For most of the hundreds of spectators and volunteers at the annual ice cutting at South Bristol’s Thompson Ice House Museum, the event was a chance to participate in the past.
The 20th year of the reborn ice harvest, held on a sparkling bright sunny day, drew a record crowd estimated at 475 who drove from as far away as Washington, D.C. to participate in a unique event.
For Cynthia Dodge, 84, it was a chance to remember her family.
“My father, Herbert Thompson owned the ice pond and ice house, as did his father, Walter and his grandfather,” she said.
“Years ago, they dammed the brook and built the ice house. We lived across the street in a little house,” she said.
Volunteers from near and far, young and old struggled with huge ice saws making the final cuts to free the blocks.
Some children cut ice, some ice skated on the north end of the pond while others got a special thrill when they rode in the Sproul Farm wagon pulled by a matched team of horses.
South Bristol Selectman Kenny Lincoln, who once worked for Thompson cutting ice, supervised the volunteers. He also kept the nearly 100-year-old power saw running as he cut 12-inch deep grooves in tidy rows. “It weren’t running just right, but I am not going to get into it right now,” he said.
He was careful to leave some of the rows wide enough to keep the cutters and watchers from falling into the four-foot deep pond.
Not far from the screaming ice saw and an estimated 475 volunteers and spectators, Cynthia Dodge smiled as she shared her memories.
“In the summer, my father would drive his little green truck around to cottages and restaurants delivering ice. People would order ice by placing a card in their window or out front and that would tell him how much ice to deliver.
“He would also deliver ice to the fishermen to ice down their catch. They always said Thompson’s ice lasted the longest,” she said.
In the early 1800s, ice cutting was a major commercial activity in Maine along with fish, lumber and granite.
All along the coast, brooks were dammed to create ponds where ice was cut and loaded onto schooners for Boston and other markets.
The Thompson family, located on Rt. 129 in South Bristol, operated the icehouse from 1826 to 1969 supplying clear pure ice to local customers
In 1987, the family gave the four-foot deep pond and ice house to the Thompson Ice House Preservation Corporation. Volunteers raised funds and donated their labors to shore up the elderly ice house and dam. It is now listed on the national register of historic structures.
The icehouse was reopened in 1990.
Sunday morning saw volunteers saw the 15-inch thick ice into blocks weighing as much as 300 pounds each and push it down a canal to the edge of the icehouse. There they were hoisted up a chute, using a truck or Margaret Sproul’s matched pair of Haflinger horses, Mindy and Cindy, to power a pulley. Then other volunteers would poke and prod it down a wooden runway into the icehouse.
There, other volunteers would stack it and pack it with sawdust where it will sit until the summer when it will be time to bring it out and make ice cream.
This year, the Ice Cream Social is scheduled for Monday July 5.
Years ago, on hot summer days, Cynthia Dodge remembered how her dad would stop his chores to cool off the neighborhood kids.
“They would come around, he would fill their little buckets with ice,” she said.
As the cakes of sparkling ice made their way up the chute and into the house, Cynthia Dodge oversaw the operation with a smile.
“My dad would be so happy they are still doing it.”
