Bulletin Article - March 2004

'COLD AS ICE'…FROM SUMMERCHASE ROAD
by Don Wallace

"These ice-cutters are a merry race, full of jest and sport and when I went among them, they were wont to invite me to saw pit-fashion with them, I standing underneath." Henry David Thoreau

As I sit here this winter, it's colder than ice out on Farwood Road. I've just been down the road to the mailbox to send off a thank you note to the man from Ohio who has helped us "complete" our display of ice harvesting tools.

Actually, that is…the rest of the story; but it really began on a bright Sunday morning in June, l996, at the Lutheran Church on Wood Lane, within two blocks of the remainder of what had been Elizabeth Haddon Estaugh's estate, later the Wood Farm, in what we now call "the Estates Section" of Haddonfield, New Jersey.

I had already taken our Thursday morning church volunteer-handymen's group, including Pastor Dunkle, into Greenfield Hall's dusty cellar to see the collection of tools that had just become my privilege to curate. They got the real "before" picture of a collection that hadn't been touched since young Bill Reifsteck II completed its first organization to earn his Eagle Scout badge in l973. We now know that when a lady says, "I don't do cellars!" she really means it!

So, as I was saying, here I am sauntering down the aisle on that beautiful Sunday morning, just a little bit later than usual. Pastor Dunkle was about to relate his announcements, but because I was walking right at him, said "…and here comes Don Wallace, late as usual. But you ought to see the job he has taken on at the Historical Society. There's a tool collection down there, of course, that hasn't been touched in twenty-five years! Wow! What a job he has committed to there!"

What he didn't say is that I was already on cloud nine and couldn't wait to get my hands on that project. All I had done so far was to take "before" pictures which are still posted there. But the best part was to come after the service, while walking back up the center aisle with Caryl. A fellow parishioner, Don Underwood, rushed at me with the question of the century, "Would you like to have a horse-drawn ice plow for your museum?" (Whoa! Does cold water freeze faster than hot water?) "Absolutely!" was my immediate response.

My next thoughts fell to considering how I would justify this great gift that was coming from Underwood's barn in Guilford, Maine…not from Haddonfield. How about, "It fell off a truck while being driven through Haddonfield!" That'll do for now, but more than a year later I was showing the ice plow to Bert Bauer, whose father, Harry Bauer, had sold this home to the Historical Society to be used as a house museum. When I told Bert that this ice plow had come from Guilford, Maine, he said, "That's our summer home where twenty-one related Haddonfield families still vacation…the Bauer's, the Driscoll's, the Tatem's and their offshoots." Eureeeeka! Although I had been ready to risk being branded a "Barnham" for the sake of the collection, ice was harvested on Evan's Pond. The restored brick, octagonal, ice house is still there on the Cherry Hill side of the pond. But this little bit of family related information had just brought me home free! Serendipity?

We have recently put the finishing touches on our ice harvesting and delivering tools collection by attaching the swing-guide to the ice plow (I call it the "outrigger") and we positioned it next to the wall so that no one would bump a head where it all hangs from the ceiling over the floor shelves. I had never seen a contraption like this on another ice plow, but it's pictured, printed and priced right here in the Gifford-Wood catalog copy given to us by Mr. Walter G. Ribeiro of Merchantville. It is rare to have one complete and intact Gifford-Wood ice plow like this. Even its sliding wooden box is on it to protect the ten inch blades and to position it upon the ice pack. Ice picks and tongs also decorate the wall behind it.

The new wall, built by Gus Winder between piers, was stained white in order for the tools displayed upon it to contrast with their background, as are all our wooden wall structures. The large ice tools hang against the white washed brick piers on both ends. Two ice saws hang nicely flat against the piers because their handles are in the same plane as their fiercely powerful, sharp, zigzag, deep-toothed blades. Our ice tools catalog identifies these as ice house saws; it takes a perpendicular handled saw to be used on the lake ice.

Although "I no longer collect tools," having donated mine to this museum, I have recently purchased a Disston adjustable handle for an ice or pit saw that can be turned and used in either directional plane, on the lake, in a pit, or in the ice house. (Reminds me of when I used to collect beautiful crock lids, then began searching for crocks to fit under them.) Well, I took that unattached handle to the 2002 bi-annual meeting of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association meeting down in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, (another "tool convention") to see if I could locate a Disston blade with a proper rectangular slot (1/2"x3/4") to fit the handle which still has its metal wedge to hold the blade securely, if anyone could find one.

It seems that I provided those rebels with the best laugh of their meeting on saws. "Here's this damn Yankee comes to the South lookin' for a tool part that could only be used in the North…where water can freeze over!" Oomph! Darn! Fortunately, a kinder, wiser man at the meeting thought that he might know the whereabouts of a loose blade at home. He sent me a paper pattern of his blade. It had the proper slot. I agreed to the purchase by return mail and a few weeks later Federal Express showed up at our door with a four-foot long package, safely wrapped in corrugated board, from Canton, Ohio, of all places. It fit perfectly! Thank you, Paul Boldt on Summerchase Road.

Now I can't wait to get the white paint and rust off to see if it is marked "Disston," and here comes my Barnham side again. The world has gotten so small these days that I wouldn't be surprised if this weren't the original blade which had somehow become separated from this great handle when a woodsman changed over to a pit saw blade for summertime employment.

Well, it seems that this Yankee has gotten the last muffled laugh here. Now if only I could locate that missing pit saw blade. Anyone? My new dilemma is how to display this lake ice saw which can't be hung flat on a wall because of its handle orientation. I could change that since it is adjustable you know, but I don't care to. I want visitors to feel like they could grab this handle and cut lake ice. But we have to keep it safe for the kids. Hopefully you will drop by some Monday morning and help us to display it properly and ingeniously.

Do you believe this? Paul Boldt has just sent me a newspaper page headlined, "Cold as Ice," showing how the Amish folks in Ohio harvest ice with an ice plow even today, 2003, when the ice has gotten thick enough to harvest this year, for the first year in a long time. What a nice guy!

It's a small world, isn't it? Made smaller and more comfortable with the many good people who inhabit it. Now if this column has made you feel cooler in the heat of summer, it is well timed; but even if it's cold outside when you read this, then it is, indeed, well timed and timely. Doesn't Summerchase Road sound like a nice place to live? Especially if you enjoy the changing seasons of the year as much as we Yankees do.

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To learn more about this cold business, Don is recommending the book, America's Icemen," an illustrative history of the United States Natural Ice Industry 1665-1925, by Joseph C. Jones, Jr. (ISBN: 0-9607572-1-X).