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Ice seems like such a simple thing today, when I can just go to my freezer and grab a few cubes to cool down my drink. But before artificial refrigeration, New Englanders would cut and store ice during the long winter to keep their food fresh and their drinks cold during the summer. That was all well and good for people who lived near an ice pond anyway, but what about people in the faraway tropics who might want to get their hands on some ice? Until the early 1800s, the idea of shipping ice to the tropics was seen as a crazy pipe dream, but then along came Frederic Tudor, the Boston entrepreneur who built a fortune and a global reputation as the Ice King!

Please check out the full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/211/

And support the show on Patreon. The Ice King of Boston Frederic Tudor Scoring ice to cut Wyeth’s Ice Plow (public domain via Woods Hole Museum) Wyeth’s Ice Plow (public domain via Woods Hole Museum) Gangway to carry ice from train to ship Tudor’s Fresh Pond operation, with the Charlestown Branch Railroad in the background Manufacturing “Hooghly Ice” in India Tudor’s Bombay ice house (second building, with domed white roof)

• Ship designs by Tudor, combining the forms of duck and dolphin
• Simpson, Lewis p. “Boston Ice and Letters in the Age of Jefferson.” Midcontinent American Studies Journal, vol. 9, no. 1, 1968
• Thoreau describes Tudor’s ice cutters in Walden
• Kistler, Linda H., et al. “PLANNING AND CONTROL IN THE 19th CENTURY ICE TRADE.” The Accounting Historians Journal, vol. 11, no. 1, 1984
• Chase, Theodore, and Celeste Walker. “The Journal of James Savage and the Beginning of Frederic Tudor’s Career in the Ice Trade.” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 97, 1985
• Pearson, Henry Greenleaf. “November Meeting. Frederic Tudor, Ice King.” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 65, 1932
• “Frederic Tudor – Ice King.” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, vol. 6, no. 4, 1932
• Letters between Tudor and Mayor Josiah Quincy Jr on a plan for widening the streets of Boston
• Dispute about an icehouse in Havana between Tudor and John W Damon
• The Mechanics’ Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette (9 Apr 1836). Reprinted from Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (Sep 1834)
• Crawford, M. Caroline. (1909). Old Boston days & ways: from the dawn of the revolution until the town became a city
• Details of handwork in ice harvesting provided by the Jamaica Plain Historical Society