Natural feature
Jamaica Pond
Spring-fed pond once carved into ice each winter for breweries and ships bound for the tropics.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to Jamaica Pond in Boston pictures January 1880, when six hundred men swarmed the frozen surface sawing it into blocks bound for breweries, hospitals and ships as far as Calcutta. You'll hear about Frederic Tudor, the Boston merchant mocked for the idea of selling ice, and how his risky trade turned this quiet lake into one of the city's busiest workplaces. The guide walks through the horse-drawn scrapers, iron plows and towering icehouses that once lined these banks, and the dollar-seventy-five-a-day work of the men who cut the ice.
This audio guide was created using AI.