The warm weather in early 2022 made it hard to believe that as late as 1935 commercial quantities of natural ice up to 13” thick were harvested from a disused clay pit in North Cambridge.
Annual ice cutting campaign at the Johnson plant, Rindge Avenue. Cambridge Sentinel October 11, 1924
In the days before mechanical refrigeration, ice harvested from local ponds was harvested in huge amounts every winter, stored in enormous wooden icehouses, and distributed to households everywhere. The role that Cambridge’s own Nathaniel Wyeth and Frederick Tudor played in developing this industry at Fresh Pond has been extensively documented, but after the City of Cambridge closed the ice houses in 1891 most of Cambridge’s domestic ice – apart from a small amount harvested from the Glacialis, or Artificial Pond, off Concord Avenue – was sourced from Spy Pond in Arlington or from New Hampshire.
Layout of the Johnson Ice Cream plant. Sanborn Map Co., ca. 1929
Cambridge’s defunct ice industry was resuscitated in 1920 under unlikely circumstances. John B. Johnson, a New Hampshire native, had been making ice cream on Columbia Street since 1911. Johnson purchased 225,000 square feet of land off Rindge Avenue in the fall of 1919 and announced that he expected to save up to $15,000 a year by harvesting his own ice from Jerry’s Pit. He immediately erected a small icehouse (a double-walled wooden building insulated with sawdust) and that winter filled it with 3,000 tons of ice. In 1920 he built a two-story ice cream factory adjacent to the icehouse and closed his Columbia Street plant.
J.B. Johnson Ice Cream factory, 361 Rindge Avenue. L-R: factory, icehouse, and stable. Cambridge Sentinel, April 1, 1922
The next few winters were suitably cold, and in 1921 and 1922 Johnson was able to harvest 4,000 tons in each season, filling the icehouse with a conveyor belt at the rate of twenty-six 400 lb. cakes per minute over ten working days. After storing surplus ice outside under tarpaulins for a few seasons, Johnson more than doubled his storage capacity in 1925. Not every year offered suitable weather – at least a few weeks of clear, very cold nights and an absence of significant snowfall – but there were substantial harvests in 1930 and 1934, when up to 70 men and several horses brought in cakes 13” thick. 1935 turned out to be the last harvest, as Johnson fell ill and was unable to keep up with mortgage payments. The business continued in other hands until 1938, when the lender foreclosed. The factory buildings were cleared in 1940. The Board of Health denied a subsequent owner permission to use the pond as a dump, and the Dewey & Almy Co. purchased the property in 1942.
Johnson Ice Cream advertisement. Cambridge Chronicle, Dec. 14, 1934
Jerry’s Pit has always had a checkered reputation. Brickmaker Jeremiah McCrehan mined clay at the site until one morning in 1860, when, as his son told the story to the Cambridge Chronicle in 1927, he went to work at the pit and found 4’ of water in it. Some operators that tapped underground springs found it profitable to pump their pits dry, but McCrehan abandoned his mining operation instead. Ice was harvested there for domestic use in 1892, but the Board of Health objected, calling the water “entirely unfit for this purpose.”
The pool is a favorite place for such washing as is done by the foreign element who live in the neighborhood; it is a capital place for drowning stray cats and it is often used in this manner by the festive youth who gambol on its banks and who plash about in its shallows in their bare feet; it is, in a way, the cesspool of that neighborhood, and yet during the coming summer a large number of people will dilute their water with ice cut from its surface.
Cambridge Tribune, May 21, 1892
Jerry’s Pit was a de facto neighborhood recreation center, a site for swimming in the summer and skating in the winter in a neighborhood with few such opportunities. J.B. Johnson’s use of the ice in its manufacturing operation was apparently unobjectionable because it was not sold for human consumption. Johnson permitted swimming and skating throughout his ownership, and in 1927 allowed Cambridge’s Recreation Department to improve the facilities and staff the place with lifeguards. In 1943 the Dewey & Almy Co. built a bathhouse and toilet room at its own expense, which the city operated until the Metropolitan District Commission opened the Francis J. McCrehan Pool nearby in 1960.
