THE FROZEN-WATER TRADE:
Frederic Tudor, the Ice King
Frederic Tudor (1783-1864) was the son of a prominent, well-to-do Boston lawyer, his older brother William was a co-founder of the North American Review and the Boston Atheneum, today one of the oldest libraries and museums in the US. Frederic, interested in business from an early age, dropped out of school at 13 and skipped a Harvard education to focus on making piles of money. Around the age of 21, he came up with a novel idea he figured would help him do just that–ship ice to the tropics. Not surprisingly, everybody thought he was nuts.
Despite the ridicule Tudor went ahead with his plan, and the Tudor Ice Company was born. He soon discovered there were a number of problems to be solved in the ice business, some that were obvious, others that weren’t. First of all he had to get permission to harvest the ice from New England ponds (including Walden of Thoreau fame). Then there was the nitty-gritty problem of cutting the ice itself, which at the time he started was done by hand with saws, which limited production and made the ice pricey. The solution arrived in the mid-1820s with the invention of the horse-powered “ice plow.” In one fell swoop, Tudor tripled his production, lowered his prices to his customers, and still dramatically increased his revenues.
Next Tudor had to figure out how to store the ice in insulated ice houses before loading it onto ships. Transporting the ice by sea was a huge can of worms. Tudor had to reassure ships’ captains worried that the melting ice wouldn’t dampen other cargo in their holds or even sink their ships. Ships had to be specially insulated with double hulls, and the ice packed in some effective insulating material. Tudor experimented with rice, wheat chaff, hay, bark, and coal dust, but eventually discovered that pine sawdust is best. Finally he had to help potential consumers realize how badly they needed ice. So he did what many modern start-up businesses do when they want to create a need nobody knows they have: Tudor sold his ice cheaply or just gave it away, and not just to wealthy customers. When his first load of ice went out to Rio de Janeiro, he told his agent:
If you can make a commencement for introducing the habit of cold drinks at the same price as warm at the ordinary drinking places ... even if you give the ice ... you will do well. ... The shop frequented by the lowest people is the one to be chosen for this purpose.”
Tudor’s first shipment of 130 tons of ice left Boston in 1806 on a 1,500-mile voyage to Martinique in the West Indies. The Boston Gazette, reporting on this momentous event with its tongue wedged in its cheek, sincerely hoped that it wouldn’t be a “slippery speculation.” Unfortunately it was: much of the cargo melted on the three-week trip, and Tudor lost about $4,500. His Ice Company continued to flounder for the next 15 years, and Tudor even spent a few months of 1812 and again in 1813 in debtor’s prison. But he stubbornly persisted, and his yearly exports gradually increased: in 1826 he was exporting 12,000 tons a year, three decades later 150,000 tons yearly.
In 1833 a fellow merchant proposed a bold plan: ship ice to India. Tudor was game. So in May of that year, the Tuscany left Boston with 180 tons of ice bound for Calcutta. As the ship approached the city, a local newspaper reported on its progress. Believing it impossible for ice to survive a four-month, 16,000-mile voyage, the paper suggested that the whole thing was a bad American joke:
The Yankees are so inventive, and so fond of a joke at the expense of the old country [i.e., England], that we had some misgivings about the reality of brother Jonathan’s manifest, and suspected him to be coolly indicting a hoax upon the wonder-loving daughters of Britain.
But miraculously two-thirds of the shipment remained, and ice became a big hit not only in Calcutta but Madras and Bombay as well. Over the next 20 years, India was Tudor’s most lucrative market.
Frederic Tudor (1783-1864) was the son of a prominent, well-to-do Boston lawyer, his older brother William was a co-founder of the North American Review and the Boston Atheneum, today one of the oldest libraries and museums in the US. Frederic, interested in business from an early age, dropped out of school at 13 and skipped a Harvard education to focus on making piles of money. Around the age of 21, he came up with a novel idea he figured would help him do just that–ship ice to the tropics. Not surprisingly, everybody thought he was nuts.
Despite the ridicule Tudor went ahead with his plan, and the Tudor Ice Company was born. He soon discovered there were a number of problems to be solved in the ice business, some that were obvious, others that weren’t. First of all he had to get permission to harvest the ice from New England ponds (including Walden of Thoreau fame). Then there was the nitty-gritty problem of cutting the ice itself, which at the time he started was done by hand with saws, which limited production and made the ice pricey. The solution arrived in the mid-1820s with the invention of the horse-powered “ice plow.” In one fell swoop, Tudor tripled his production, lowered his prices to his customers, and still dramatically increased his revenues.
Next Tudor had to figure out how to store the ice in insulated ice houses before loading it onto ships. Transporting the ice by sea was a huge can of worms. Tudor had to reassure ships’ captains worried that the melting ice wouldn’t dampen other cargo in their holds or even sink their ships. Ships had to be specially insulated with double hulls, and the ice packed in some effective insulating material. Tudor experimented with rice, wheat chaff, hay, bark, and coal dust, but eventually discovered that pine sawdust is best. Finally he had to help potential consumers realize how badly they needed ice. So he did what many modern start-up businesses do when they want to create a need nobody knows they have: Tudor sold his ice cheaply or just gave it away, and not just to wealthy customers. When his first load of ice went out to Rio de Janeiro, he told his agent:
If you can make a commencement for introducing the habit of cold drinks at the same price as warm at the ordinary drinking places ... even if you give the ice ... you will do well. ... The shop frequented by the lowest people is the one to be chosen for this purpose.”
Tudor’s first shipment of 130 tons of ice left Boston in 1806 on a 1,500-mile voyage to Martinique in the West Indies. The Boston Gazette, reporting on this momentous event with its tongue wedged in its cheek, sincerely hoped that it wouldn’t be a “slippery speculation.” Unfortunately it was: much of the cargo melted on the three-week trip, and Tudor lost about $4,500. His Ice Company continued to flounder for the next 15 years, and Tudor even spent a few months of 1812 and again in 1813 in debtor’s prison. But he stubbornly persisted, and his yearly exports gradually increased: in 1826 he was exporting 12,000 tons a year, three decades later 150,000 tons yearly.
In 1833 a fellow merchant proposed a bold plan: ship ice to India. Tudor was game. So in May of that year, the Tuscany left Boston with 180 tons of ice bound for Calcutta. As the ship approached the city, a local newspaper reported on its progress. Believing it impossible for ice to survive a four-month, 16,000-mile voyage, the paper suggested that the whole thing was a bad American joke:
The Yankees are so inventive, and so fond of a joke at the expense of the old country [i.e., England], that we had some misgivings about the reality of brother Jonathan’s manifest, and suspected him to be coolly indicting a hoax upon the wonder-loving daughters of Britain.
But miraculously two-thirds of the shipment remained, and ice became a big hit not only in Calcutta but Madras and Bombay as well. Over the next 20 years, India was Tudor’s most lucrative market.
