Barnstable Past: Hinckley Pond Ice House & Gustavus F. Swift, a Pioneer of Refrigeration
- attcorin
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
It is almost impossible today to contemplate life without refrigeration. However, almost within living memory that was a reality.
Before refrigeration, Cape Codders harvested ice from ponds and stored it in icehouses and then ice boxes in their houses. One such pond was Hinckley’s Pond in Barnstable Village. There was an icehouse at the edge of that pond, along 6A, from which the local iceman would make deliveries when requested by local households and businesses.
Ms. Mary A. Sprague in her book “Barnstable: A Bit of Nostalgia” records that even in 1936, ice was cut into “ice cakes” (blocks of ice) that were dragged by horses and stored in the ice house.
Ice-cutting was a skilled business. The ice was scored into blocks and a groove was carefully cut by a saw blade and then by hand saws. It was also a dangerous business because the ice workers had to walk out onto the ice to mark and cut it whilst ensuring that they did not fall in!
Refrigeration is a surprisingly recent invention. A local Cape Codder, Gustavus Franklin Swift had a significant impact on the technology that we all depend on today. Born in 1839 in Sandwich, Massachusetts, Gustavus descended from the longstanding Swift family of Cape Cod. He started his career at age 14 in his elder brother’s butcher’s shop in Sandwich. At age 16, he opened his own cattle and pork butchering business with funding from his uncle. He took animals on a ten-day journey from Brighton, Boston to Eastham on Cape Cod to be sold. In 1859 he bought a house in Eastham with his brothers that is now owned by the Eastham Historical Society (the 1741 Swift-Daley House). By the age of 30, he had moved to Boston, and from there he moved to Chicago.
The 1741 Swift-Daley House with its then owner Mr. Snow Higgins in the late 1800s
Wooden hand weathervane that was on Gustavus’ first slaughterhouse
on Bone Hill Road in Cummaquid (Barnstable Historical Society)
An astute business man, Gustavus recognized that after the American Civil War (1861-65), Chicago had become a major railway center linking the Great Plains of the West, which had plenty of cattle, with markets in the Eastern United States. In the early days of the railways, animals were transported alive cross country, which caused significant loss of life and other problems. The answer was an “icebox on wheels,” but it took years to come up a successful design that could operate outside the frozen winter months. In 1878, Gustavus hired engineer Andrew Chase to design an insulated, ventilated railroad car that positioned meat below and between ice compartments that could last the whole journey. With Andrew’s ingenuity, and Gustavus’ drive and financial backing, their efforts transformed the meat industry.
Gustavus’ factories were also among the first to utilize the concept of (dis-) assembly line production. Gustavus is noted for paying fair wages to both men and women, and he motivated his workers by rewarding skill, hard work and loyalty with promotion within his family business.
When he passed away in 1903, Swift & Co. was one of the world’s largest meat packing companies. Gustavus had amassed a fortune of as much as $10 million (approximately $375 million in today’s money). His refrigerated railcars were a precursor to modern cold chain logistics, and his business model influenced industries far beyond his own.
Sources:
Sprague M., A Bit of Nostalgia (1964)
