bywater as is often the case in ponds say at my father’s 20.00 place of Livni. vienicusiencsncseis seves cies Hire of a wooden store in Charlestown for _10.00 8 months—say apportioned upon each cargo

fall

$ 294.16 [sic]

Say $300.00 for each cargo of ice equal to on vee ee eee ee eee $2400.00 eight cargoes Caahs

paid

.............. sisciwsisiaiseaeses Wile for

A bill of exchange

seis i6o'5.652

sissiten

wars

8808s isis

300.00 533.33

$3233.33

144

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

The sum of $833.33 you may pay me when convenient. If during my brother's stay in Europe, he shall find it necessary to draw for the benefit of the expedition for any further sum you are to pay one-quarter of it and we the other three-quarter on the part of ourselves and J. S. The expense lading with ice will be called for in small

of

different times. at All of which I submit to your consideration. If what I

sums

and

propose should meet your ideas or that you wish to vary in any part you can suggest any alteration you wish. I have been this particular to open the thing as fully as possible to you. F. Tupor September

20, 1806.

APPENDIX D Wyetu’s PATENT ON A MANNER OF CUTTING ICE,

a

418

THE

Marcu

18, 1829

the Journal of the Franklin Institute, VII (June, 1829), pp. 417MACHINERY

for cutting ice described in this patent,

consists principally of two distinct instruments, the first a straight, the second a circular saw, both operating to be acted upon by horse power. The first consists of a iron, about three feet in length, quadrangular frame and twenty inches in width. Plates of steel, or of iron pointed with steel, are fastened along the two opposite edges of this frame, so as to project from, and stand at right angles with each side of it, forming the plough, saw, with which the ice is first to be cut. At the first angle, this saw projects but one inch from the frame, and increasing an inch in each successive angle, projects four in the last. On each edge there are but four cutting points, or teeth, each cutting one-fourth of an inch deepr than that which precedes it. This frame is to be drawn along upon the surface of the ice, when two grooves will be cut about twenty inches that apart, and one inch deep. By turning the frame the saws may successively run in these grooves, they are cut to the depth of four inches. The field of ice is then crossed, and thus divided into squares, when the second instrument to be used. The second instrument consists of a two wheeled car-

as

as

of

or

so

is

[ 145 J

146

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

riage; the wheels having iron teeth on their rims, to take hold of the ice, and cause them to revolve. These wheels are firmly fixed upon a common axle; upon the middle of this axle is a toothed wheel, from which motion is communicated to a circular saw, the tail of the carriage; this saw is about two feet in diameter. The whole is to be drawn like a plough, a man following, and by means of handles guiding, and depressing or elevating the saw. “It is claimed as new, cut ice of a uniform size, and by means of an apparatus worked by any other power than human; the invention of this art, as well as the particular mode of the application, are claimed by the subscriber.”

at

to

APPENDIX E WYETH ET AL VS. STONE ET AL. A CASE CONCERNING

Ice Cuttinc BErore JusTIcE Story, 1840 [I, Story, 273]

Brix in equity for a perpetual injunction, and for other relief, founded upon allegations of the violation, by the defendants, of a patent right, granted originally to the plaintiff (Nathaniel J.) Wyeth, as the inventor, byletters patent, dated the 18th of March, a.p. 1829, “for a new and useful improvement in the manner of cutting ice, together with the machinery and apparatus therefor,” as the letters patent; and afterset forth in the schedule wards with a small reservation assigned to the other plaintiff (Frederick) Tudor, on the 9th of February, 1832, by a deed of assignment of that date, but which had never been recorded. The schedule set forth twodifferent apparatuses or machines for cutting the ice, the one called the saw, the other the cutter, which are capable of being used separately or in combination, and described their structure, and the mode of applying them, as fol-

to

lows:

bars

of iron, or other material, secured to each (1) Two other bycross bars: the two mentioned be of such

first

to

distance apart as the dimension of the ice is required to be. (2) On each outside bar is bolted a plate of iron as long as the bar, and at right angles with the cross bars. These plates to be so bolted the bars as to project three inches each on one side of the bars to which they are

