Pencil making photos

[Ed Huntress]

It's only pencils, but these photographs of one of America's last
pencil-making factories and machinery are supurb:

https://tinyurl.com/ybfghc5r

--
Ed Hunress

[dogs]

On Sat, 13 Jan 2018 22:37:54 -0500, Ed Huntress wrote:

> It's only pencils, but these photographs of one of America's last
> pencil-making factories and machinery are supurb:
>
> https://tinyurl.com/ybfghc5r

I can still see a grey spot in my palm where I stabbed myself with a
pencil. The tip broke off. I've had pencil lead embedded in my right hand
for 40 years now.

[William Bagwell]

On Sat, 13 Jan 2018 22:37:54 -0500, Ed Huntress

<hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:

>It's only pencils, but these photographs of one of America's last
>pencil-making factories and machinery are supurb:
>
>https://tinyurl.com/ybfghc5r

Thanks for sharing! Not only found it interesting, having grew up in
Marietta GA immediately thought of Mary Phagan for the first time in
many years. Long story short, she lived in Marietta and was murdered
in a pencil factory in Atlanta about 1913. The alleged murderer was
kidnapped from jail and lynched just outside of Marietta...
--
William

[Ed Huntress]

That was a really interesting case. I remember the TV miniseries about
it.

Apparently, Leo Frank, the guy who was lyunched, was wrongly
convicted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frank

--
Ed Huntress

[William Bagwell]

Most likely the case... Minor correction, Mary Phagan's family was
from Marietta and she is buried there but she was not living there
at the time. Read the wikipeda article earlier just after I posted.
Noticed it mentioned selling of souvenirs after the lynching.
Remember my father telling that when he was young (1920s - 30s) it
was still common to be shown a piece of the rope that hung Leo
Frank. Often kept in the family Bible no less. No doubt many of them
were fake as I recall from some source that all the local hardware
stores sold out of rope in the days following the lynching.

My father was convinced that one of his uncles was involved in the
lynching. Obviously not a major player since he does not appear in
either of the two lists which have been released in recent decades.

Oh, Harry Golden's A Little Girl is Dead was one of the (many)
sources for the wiki article. Read that many, many years ago and may
possibly have my fathers copy unless my brother ended up with it.
--
William

[Ed Huntress]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 09:33:56 -0500, William Bagwell

I think it's good to have some historical markers like that in your
family history, even if they're a little grisly. My ancestors scalped
Iroquois Indians for the bounty, so I'm familiar with that feeling.
With the proceeds they took up farming rocks in New Hampshire. <g>

--
Ed Huntress

[Jim Wilkins]

"Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:tejp5dhrde5udd77l...@4ax.com...

Lincoln reputedly said that New Hampshire was a good place to
be -from-, referring to the better Midwestern soil.

[Gunner Asch]

Got one of those in my right thigh.

From 1967


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
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[Ed Huntress]

It took the people of that area in southern NH a long time to wise up
and switch to dairy farming. Actually, what it took was probably
transportation to get milk and dairy products to market in Boston.

--
Ed Huntress
>

[Jim Wilkins]

"Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote in message

news:b9mp5ddhogd29isje...@4ax.com...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Tudor
"In 1790, only the elite had ice for their guests. It was harvested
locally in winter and stored through summers in a covered well. Ice
production was very labor-intensive as it was performed entirely with
hand axes and saws, and cost hundreds of dollars a ton. By 1830,
though, ice was being used to preserve food and by the middle 1830s it
had become a commodity."

[Ed Huntress]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 12:33:52 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"

Sawing ice was the wintertime business for my grandfather and his
sons. We had a round ice house alongside of the pond in Bay Head (a
tiny village on the Great Bay next to Greenland -- now a housing
development, from what I can see on Google Earth). The ice was packed
in layers of sawdust and enough of it lasted to carry them through the
summer.

When I was a little kid, they still sawed some ice, by hand, because
my great uncle and aunt still had an icebox, and they also used it to
keep milk cool on its way to market.

--
Ed Huntress

[Ed Huntress]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 12:45:28 -0500, Ed Huntress

That's "Bayside," not Bay Head -- which was a favorite beach town of
mine in NJ.