“It’s a long wait for Linda Lavin, Donna Labo and Tommie Robichaud as they line up at the diving board of Cambridge’s new MDC pool to be the first to try it out.” Boston Record-American, July 25, 1960. CHC Photo Morgue Collection
Today’s post was written by CHC Executive Director, Charles Sullivan
Sources
Cambridge Historical Commission files
Cambridge Public Library, Historic Cambridge Newspaper Collection
Sinclair, Jill. Fresh Pond: The History of A Cambridge Landscape. The MIT Press, 2009
Weightman, Gavin. The Frozen Water Trade. HarperCollins, 2001
So, how to make a good cup of tea? Here are instructions from the Cambridge Chronicle:
How to Make Tea Properly. – The proper way to make a cup of good teais a matter of some importance. The plan which I have practiced for these twelve months is this: The teapot is at once filled up with boiling water,then the tea is put into the pot, and is allowed stand for five minutes beforeit is used; the leaves gradually absorb the water and as gradually sink to the bottom; the result is that the tea leaves are not scalded, as they were whenboiling water is poured on them, and you get all the true flavor of the tea. In truth, much less tea is required in this way than under the old and common practice.
Cambridge Chronicle August 15, 1856
We all know about the Boston Tea Party of 1773. But did you know the tea in those boxes hurled into the harbor was green tea? Green tea began life in China, and over the centuries bounced around to Japan, Korea, India and ultimately Europe, the United States, and everywhere else. It all started with a chance dead tea leaf floating in the Emperor’s cup of water somewhere around 2737 B. C. Apparently, he liked the taste, and green tea was born. In the 1500s, thanks to the efforts of English, Dutch, and Portuguese merchants, tea began its worldwide migration. In the 1600s, the Chinese began brewing fermented tea leaves which gave us what we now think of as traditional, black tea.
VARIETIES OF TEAS
All true tea comes from the Cammellia sinesis plant. The varieties derive from the different ways tea leaves are processed and brewed, as outlined in this article from the Cambridge Chronicle:
Cambridge Chronicle February 13, 1851
The article also included a list of green teas: Gunpowder (rolled into “bullets”), Imperial (Great Pearl tea), Hyson, Twankay (after a stream by that name in China), and Brick tea (a block of tea invented by the Tartars to make it easier to carry). Although Oolong was on the green tea list too, it is actually a black tea, but was listed because it tasted green.
TEA DRINKING ACCOUTREMENTS AND CUSTOMS
Teapot and lid. Left side is marked “America: Liberty Restored” and right side is marked “No Stamp Act.” Manufactured ca. 1766-1770. National Museum of American History.
The original Chinese tea cup did not have a handle. When tea arrived in England, this tradition was continued until the 1750s, when cups with handles emerged to protect delicate fingers from hot cups. Your host might also offer tea to gentlemen in a “moustache” cup which enabled sipping while keeping the “moustache” dry:
And the teapot may have been perched on a “teapot tile” to protect the table:
Ceramic reproduction of Victorian tile. Image via Zazzle.com
INFUSING TEA
Originally, loose tea leaves were added to hot water. When the leaves were brewed, the water would be filtered through a strainer into the teacup. These strainers ranged from the fancy…
English Tea Strainer. Image via Aspire Auctions
…to the simply practical.
Antique tea strainer with rocking mechanism. Image via catawiki.com
Next came the invention of a perforated metal ball filled with tea leaves and dunked into the pot or cup. Also available from fancy to plain:
Image via Pinterest
Image via theteasmith.com
Finally came tea bags. It is generally thought that a New York tea merchant named Thomas Sullivan invented the teabag. Actually, silk tea bags had been around since the early days in China. The first patent for the tea bag in the U. S. was given to two women: Roberta Lawson and Mary McLaren of Milwaukee in 1903.
Lawson and McLaren’s patent (US723287A)
Sullivan’s claim to fame is that he took the idea of tea bags and used them as a way of packaging his tea samples for vendors.
MILK & SUGAR? OR LEMON?
The English began adding sugar to tea in the late 1600s. The French soon came up with the idea of adding milk to bring the temperature down (and avoid the teacup cracking). It was the Russians who introduced adding lemon to tea served at travel posts along highways. Lemon was thought to soothe stomachs upset by the rigors of jolting carriage travel.
TEA PARTIES
John Tenniel’s illustration of The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland (1890). The British Library.
