Cape Pond Ice Company - 150 Years of Gloucester History

Cape Pond Ice Company was started as Gloucester Ice Co. in 1848 by blacksmith Nathaniel R. Webster, who recognized the need for supplying the fresh fish industry with a reliable, volume source of ice. 

Prior to that time fish - primarily halibut & cod - was preserved by salting and brine.

Webster dammed a local brook and built his first icehouse on what became known as Webster's Pond, today the site of Veteran's Memorial School and the Route 128 extension. 

The ice industry went through rapid growth, and within four years Webster built icehouses on Upper & Lower Day's Ponds, where Foster's Service Station is located, and on Cape Pond in Rockport, which the company is still named after. 

Webster's son took over the Cape Ann ice monopoly in 1858. 

In the photo to the right, you can see the two Company icehouses, which burned in the 1940's - known as the "Great House" and the "Grove". Today only massive granite foundations remain. Cape Pond remains the primary water supply for the town of Rockport.

As the fisheries flourished in the years following the Civil War, so did the ice industry.  Every body of water accessible by teams of men and horses was soon harvested for ice during winter months.  The "frozen lode" was stored in salt hay, cork and sawdust insulation until it was needed in the summer.  Competitors also entered the local ice industry - most prominently Francis W. Homans, who in 1876 created a 32 acre man-made lake on Essex Avenue for the purpose of harvesting ice.  His icehouse at Fernwood Lake in West Gloucester was at the time the largest building in Massachusetts, measuring 105' by 205', and capable of holding 10,000 tons of ice.  Today Sonolight Plastic's factory is inside the foundation of the old icehouse on Fernwood Lake.

After a lively period of "ice wars" when the two competing businesses reportedly sabotaged each other's winter ice harvests, in 1908 Cape Pond and Fernwood Lake ice companies merged. By 1916, operated by James and Freeman Abbott, the company also had an icehouse at Alton Bay, on Lake Winnipesaukee, NH, where ice could be brought to Gloucester by rail as an insurance policy against poor ice harvests during warm winters.

The ice industry employed large crews of men to harvest, store, and deliver ice around Cape Ann. In 1916, sixty (60) men were employed during the ice cutting season, with 20 teams and 5 automobile trucks. In addition to a large delivered household ice trade, the company continued to supply large quantities of ice to the Gloucester fisheries, and also to the summer hotels. The company's office was located at 105½ Main Street, Gloucester, where a display of modern, electric refrigerators soon replaced ice boxes. The 1925 Cape Pond Ice Co. annual outing at Centennial Grove in Essex was commemorated in a photograph with 45 men and boys, including many Aptts, Abbotts, Days, Tebos and other local Cape Ann family names.

In the early 1940's Gloucester Ice & Cold Storage was constructed on the Gloucester waterfront on the new State Fish Pier. The new plant took advantage of modern mechanical refrigeration technology, using electricity instead of relying on Mother Nature during New England winters to cut ice from the ponds.

In 1946 entrepreneur John Ryan built the present Cape Pond manufacturing plant at the end of Commercial Street, on the site of the Fort Wharf Ice Company on Gloucester Harbor. This was a "modern" block ice plant, with 3,600 4' x 2' x 1' molds for 300 pound ice blocks, manufactured in an indoor concrete "pond" refrigerated with compressed ammonia, and harvested by overhead cranes. Over 300 tons of ice can be made each day to reliably serve the needs of a then flourishing fishing industry.

For many years through the 1970's and 1980's, as the Gloucester fishing industry thrived under the Magnuson Act and the new 200 mile limit excluding foreign fishing vessels, Gloucester Ice was managed by feisty Everett "Andy" Anderson, and Cape Pond Ice by General Manager Phil Harvey.

Cape Pond Ice Company - Today
In 1992 Cape Pond's ice plant on The Fort was again modernized, with a 40 ton automatic TURBO ice machine which makes ice on stainless steel plates, two 50 ton capacity ice rake bins, and a delivery system to convey ice to trucks, boats, fish processors and a packaged ice production line.

New insulated siding was installed to replace deteriorated 40 year-old cork insulation on the three-story Icehouse. The new technology, side-by-side with the existing 300 ton block ice plant, allows Cape Pond Ice Company to competitively serve its markets with a range of products and manufacturing options.

The fishing vessels pulling up to the ice company wharf take anywhere from 300 pounds to 30 tons of ice per fishing trip. The company is open year round, and round-the-clock for commercial appointments. Cape Pond can pump ice at a ton per minute on up to three fishing vessels at a time, as well as loading tractor trailers and trucks with either block or blown crushed ice. Pallets of 30 pound, 40 pound and 5 pound bagged ice are shipped around Cape Ann and New England.

In addition to commercial fishing vessels and processors, the company serves broccoli and poultry farmers, redi-mix concrete contractors, and custom ice sculpture markets. Ice used by contractors working in Boston on the Third Harbor Tunnel and Central Artery, to slow the curing temperature of large concrete pours, has helped in offset declines from fishing.

Up to 30 workers are employed during busy summer months, working two shifts and operating up to four delivery vehicles. As locals know, on a hot summer weekend or July 4th, Cape Pond is the source for bags and crushed ice for parties and picnics.