to

1477

148

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

of

of

the them to project on the other side bolted, and one bar two inches; the other, one inch. These projections may varied, according to the desired depth of the cut. (3) These plates, both on the upper side and on the under side of the bars, are to be cut at four equi-distant points each, at an angle of forty-five degrees, or thereabouts, to the bar, thereby forming a cutting point of forty-five degrees, or thereabouts; to this point is welded a piece of steel, to form the chisel. The rear end of the plates to be of the before specified width from the bar, but to diminish toward the front and one fourth of an inch at each point, thereby giving each succeeding point a clear cut of one fourth of an inch deeper than its precursor. (4) The mouths, by which the chips cut from the ice by the chisels are discharged, are made similar to that of a carpenter's plough. (5) To the middle of the front cross-bar is fixed a ring, for the purpose of attaching a draught chain, to which the horse that draws the cutter is to be harnessed. (6) This first part of the apparatus for cutting ice is called the cutter, and is used as follows: The laid on the ice, with the three-inch side of the cutter plates downward, and drawn forward straight line as far as is required, thus making two grooves of an inch deep. The horse is then turned about, and the cutter turned over, so that the two-inch side of the plate shall be in one the first grooves cut, and the one-inch side on the ice; and as the cutter is drawn forward, the two-inch side makes one of the first grooves an inch deeper, and the one-inch side forms a new groove of an inch deep. Proceed in this manner until as many grooves are cut as are wanted; then turn the cutter over upon the three-inch side, go over the whole again with this side, and they are

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finished. Repeat the same process at right angles with the first grooves, and the operation with this part of the apparatus is finished. Part Second of Apparatus for Cutting Ice. (1) Two spur-wheels, about three feet six inches, more or less, in diameter, connected together by an axletree of iron, or other materials, from the centre of each to the other, fixed immovable in each. (2) A pair of fills, proceeding from the axletree, and secured to it by a pair of composition boxes, admitting the axletree to turn in them. (3) A cog wheel, about three feet two inches in diameter, more or less, fixed in the centre of the axletree, so as to be incapable of turning, except with the axletree. (4) A pair of the axletree, in the same manner handles attached the fills, so as to admit of the motion of the axletree in them; these handles to be placed one on each side of the cog wheel in the centre of the axletree, and to be connected together by a permanent bar, a suitable distance from the axletree. (5) Two cog wheels, about four inches diameter, more or less, one of which to work on the large cog wheel, and the other to work on the one so working, and both to be secured by pintles passing through the handles: the small cog wheel not working on the large cog wheel to have secured beside it a circular saw, about two and a half feet diameter, more or less. (6) The proportion between the large and small cog wheels is varied, to obtain greater or less velocity for the saw, as may be wanted. This part of the apparatus for is called the saw, and cutting used as follows: Put the saw into one of the outside grooves made by the cutter; drive the horse forward, following the grooves made by the cutter; at the same time a man who manages

to

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as

the strength of handles presses them down as much the horse will admit of. This operation is followed back and forth, until the ice is cut through. The same is done with the outer parallel groove on the opposite side of the work, and also on one the end grooves, running right angles with these. By this process the ice on the three sides of the plat, or work marked by the cutter, is cut through. When this is done take an iron bar (one end of which wide and fitted to the groove, and the other end of which is sharpened as a chisel,) and insert the end which is fitted to the groove into the groove next to and parallel with the end groove which is cut through; pry lightly in several places, then more strongly, until the ice is broken off; then strike lightly with the chisel end of the bar into the cross grooves of the piece split off, and it easily separates into square pieces. Thus proceed with the whole plat marked out by the cutter. It is claimed as new, to cut ice of a uniform size, by means of an apparatus worked by any other power than human. The invention of this art, as well as of the particular method of the application of the principle, is claimed by the subscriber. The answer insisted upon various grounds of defence, which are fully stated in the argument and the opinion of the court. W. H. Gardner, for plaintiffs, contended: That the right acquired by the patent had not beenlost by any act of the plaintiffs, the evidence not disclosing any abandonment, or dedication to the public. ... E. Greenleaf and G. T. Bigelow, for defendants, contended: That the invention was not new and original, being merely the common carpenter's plough. That the specification was bad, as it contained not only more than