--
Ed Huntress

[Leon Fisk]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 12:45:28 -0500
Ed Huntress <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:

>Sawing ice was the wintertime business for my grandfather and his
>sons. We had a round ice house alongside of the pond in Bay Head (a

>tiny village on the Great Bay next to Greenland...
<snip>

It generated a whole cottage industry. Lots of tools for both
harvesting and using it. Interesting web page here showing some of the
items:

http://icetoolcollection.com/13otherrelateditems.htm

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email

[Ed Huntress]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 14:40:46 -0400, Leon Fisk
<lf...@no.spam.iserv.net> wrote:

>On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 12:45:28 -0500
>Ed Huntress <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>>Sawing ice was the wintertime business for my grandfather and his
>>sons. We had a round ice house alongside of the pond in Bay Head (a
>>tiny village on the Great Bay next to Greenland...
><snip>
>
>It generated a whole cottage industry. Lots of tools for both
>harvesting and using it. Interesting web page here showing some of the
>items:
>
>http://icetoolcollection.com/13otherrelateditems.htm

Yeah, I recognize the saws. My grandfather's was a lot longer as I
remember it, but I was about 5 when I last saw the...er, saw, and it
looked big compared to me.

They'd load blocks of ice on a sledge and pull it up to the ice house
by horse.

I never saw the ones in NJ, but there are photos of the boats and
fishing from the 1920s that show really big, round ice houses up the
beach. There were ponds for ice on the barrier islands and the pound
boats...:

https://tinyurl.com/ydbhrcbc

...would be hauled up the beach with horses, and pack the fish in
barrels with ice at the ice house, whereupon they were hauled off to
NYC by train.

--
Ed Huntress

[Leon Fisk]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 14:37:53 -0500
Ed Huntress <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:

>Yeah, I recognize the saws. My grandfather's was a lot longer as I
>remember it, but I was about 5 when I last saw the...er, saw, and it
>looked big compared to me.

<snip>

My favorite tool was the ice plow. Nice picture about 4 pages down here:

http://www.historicsoduspoint.com/commerce/ice-harvesting/

I've come across a few in museums. One of those things that make me
wonder how many were made?

Dad had told me they would cut some from a pond on their farm. Store it
via sawdust like everyone else...

[Ed Huntress]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 16:35:56 -0400, Leon Fisk
<lf...@no.spam.iserv.net> wrote:

>On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 14:37:53 -0500
>Ed Huntress <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>>Yeah, I recognize the saws. My grandfather's was a lot longer as I
>>remember it, but I was about 5 when I last saw the...er, saw, and it
>>looked big compared to me.
><snip>
>
>My favorite tool was the ice plow. Nice picture about 4 pages down here:
>
>http://www.historicsoduspoint.com/commerce/ice-harvesting/
>
>I've come across a few in museums. One of those things that make me
>wonder how many were made?
>
>Dad had told me they would cut some from a pond on their farm. Store it
>via sawdust like everyone else...

That's an interesting story about the high-volume ice harvesting. It
sounds like a truly miserable job.

--
Ed Huntress

[Gerry]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 08:36:11 -0800, Gunner Asch <gunne...@gmail.com>
wrote:

My older brother had one 1/4" from his right eye that I gave him in
1944, when he passed away seven years ago. OTOH, the one from a pencil
in my shirt pocket, on the palm of my right hand seems to have worn
away since ~1950.

[Gerry]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 12:45:28 -0500, Ed Huntress

One of my earliest jobs was washing sawdust off of 250 pound blocks of
natural ice and moving it into clean storage for the next day's
delivery or on site sale.

[Ned Simmons]

One of my first jobs was dish washer in the Ice King's summer cottage.
At the time (ca 1968) it was a country club and event venue. Looks
like it's a country club in name only these days.
http://nahantcountryclub.com/nahant-country-club-history/

The big icehouse on Lake Quannapowitt (mentioned in the Frederic Tudor
article) was on the edge of the lake 'til the early sixties. You could
buy block ice there, though I doubt it was lake ice at that time.

