In the early 19th century, the idea of exporting ice to the tropics sounded like a joke. Ice was heavy, fragile, and melted. Yet one Boston entrepreneur built a global industry out of frozen New England ponds and earned the nickname “The Ice King.” His name was Frederic Tudor.
Tudor was born in Boston in 1783, and grew up in a prosperous family. His father was a wealthy lawyer and his older brother William Tudor would become one of Boston’s leading literary figures. Rather than receiving a college education in Harvard, Tudor preoccupied himself with business from a pretty young age of 13.
As a young man, he probably spent winters skating and summers enduring the stifling heat of the American South and Caribbean. The contrast gave him an idea: what if the natural ice that formed in New England each winter could be shipped to hot climates and sold at a profit?
In 1806, at just 23 years old, Tudor bought his first brig, loaded it with ice from his father’s farm in Saugus, and sent it sailing to the West Indies. The Boston Gazette reported the news in amusement: “No joke. A vessel has cleared at the Custom House for Martinique with a cargo of ice. We hope this will not prove a slippery speculation.”…