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the plaintiff, Wyeth, invented, but also, as it included two distinct machines, and a combination of different machines. ... That if it could be upheld at all, it was only for cutting two grooves by one operation, which the defendants had not invaded. That the case was not within the relief of the Patent Act of 1837, 7, 9. That the invention had been published previous to the issuing of the patent. Phil. Pat. 184. And that after the patent was issued, the plaintiffs abandoned the use to the public, and thereby betrayed the defendants into the use of the machine; which, in equity, was a good bar to the claim of damages, and entitled the defendants costs. ... Story, Circuit Justice. I have considered this cause upon the various points, suggested at the argument by the counsel on both sides, with as much care as I could, in the short time, which I have been able to command, since it was argued; and I will now state the results, with as much brevity, as the the cause will permit. importance The first point is, whether the invention claimed by the patentee is new, that is, substantially new. The patent for a “new and dated on the 18th of March, 1829, and useful improvement in the manner of cutting ice, together with the machinery and apparatus therefor.” Assuming the patent to be for the machinery described in the specification, and the description of the invention in the specification to be, in point of law, certain and correctly summed up, (points, which will be hereafter considered,) I am of opinion, that the invention is substantially new. No such machinery is, in my judgment, established, by the evidence, to have been known or used before. The argument is, that the principal machine, to

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described as the cutter, is well known, and has been often used before for other purposes, and that this is but an application of an old invention to a new purpose; and is not, therefore, patentable. is said, that it is in substance identical with the common carpenter's plough. I do not think so. In the common carpenter's plough there is no series of chisels fixed in one plane, and the guide below the level, and the plough is a movable chisel. In the present machine, there are series of chisels, and they are all fixed. The successive chisels are each below the other, and this is essential to their operation. Such a combination is not shown ever to have been known or used before. is not, therefore, a new use or application of an old machine. This opinion does not rest upon my own skill and comparison of the machine with the carpenter's is fortified and sustained by the testimony plough; but of witnesses of great skill, experience, and knowledge in this department science, viz., by Mr. Treadwell, Mr. Darracott, and Mr. Borden, who all speak most positively and conclusively on the point. The next point is, whether the ice machine used by the defendants is an infringement the patent; or, in other words, does it incorporate in its structure and operation the substance of Wyeth’s invention? I am of opinion, that it does include the substance of Wyeth’s invention of the ice cutter. It is substantially, in its mode of operation, the copies his entire cutter. same as Wyeth’s machine; and The only important difference seems to be, that Wyeth’s machine has a double series of cutters, on parallel planes; and the machine of the defendants has single series of chisels in one plane. Both machines have a succession of chisels, each of which is progressively below the other,

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with a proper guide placed at such distance, as the party may choose to regulate the movement; and in this succession of chisels, one below the other, on one plate or frame, consists the substance of Wyeth’s invention. The the duplicate of his chisel guide in Wyeth’s machine plate or frame; the guide in the defendants’ machine simply a smooth iron, on a level with the cutting single chisel frame or plate. Each performs the same service, substantially in the same way. In the next place, as to the supposed public use of Wyeth’s machine before his application for a patent. To defeat his right to a patent, under such circumstances, is essential, that there should have been a public use of his machine, substantially as it was patented, with his consent. If it was merely used occasionally by himself in trying experiments, or he allowed only a temporary use thereof by a few persons, as an act of personal accommodation or neighbourly kindness, for a short and limited right to a patent. period, that would not take away To produce such an effect, the public use must be either generally allowed or acquiesced in, or at least be unlimited in time, or extent, or object. On the other hand, the user were without Wyeth’s consent, and adverse to his patent, it was a clear violation of his rights, and could not deprive him of his patent. Now, gather from the evidence (which, however, somewhat indeterminate on this point) that Wyeth’s machine, as originally invented by him, was not exactly like that, for which he afterwards procured the patent. On the contrary, he seems to have made alterations and improvements therein. Pratt (the witness) says, that he made the iron part of the first machine of Wyeth, which

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of

iron, in December, 1825, was partly of wood and partly he afterwards, in December, or in January, 1826; and 1827, made the machine, which was patented for Wyeth; and it was not patented until March, 1829. So that the latter seems to have been more perfect than the former. But, all events, I cannot but think, that the evidence of the user, as a public user, of the invention before the patent was granted, far too loose and general to found dedicate to any just conclusion, that Wyeth meant the public, or had abandoned it to the public before the patent. It appears to me, that the circumstances ought to be very clear and cogent, before the court would be justified in adopting any conclusion so subversive of private rights, when the party has subsequently taken out a patent. In the next place, as to Wyeth’s supposed abandonment of his invention to the public, since he obtained his patent. I agree, that it is quite competent for a patentee at any time, by overt acts or by express dedication, to surrender abandon the public, for their use, all the rights secured by his patent, if such is his pleasure, clearly and deliberately expressed. So, for a series of years the patentee acquiesces without objection in the known public use by others of his invention, or stands by and encourages such use, such conduct will afford a very strong surrenpresumption of such an actual abandonment der. A fortiori, the doctrine will apply to a case, where the patentee has openly encouraged silently acquisuch use by the very defendants, whom he afteresced wards seeks to prohibit by injunction from any further use; for, in this way, he may not only mislead them into acts, or contracts, against which they might expenses,