--
Ned Simmons

[Ed Huntress]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 21:00:46 -0500, Gerry <gerald...@yahoo.ca>

You're our bit of living history, Gerry. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

[amdx]

This thread gives me a chance to post the story of 'I, Pencil'.
It's an essay about the Wonder of the Invisible Hand and leaving
creative energies uninhibited.

> http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

Mikek

[Ed Huntress]

Ha! I remember that. My boss recommended it to me back in the
mid-'70s. Good stuff to think about.

--
Ed Huntress

[Leon Fisk]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 15:54:59 -0500
Ed Huntress <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:

<snip>

>That's an interesting story about the high-volume ice harvesting. It
>sounds like a truly miserable job.

Coincidental timing, this just ran in the local paper:

"Ice harvesting was Michigan's frozen winter tradition"

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/01/ice_harvesting_was_michigans_f.html

[Ed Huntress]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 14:06:12 -0400, Leon Fisk
<lf...@no.spam.iserv.net> wrote:

>On Mon, 15 Jan 2018 15:54:59 -0500
>Ed Huntress <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
><snip>
>>That's an interesting story about the high-volume ice harvesting. It
>>sounds like a truly miserable job.
>
>Coincidental timing, this just ran in the local paper:
>
>"Ice harvesting was Michigan's frozen winter tradition"
>
>http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/01/ice_harvesting_was_michigans_f.html

Ha. It looks like they purloined some copy from the earlier story that
was posted.

It sounds like it was much the same all over, at least in the north. I
wonder what they did in southern states, where they didn't have much
ice? Did they eat rotten fish? d8-)

I also remember going with my dad to the town ice house, which had a
huge refrigeration system. It always smelled like ammonia from the
refrigerant leaks. It wasn't something I really enjoyed for that
reason.

--
Ed Huntress

[Leon Fisk]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 15:15:04 -0500

Ed Huntress <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:

<snip>

>It sounds like it was much the same all over, at least in the north. I
>wonder what they did in southern states, where they didn't have much
>ice? Did they eat rotten fish? d8-)

We shipped it down there of course ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cutting

Looks like Norway shipped world round...

>I also remember going with my dad to the town ice house, which had a
>huge refrigeration system. It always smelled like ammonia from the
>refrigerant leaks. It wasn't something I really enjoyed for that
>reason.

Before my time. I can just remember talk of the "meat locker". Kind of
in between times I think. Neighbor worked there and my folks would
use their service to store stuff. Pretty sure I have an old ad for a
local one in an old Plat book.

I started working in earnest as an electricians apprentice. My
boss/owner would do repair and new for local fruit growers. I remember
quite vividly going along to scope out an upcoming job and walking
right into a bad ammonia leak. Those were some big compressors. It
wasn't unusual to see 40, 60 and once a 120 hp three phase motor
running them... There was three of us as I recall and we all just
scattered in different directions simultaneously without a word said :)

[Jim Wilkins]

"Leon Fisk" <lf...@no.spam.iserv.net> wrote in message
news:p3lnm5$6dn$2...@dont-email.me...

>
> Looks like Norway shipped world round...
>

In case you avoid Disney-princes movies, "Frozen" opens with
traditional Norwegian ice-cutting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euh4wvNZ8PA

The little boy and baby reindeer are major characters later.

[Gerry]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 01:22:19 -0500, Ed Huntress

I was ten years old when we got electric lights.

[David Billington]

Are there many ice houses around these days? I can remember going with
my dad in the early 1970s to the ice house in Huntington Long Island for
ice and IIRC they produced it for ice dispensers and mostly for fishing
to keep the catch cool. They produced big blocks of ice maybe 1' x 2' x
3'. Maybe these days they just do it on board and the old ice house has
been developed on.

[Gunner Asch]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 00:16:43 +0000, David Billington <d...@invalid.com>
wrote:

We have an ice house here that sells big blocks of ice.

But..they make it inhouse.

[Ed Huntress]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 19:02:24 -0500, Gerry <gerald...@yahoo.ca>

Well, that beats the heck out of me. But I did ride home from the
hospital in my dad's Model A Ford. I sure wish I had it now.

