Foreword: I'm standing in the Columbia Crossing River Trails Center in Columbia, Pennsylvania. As a student in high school I knew very little about the little town along the Susquehanna River known as Columbia, except for the fact that they traditionally had a top-notch basketball team. Always seemed to beat our high school team until five years after I graduated and my brother, Steve, became a senior and he and his teammates finally beat the team from along the river. Today, the quaint little river town is the perfect model of "Small Town America." The more I explore this town I feared as a teenager, the more I discover how much they influenced the building of our nation. The next three day's stories will deal with those that worked on what is known as the 16th largest river in the United states and played a major role in the start of our nation.
It was an ordinary day. Standing in the display area of the Columbia River Trails Center, with my camera in hand, taking photographs of history. The current exhibit at the center is called "Ice Harvesting On The Susquehanna River." Deals with the time in history when refrigeration was a big problem for the majority of the population. I can still remember going on vacation as a young boy to a small beach in Maryland known as Crystal Beach. My mom and dad, brother and myself, along with my Aunt Lillian and cousins Judy and George would spend two weeks every summer in a small cottage at Crystal Beach where we played in the sand, went swimming in the upper Chesapeake Bay and had some the most memorable times of our lives. And, I can still remember the ice man that made a few stops each summer so we could get a block of ice or two to put in the icebox that was on the rear porch. Only way we could keep our food and drinks cool in the hot summer weeks was by buying the blocks of ice. Well, today I am finally getting a chance to see how that ice was harvested for our use. The display in the Columbia Crossing River Trails Center comes from the vast collection of Mr. Lynn Smoker. a local historian. The display contains ice tools from small ice picks to large ice plows, to signs that home owners would put in their window.
And, not just one of each. This gentleman has a huge collection which he began in 2005. Most of the pieces in the collection are from the 19th century, since the 1880s were the peak of the ice industry. The harvest on the nearby Susquehanna River usually began in mid-January, provided the ice was at least 6 inches thick and safe to walk on without cracking it. To be able to have heavy equipment or horses on the ice, the ice needed to be at least 8 inches thick. A hole was needed to start the process. The hole was drilled in the ice and a tool was placed into the hole, The hook on the end of the tool would catch on the bottom of the hole and someone would mark the depth on the tool. After the tool was removed, a rule was used to check the thickness of the ice. If it was a suitable depth, the ice was cleared of debris and snow and a crisscrossed pattern was place on the ice.
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| A variety of ice harvesting tools. |
Workable units of ice were usually 25 to 50 pounds blocks. Modern day clothing didn't exist so wool was the choice for winter weather. At times the weather was brutal so the job was not for the weak or faint of heart. The blocks were moved to the ice houses which lined the shore and packed in sawdust to keep it cold. When needed it was delivered to households and local businesses. Agricultural and meat-packing plants were other customers of the ice to keep their products fresh. Ice boxes were the fridges of today and they held the blocks of ice to help refrigerate the home owner's food. The harvested ice usually lasted until the end of the summer months, depending on the amount harvested and the thickness of the ice on the river.
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| Ice chunks line the Susquehanna River last year. |
Many of the people who worked to harvest the ice were the same people who farmed the land, since they didn't have as much to do in the winter months. The ice delivery man had to be strong since he was lifting up to 50 pound blocks of ice all day long. To keep your home in ice for that amount of time usually cost about 10% of your yearly income. Eventually ice farms were used to freeze water in a controlled environment. This ice was usually cleaner than river ice. For those that couldn't afford an ice box and the cost of ice drank warm drinks and shopped more often so their food wouldn't spoil. The display at the Center showed samples of everything from the saws used to cut the ice to the ice boxes used to keep it cold in your home much like the ice box I remembered from my summer vacations when I was a young boy. Eventually most all households had electricity installed and purchased refrigerated cooling units, thus eliminating the ice harvesting. Tomorrow I will take you on a visual tour of Mr. Smoker's vast display that I had the chance to view and photograph. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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