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otherwise have guarded themselves; but his conduct a surprise, not as a fraud upon them. At operates such a defence were not a complete defence at events, law, in a suit for any infringementofthe patent, it would certainly furnish a clear and satisfactory ground, why a court of equity should not interfere either to grant an injunction, or to protect the patentee, or to give any other relief. This doctrine is fully recognized in Rundell v. Murray, Jac. 311, 316, and Saunders v. Smith, 3 Mylne & Co. 711, 728, 730, 735. But if there were no authority on the point, I should not have the slightest difficulty in asserting the doctrine, as found in the very nature and character the jurisdiction exercised by courts of equity on this and other analogous subjects. There is certainly very strong evidence in the present surrender, case, affirmative of such an abandonment or at least of a deliberate acquiescence by the patentee all of the in the public use of his invention by some defendants, without objection, for several years. The patent was obtained in 1829; and no objection was made, and no suit was brought against the defendants for any infringement until 1839, although their use of the invention was, during a very considerable portion of the intermediate period, notorious and constant, and brought home directly to the knowledge of the patentee. Upon this point, I need hardly do more than to refer to the testimony of Stedman and Barker, who assert such know]edge and acquiescence for a long period, on the part of the patentee, in the use of these ice cutters by different persons (and among others by the defendants), on Fresh Pond, where patentee himself cut his own ice. is no just answer to the facts so stated, that until 1839, the

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business of Wyeth, or rather of his assignee, the plaintiff, Tudor, was altogether limited to shipments in the foreign ice trade, and that the defendants’ business, being confined to the domestic ice trade, did not interfere practically with his interest under the patent. The violation of the patent was the same, and the acquiescence the same, when ice was cut by Wyeth’s invention, whether the ice was afterwards sold abroad, or sold at home. Nor does

the

atall

it appear, that the defendants have as yet engaged in the foreign ice trade. It is the acquiescence in the known use by the public without objection or qualification, and not the extent of the actual use, which constitutes the ground, upon which courts of equity refuse an injunction in cases of this sort. The acquiescence in the public use, for the domestic trade, of the plaintiff's invention for cutting ice, admits, that the plaintiff no longer claims or insists upon an exclusive right in the domestic trade under the patent; and then he has no right to ask a court of equity to restrain the public from extending the use to foreign trade, or for foreign purposes. If he means to surrender his exclusive right in a qualified manner, or for a qualified trade, he should at the very time give public notice of the nature and extent of his allowance the public use, so that all persons may be put upon their guard, and not expose themselves to losses or perils, which they have no means of knowing averting during his general silence and acquiescence. The cases, which have been alreadycited, fully establish the doctrine, that courts of equity constantly refuse injunctions, even where the legal right and title of the party are acknowledged, when his own conduct has led to the very act or application of the defendants, of which

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he complains, and for which he seeks redress. And this doctrine is applied, not only to the case of the particular conduct of the party towards the persons, with whom the controversy now exists, but also to cases, where his conduct with others may influence the court in the exercise of its equitable jurisdiction. Rundell v. Murray, Jac. 311, 316; Saunders v. Smith, 3 Mylne Under such circumstances,

&

C. 711, 728, 730, 735.

the court will leave the party to assert his rights, and to get what redress he mayat law, without giving him any extraordinary aid assistance of

or

his own.