It’s generally agreed that European tea parties became popular in the 1840s, when the Duchess of Bedford initiated the custom as a needed afternoon pick-me-up around 4:00pm. It evolved into the standard 4:00 tea for the upper classes, and a later, “meat tea” (more like supper), for laborers after work. The 4:00 tea was often a social affair:
Cambridge Chronicle December 26, 1846
Cambridge Chronicle October 22, 1870
AND HOW ABOUT THOSE “MARTHA WASHINGTON” TEA PARTIES!
The “Martha Washington Tea Party” became popular at, during, and after the country’s centennial celebrations in 1875-1877. They mimicked Martha Washington’s famous tea parties, which she began when she and the General moved to Philadelphia after his inauguration in New York. Initially her invitee list included only Philadelphia’s upper-class ladies. As the tea parties became weekly affairs, they also evolved into intellectual and political salons. Others followed her lead. One hundred years later, at the time of this country’s centennial, many ladies celebrated with what by then were called “Martha Washington Tea Parties.” The main point of these affairs was to dress up in Revolutionary era costumes:
Cambridge Chronicle April 24, 1875
ADVERTISING TEA IN CAMBRIDGE
The first advertisements in (digitally available) Cambridge Newspapers for Tea were for the Boston Tea Company.
Cambridge Chronicle May 14, 1846
That same year, someone felt compelled to rant against “Imposter Tea,” in particular “Canton Tea”
Cambridge Chronicle July 23, 1846
Cambridge Tribune September 23, 1899
The “Big Tea Kettle” was put up by the Oriental Tea Company in 1873—and it still exists today—now outside Starbucks Coffee by Boston City Hall.
Photo by Mary Blake – WBZ NewsRadio 1030 via CBS Boston
THE INFLUENCE OF TEA DRINKING ON SOCIAL CUSTOMS: TEA HOUSES
Initially, any shop selling tea would call itself a “Tea House”
Cambridge City Directory 1880
The term “tea house” evolved to refer to a social place where friends could to sit down and enjoy a light lunch and “cuppa.”
Cambridge Chronicle July 10, 1909
Cambridge Chronicle September 20, 1919
THE BLACKSMITH HOUSE
Today perhaps the most well- known Cambridge tea shop was the Blacksmith House at 56 Brattle street.
Mary Walker’s House at 54 Brattle Street. Source: Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
Formerly The Cock Horse Inn, and then Dexter Pratt’s blacksmith shop, it was subsequently owned by escaped slave Mary Walker (1817-1873). Mary had been a seamstress on a plantation in North Carolina. She made her escape to freedom in 1848 while on a trip her enslaver’s family to Philadelphia. She settled in Cambridge where she earned her living as a seamstress. Mary later purchased the Dexter Pratt blacksmith shop from Pratt’s children in 1870. She ran it as a boarding house and ensured that it remained in her family by stipulating in her will that it must do so until her youngest son turned 21. It remained in her family until 1912.
Portrait of Elsa Brändström Ulich (1929) Image via Wikipedia.
Elsa, “the Angel of Siberia” had an extraordinary life. She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, where her father was the Swedish military attaché. The family returned to Sweden where Elsa grew up and went back St. Petersburg when her father was made the Swedish Ambassador to Tsar Nicholas II. During WWI, Elsa was a nurse with the Imperial Russian Amy and served in Siberia. After the war, she was worked with the Swedish Red Cross and got involved with, or started, a number of aid organizations for soldiers, POWs, women and children. Elsa moved to the U. S. in 1933 when her husband, Robert Ulrich, was appointed a lecturer Harvard. In Cambridge, she started a consignment shop to employ Eastern European refugees from the War. It was located at 102 Mt. Auburn Street and was called The Window Shop. In 1947, the shop moved to “The Blacksmith House”, enabling her to expand her tearoom and pastry shop. Sadly, Elsa died of cancer just a year later. By 1971, the original purpose of the shop had been met, and it closed its doors. The property was purchased by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education in 1972.
Cambridge Chronicle March 11, 1948
NEXT CAME TEA DANCES
Tea dances emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century and provided a means for young ladies to mix with young men while being discreetly chaperoned. Private tea dances were a means of introducing debutantes to society. Some of the most popular tea dances were held at hotels with a full orchestra.
Boston Herald January 18, 1914 (excerpt)
HERBAL TEA
This post has focused on traditional black tea, but of course herbal teas have been used for medicinal purposes for millennia and have their own long and interesting history. Perhaps a post for another day!
Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox
