Yea it was fresh water. What they did was harvest it from the lakes and ponds all over New England, not just Boston. I believe it all started in Wenham, Massachusetts just north of Boston. They would basically use big hand saws and cut large solid blocks, float them to shore, and haul them away. It wasn’t just shipped to Australia. It was big business and was shipped all over the world as well as used locally the following summer.
LiveEatAndFly603 t1_ismoj2r wrote
Reply to comment by SleeperHitPrime in TIL that before the invention of regfrigeration in 1851, ice had to be imported to Australia from Boston, Massachusetts. The ice blocks travelled through the tropics inside ships insulated with timber, straw, peat, and sawdust by stumcm
Yea it was fresh water. What they did was harvest it from the lakes and ponds all over New England, not just Boston. I believe it all started in Wenham, Massachusetts just north of Boston. They would basically use big hand saws and cut large solid blocks, float them to shore, and haul them away. It wasn’t just shipped to Australia. It was big business and was shipped all over the world as well as used locally the following summer.