But thedifficulty in the present case arises,

not so much from the doctrine considered in itself, as from the utter impracticability of applying it on account of the state of the pleadings. The point not raised, or even suggested in the answer, in any manner whatsoever, as a matter of defence; and, of course, it is not in issue between the parties; and the whole evidence, taken on the point, irrelevant and cannot be looked to, as a matter in judgment. This defect in the pleadings, therefore, puts the question entirely beyond the reach of the court. In the next place, as to the objections taken to the specification. The question here necessarily arises, for what the patent granted? it for the combination of the two machines described in the specification (the cutter and the saw) cut ice? Or for the two machines separately? Or for the two machines, as well separately, cutas in combination? Or for any mode whatsoever ting ice by means of an apparatus, worked by power, not human, in the abstract, whatever it may be? it be the latter, it is plain, that the patent is void, as it is for an abstract principle, and broader than the invention, which

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is only cutting ice by one particular mode,

or by a partic-

ular apparatus or machinery. In order to ascertain the true construction of the specification in this respect, we the invention, and the must look to the summing up claim therefor, asserted in the specification; for it is the duty of the patentee to sum up his invention in clear and determinate title. This was the doctrine maintained in

of

Moody v. Fiske (Case No. 9,745); (see, also, Hill v. Thompson, 8 Taunt. 375); and I see no reason to doubt it, or to depart from it. Now, what the language, in which the patentee has summed up his claim and invention? The specification states: “It is claimed, as new, cut ice of a uniform size, by means of an apparatus worked by any other power than human. The invention of this art, as well as the particular method of the application of the principle, are claimed by the subscriber” (Wyeth). is plain, then, that here the patentee claims an exclusive title to the art of cutting ice by means of any power, other than human power. Such a claim is utterly unmaintainable in point of law. It is a claim for an art or principle in the abstract, and not for any particular method or machinery, by which is to be cut. No man can have a right to cut ice by all means or methods, or by all or any sort of ap-

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ice

not the inventor of orall of is such means, methods, apparatus. A claim broader than

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the actual invention of the patentee is, for that very reason, upon the principles of the common law, utterly void, Fiske (supra); Brunand the patent a nullity. Moody ton v. Hawkes, 4 Barn. & Ald. 541; Hill v. Thompson, Taunt. 375, 399, 400; Evans v. Eaton, 7 Wheat. (20 U. S.) 356; Phil. Pat. pp. 268-282, c. 11, 7. Unless, then, the case

is

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is saved by the provisions of the patent act of 1836, c. 857 (5 Stat. 117), or of the act of 1837, c. 45 (Id. 191), which

will hereafter be considered, the present suit cannot be sustained. But, besides this general claim, there is another claim in the specification for the particular apparatus and machinery to cut ice, described in the specification. The language of the specification here is: “The invention of this art,” (the general claim already considered,) “as well as of the particular method of the application of the principle,” (omitting the words of reference, as above described,) “are claimed by the subscriber.” Now, assuming the former objection, that the claim for a general or abstract principle is not a fatal objection in the present case, it has been argued that the specification is too ambiguous to be maintainable in point of law; for it does not assert, what is claimed as the patentee’s invention; whether be the two machines separately and distinctly, as several inventions, or the combination of them, or both the one and the other. It appears to me, that the language of the summary and indeed ought may be construed, res magis valeat, quam pereat, to mean by the words “the particular method the application,” the particular apparatus and machinery described in the specification to effect the purpose of cutting ice. I agree, that the patentee is bound to describe, with reasonable certainty, in what his invention consists, and what his particular claim is. But it does not seem to me, that he is to be bound down to any preis sufficient, if the court cise form of words; and that can clearly ascertain, by fair interpretation, what he tends to claim, and what his language truly imports, even

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though the expressions are inaccurately or imperfectly

drawn. the Is the patent, then, a patent for the combination two machines, viz.: the saw and the cutter? If it be, then the defendants clearly have not violated the patent right; for they use the cutter only, and the saw machine has been abandoned in practice by the patentee himself, as useless, or unnecessary. It appears to me, that the patent is not for the combination of the machines, but for each machine separately and distinctly, as adapted to further and produce the same general result, and capable of a separate and independent use. In short, the one may be the use of the other. auxiliary, but is not indispensable I deduce this conclusion from the descriptive words of the specification, which show, that each machine inthe other in its operations, and from the dependent silence of the patentee as to any claim for a combination. This claim, then, for “the particular method of the application of the principle,” although inartificial, may be reasonably interpreted, as used distributively, and as expressive of distinct claim of each particular method forth in the specification. I deem the patent, then, to be a claim for each distinct machine, as a separate invention, but conducing to the same common end. Of course, either machine is new, and is the invention of Wyeth, and it has been actually pirated by the defendants, the plaintiff is entitled to maintain a suit therefor, under the acts of 1836 and 1837, although not at the common law. A fortiori, the same doctrine will apply, if both machines are new, upon the principles of the common law. But it has been said, that if each of the machines patented is independent of the other, then separate