--
Ed Huntress

[Ed Huntress]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 00:16:43 +0000, David Billington <d...@invalid.com>
wrote:

There are a few around. Along the mid-Atlantic coast, I think that
most of them serve the fishing fleets, as in your example. The last
time I was tuna fishing at Montauk, L.I., which was maybe 15 years
ago, we had big blocks delivered by truck.

But it wasn't my boat, and I didn't inquire about the source of ice.

Going back about 25 years, my uncle and I got our ice and our chum
from the same place -- an old ice house in Perth Amboy, NJ. It was the
same deal; they delivered it by truck, so I never saw the ice house.

--
Ed Huntress

[DoN. Nichols]

On 2018-01-17, Ed Huntress <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 00:16:43 +0000, David Billington <d...@invalid.com>
> wrote:

[ ... ]

>>Are there many ice houses around these days? I can remember going with
>>my dad in the early 1970s to the ice house in Huntington Long Island for
>>ice and IIRC they produced it for ice dispensers and mostly for fishing
>>to keep the catch cool. They produced big blocks of ice maybe 1' x 2' x
>>3'. Maybe these days they just do it on board and the old ice house has
>>been developed on.
>
> There are a few around. Along the mid-Atlantic coast, I think that
> most of them serve the fishing fleets, as in your example. The last
> time I was tuna fishing at Montauk, L.I., which was maybe 15 years
> ago, we had big blocks delivered by truck.
>
> But it wasn't my boat, and I didn't inquire about the source of ice.
>
> Going back about 25 years, my uncle and I got our ice and our chum
> from the same place -- an old ice house in Perth Amboy, NJ. It was the
> same deal; they delivered it by truck, so I never saw the ice house.

My father used to drive us by an ice house (yes, it was made on
site) to pick up a cubic foot of ice to be chipped into drink coolant as
the day's sail went on. I saw something like 1x1x3' blocks being moved
around. This was in the late 1950s. At some point we shifted over to
bagged ice, perhaps because the ice house closed. (My father is no
longer with us, so I can't ask.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
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[Gerry]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2018 00:48:15 -0500, Ed Huntress

I took my driver's test in the family Model "A", My Dad traded up by
30 years for$300.00

[Ed Huntress]

On 18 Jan 2018 03:08:27 GMT, "DoN. Nichols" <BPdnic...@d-and-d.com>
wrote:

That 1x1x3-foot size is the one we had delivered to my uncle's boat.
We'd get two blocks for the fish cooler and chip one up in the cooler.
If it was really hot or if we were riding out to the Hudson Canyon,
we'd get three blocks, and wrap canvas around the ice, the cans of
chum (if hot) and/or the bait (if a Canyon trip).

--
Ed Huntress

[Pete Keillor]

On 18 Jan 2018 03:08:27 GMT, "DoN. Nichols" <BPdnic...@d-and-d.com>
wrote:

I barely remember ice houses, we used to get ice from the one in
Angleton, Texas for making ice cream.

Dad came to Texas in their model T. He told of hearing a veteran
speak on the horrors of war in elementary school in Nada, Utah. The
veteran fought in the civil war.

We had Dad's 98th birthday party a couple weeks ago. He's really
slowing down.

Pete Keillor

[Jim Wilkins]

"Ed Huntress" <hunt...@optonline.net> wrote in message

news:tbb06dd6d2npkal7e...@4ax.com...

> That 1x1x3-foot size is the one we had delivered to my uncle's boat.
> We'd get two blocks for the fish cooler and chip one up in the
> cooler.
> If it was really hot or if we were riding out to the Hudson Canyon,
> we'd get three blocks, and wrap canvas around the ice, the cans of
> chum (if hot) and/or the bait (if a Canyon trip).
>
> --
> Ed Huntress

The TV just ran an ad for a public demonstration at a still-working
ice house.
http://www.musterfieldfarm.com/events/ice-day

-jsw

[Ed Huntress]

Hey, that's entertainment!

I asked my dad what people did for fun in the wintertime in New
Hampshire. "Shave quarters" was his reply. <g>

Actually, I'd like to see that again. I was too small to know what was
going on when I saw ice being cut at the pond in Bayside.

--
Ed Huntress