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set

if

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APPENDIX E

patents should have been taken out for each; and that they cannot both be joined in one and the same patent; and so there a fatal defect in the plaintiff's title. And for this position the doctrine stated in Barrett v. Hall (Case No. 1,047), and Evans v. Eaton, 3 Wheat. (16 U. S.) 454, 506 (see, also, Phil. Pat. pp. 214-216), is relied on. agree, that under the general patent acts, if two machines are patented, which are wholly independent of each other, and distinct inventions, for unconnected object, then the objection will lie in the full force, and be fatal. The same rule would apply to a patent for several distinct improvements upon different machines, having no common object or connected operation. For, if different inventions might be joined in the same patent for entirely different purposes and objects, the patentee would be at liberty to join as many, as he might choose, at his own mere pleabe inconsistent with sure, in one patent, which seems the language the patent acts, which speak of the thing patented, and not of the things patented, and of a patent for an invention, and not of a patent for inventions; and they direct a specific sum to be paid for each patent. Besides; there would arise great difficulty in applying the such cases. Suppose one doctrines of the common law or more of the supposed inventions was not new, would the patent at the common law be void toto, or only as to that invention, and good for the rest? Take the case of a patent for ten different machines, each applicable to an entirely different object, one to saw wood, another spin cotton, another to print goods, another to make paper, and so on; any one of these machines werenot the invention of the patentee or were in public use, or were dedicated to the public, before the patent was granted,

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upon the doctrines of the commonlaw the patent would be broader than the invention, and then the consideration therefor would fall, and the patent be void for the whole. But if such distinct inventions could be lawfully united in one patent, the doctrine would lead to consequences most perilous and injurious to the patentee; for, if any one of them were known before, or the patent as to one was void, by innocent mistake or by priority of invention, that would take away from him the title to all the others, which were unquestionably his own exclusive inventions. On the other hand, if the doctrine were laxed, great inconvenience and even confusion might arise to the public, not only from the difficulty of distinguishing between the different inventions stated in the patent and specification, but also of guarding themselves against fraud and imposition by the patentee, in including doubtful claims under cover of others, which were entirely well founded. In construing statutes upon such a subject, these considerations are entitled to no small weight. At least, they show, that there is no ground, founded in public policy, or in private right, which calls for any expanded meaning of the very words of the statute; and that to construe them literally is to construe them wisely. It is plain, also, that the act of 1837, c. 45, in the ninth section, contemplated the rule of the common seeks to law as being then in full force; and, therefore, and provides, “that whenever, by mistake, acmitigate cident, or inadvertence, and without any intent to defraud or mislead the public, any patentee shall have, in his specification, claimed to be the original and first inventor or discoverer of any material or substantial part of the thing invented” (not of different things invented) “of

re-

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it

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APPENDIX E

which he was not the first and original inventor, and shall have legal or just right to claim the same, in every such no case the patent shall be good and valid for so much of the

invention or discovery” (not inventions or discoveries) “as shall be truly and bonafide his own; provided shall be a material and substantial part of the thing patented, and be definitely distinguishable from the other parts, so claimed without right as aforesaid.” This language manifestly points throughout a definite and single invention, as the “thing patented,” and does not even suppose, that one patent could lawfully include divers distinct and independent inventions, having no common connexion with each other, nor any common purpose. It may, therefore, fairly be deemed a legislative recognition and adoption of the general rule of law in cases, not within the exceptive provision of the act of 1837. And this is what I understand to have been intended by the court in the Barrett v. Hall (supra). It was there said, language used that “a patent under the general patent act cannot embrace various distinct improvements and inventions; but in such a case the party must take out separate patents. the patentee has invented certain improved machines, which capable of a distinct operation, and has also invented a combination of these machines to produce a connected result, the same patent cannot once be for the combination, and for each of the improved machines; for the inventions are distinct, as if the subjects were entirely different.” And again: “if the patent could be construed a patent for each of the machines severally, as well as for the combination, then it would be void, because two separate inventions cannot patented in one patent.” It is obvious, construing this language with ref-

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erence to the case actually before the court, that the court were treating of a case, where each of the patented machines might singly have a distinct and appropriate use and purpose, unconnected with any common purpose, and therefore each was different invention. In Moody Fiske (Case No. 9,745), the judge alluded still more closely to the distinction, and said: “I wish it to be understood in this opinion, that though several distinct improvements united in one machine may one patent; (yet) it does not follow, that several improvements in two different machines, having distinct and independent operations, can be so included; muchless, that the same patent may disbe for a combination of different machines, and tinct improvements in each.” It is perhaps impossible to cases of this sort, standing use any general language almost upon the metaphysics of the law, without some danger of its being found susceptible of an interpretation beyond that, which was then in the mind of the court. The case intended be put in each of these cases was of two different machines, each applicable a distinct object and purpose, and not connected together for any this way, commonobject or purpose. And, understood it seems to me, that no reasonable objection lies against the doctrine. Construing, then, the present patent to be a patent for each machine, as a distinct and independent invention, but for the same common purpose and auxiliary to the same commonend, do not perceive any just foundation for the objection made to If one patent may be taken for different and distinct improvements made a single machine, which cannot well be doubted or denied, (see Moody Fiske, supra), how is that case distinguishable

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in principle from the present? Here, there are two machines, each of which is or may be justly auxiliary to produce the same general result, and each is applied to the same common purpose. Why then may each be deemed a part or improvement of the same invention? Suppose, the patentee had invented two distinct and different machines, each of which would accomplish the same end, why mayhe not unite both in one patent, and say, I deem each equally useful and equally new, but, under certain circumstances, the one may, in a given case, be preferable to the other? There is a clause in the patent acts, which requires, that the inventor, in his specification or description of his invention, should “fully explain the principle and the several modes, in which he has contemplated the application of that principle or character, by which it may be distinguished from other inventions.” Now, this would seem clearly to show, that he might lawfully unite in one patent the modes, which he contemplated the application of his invention, the different sorts of machinery, or modifications and of machinery, by which or to which it might be applied; and if each were new, there would seem to be no just objection to his patent, reaching them all. Act ground 1793, c. 55, 3 (1 Stat. 321); Act 1836, c. 357. A fortiori, this rule would seem to be applicable, where each of the machines is but an improvement invention conducing to the accomplishment one and the same general end. But us take the case in another view, (of which certainly susceptible,) and consider the patent as a patent, not for each machine separately, but for them conjointly, or in the aggregate, as conducing to the same common end; each machine is new, why may they not

not

all

in

all

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both be united in one patent, as distinct improvements? I profess not to see any good reason to the contrary. If they may be so united, and were both new, then, upon the principles established in Moody Fiske, it is not necessary, in order to maintain a suit, that there should is sufficient, be a violation of the patent throughout. any one of the invented machines or improvements is wrongfully used; for that, pro tanto, violates the patent. In this view, therefore, the use of the cutter of the inventor, without any use of the saw, would be a sufficient ground to support the present bill, if it were not otherwise open to objection. We come, then, to the remaining point, whether, although under the patent act of 1793, c. 55, the patent absolutely void, because the claim includes an abstract principle, and is broader than the invention; or, whether that objection is cured by the disclaimer made by the patentee (Wyeth), under the act of 1837, c. 45. The seventh section that act provides: “That whenever any patentee shall have, through inadvertence, accident, or mistake, made his specification too broad, claiming more than that, of which he was theoriginalor first inventor, some material and substantial part of the thing patented being truly or justly his own, any such patentee, his administrators, executors, or assigns, whether of the whole or a sectional part thereof, may make disclaimer of such parts of the thing patented, as the disclaimant shall not claim to hold by virtue of the patent or assignment, etc. etc. And such disclaimer shall be thereafter taken and considered as a part of the original specification, to the extent of the interest, which shall be possessed in the right secured thereby by the disclaimant, etc.” patent

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Then follows a proviso, that “no such disclaimer shall affect any action pending at the time its being filed, except so far as may relate to the question of unreasonable neglect or delay filing the same.” The ninth section provides, “that whenever, by mistake, accident, or inadvertence, and without any wilful default or intent to defraud or mislead the public, any patentee shall have, in his specification, claimed to be the first and original inventor or discoverer of any material or substantial part of the thing patented, of which he was not the first and original inventor, and shall have no legal or just right to claim the same, in every such case the patent shall be deemed good and valid for so much of the invention or discovery, as shall be truly and bona fide his own; provided it shall be a material and substantial part of the thing patented, and shall be definitely distinguishable from the other parts so claimed without right as aforesaid.” Then follows a clause, that in every suchcase, the plaintiff recovers in any suit, he shall not be entitled to costs, “unless he shall have entered at the patent office, the suit, a disclaimer of prior to the commencement all that part of the thing patented, which was so claimed without right”; with a proviso, “That no person bringing any suchsuit shall be entitled to the benefits of the provisions contained in this section, who shall have unreasonably neglected or delayed to enter at the patent office

of

in

if

of

as

aforesaid.” a disclaimer Now, seems to me, that upon the true construction of this statute, the disclaimer mentioned in the seventh section must be interpreted apply solely to suits pendfiled in the patent office; and ing, when the disclaimer the disclaimer mentioned in the ninth section to apply

it

to

is

168

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

is

so filed. In solely to suits brought after the disclaimer this way, the provisions harmonize with each other; upon any other construction they would seem to some extent, to clash with each other, so far as the legal effect and concerned. operation of the disclaimer In the present case, the suit was brought on the first of January, 1840, and the disclaimer was not filed until the twenty-fourth of October, of the same year. The proviso, then, of the seventh section would seem to prevent the disclaimer from affecting the present suit in any manner whatsoever. The disclaimer, for another reason, is also utterly without effect in the present case; for it is not a assignee, Tudor, joint disclaimer by the patentee and who both plaintiffs in this suit; but by Wyeth alone. The disclaimer cannot, therefore, operate in favor of Tudor, without his having joined it, in anysuit, either at law, or in equity. The case, then, must stand upon the other clauses of the ninth section, independent of the disclaimer. This leads me say, that I cannot but consider, that the the claim made patent for the abstract principle or art of cutting ice by means of an apparatus worked by any other power than human, is a claim founded in inadvertence and mistake of the law, and without any wilful default or intent to defraud or mislead the public, within the proviso of the ninth section. That section, it appears to me, was intended to cover inadvertences and mistakes of the law, as well as inadvertences and mistakes of fact; and, therefore, without any disclaimer, the plaintiffs might avail themselves of this part of the section to the extent of maintaining the present suit for the other parts of the invention claimed, that is, for the saw and the

is

his

are

in

to

in

for

169

APPENDIX E

cutter, and thereby protect themselves against any violation of their rights, unless there has been an unreasonable neglect or delay to file the disclaimer in the office. Still, however, it does not seem to me, that a court of equity ought to interfere to grant a perpetual injunction in a case of this sort, whatever might be the right and remedy at law, unless a disclaimer has been in fact filed at the patent office before the suit is brought. The granting of such an injunction is a matter resting in the sounddiscretion of the court; and if the court should grant a perpetual injunction before any disclaimer is filed, it may be, that the patentee may never afterwards, within a reasonable time, file any disclaimer, although the act do so to be certainly contemplates the neglect or delay a good defence both at law and equity, in every suit, brought upon the patent, to secure the rights granted this case to thereby. However, it is not indispensable dispose of this point, or of the question of unreasonable neglect or delay, as there is another objection, which in fatal, in every view, to the maintenance my judgment of the suit in its present form. The objection, which I deem fatal, is, that the bill the plaintiff, states and admits, that the assignment Tudor (made in February, 1832), has never yet been recorded the state department, according to the provisions of the patent act of 1798, c. 55, 4. That act provides, “That it shall be lawful for any inventor, his executor or administrator, to assign the title and interest in the said invention at any time; and the assignee, having recorded the office of the secretary of state, the said assignment the place of the original inventor, shall thereafter stand both as to right and responsibility.” It seems a necessary,

in

to

in

is

to

in

in

in

THE AMERICAN ICE HARVESTS

170

or, at least, a just inference, from this language, that until the assignee has so recorded the assignment, he is not substituted to the right and responsibility of the patentee, so as to maintain any suit at law, or in equity, founded thereon. is true, that no objection is taken in the pleadthis defect; but it is spread upon the ings on account face of the bill, and therefore the court is bound take notice of it. It is not the case of a title defectively set forth, but of title defective in itself, and brought before the court with fatal infirmity, acknowledged to be atAs between tached plaintiffs and the defendants, standing upon adverse titles and rights, (whatever might be the case between privies in title and right,) Tudor has shown no joint interest sufficient to maintain the present bill; and therefore it must be dismissed, with costs.

It

of

to

a

to

it.

the

APPENDIX F NuMBER OF IcE PLANTS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1869-1919

I

State

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