Though he could not ship any ice that winter, Frederic did not abandon the venture, as he might well have done. He was still convinced that if he could overcome the problem of how to preserve ice efficiently in hot climates there were good profits to be made. In the summer of 1808 he had time on his hands and a supply of ice in the Rockwood ice-house with which he could experiment. Why ice kept better in some conditions than others was a mystery. Obviously some materials would provide better insulation than others, and Frederic needed something that would be available in bulk and was not too expensive. He had to hand plenty of charcoal and some light, spongy peat which was also used as fuel at Rockwood. To determine which might be the better insulator he took two large wooden casks, put pulverised charcoal in one and peat in the other, filled them with ice and put the lids on. Forty days later, when he opened the casks, the ice had melted in both of them – this was between mid-June and the end of July – but the melt-water was warm in the barrel insulated with charcoal, and cool in the peat barrel. He carried out the experiment again, opening the casks sooner, and found that some ice remained in the peat barrel whereas it had all gone from the charcoal barrel. Peat, although the poorer fuel, was the better insulator.
In Frederic’s mind at this time was the notion that if he could create a thriving industry from otherwise valueless ice and cheap insulating material, he would have cracked a problem that all New Englanders faced. Because they lacked resources of their own to export, and their rivers, running north to south, did not connect them to the developing interior of the country, they were dependent on the sea and trade along the east coast or far overseas for their prosperity. But quite often, when a cargo had been discharged on the wharves at Boston there was nothing in bulk to carry on an outward voyage. Ships were designed to sail with a full hold, and were unstable and difficult to handle without a cargo. If there was no saleable ballast something had to be found to weight the ship down, which would be jettisoned at the end of the outward voyage. In Boston stones were dredged from the bay, which was time-consuming and therefore costly. But if a vessel took on ice rather than stones, there would be a freight charge paid to the shipper. A ship-owner who might otherwise have loaded with worthless ballast had an incentive to take ice even at a very low rate, provided he was convinced that this unusual cargo would not damage the vessel.
Although Frederic was the butt of much wry humour when he first tried to sell ice, the venture was considered in later years as typically ‘Yankee’, because it was making something out of nothing. And in retrospect the ice trade made more sense in the peculiar economy of Massachusetts than even Frederic at first realised. He was later to claim credit for reviving the flagging Boston trade with India, because his ice at least gave the shippers a freight income on their long outward journey. It was just as true, of course, that if ballast had not been a problem for Boston ship-owners, the ice trade would probably never have become established, for frozen water was not the most lucrative cargo to carry.
Although he had made little money from them, Frederic had proved the feasibility of the ice trade with his first four shipments. The ice lasted, the ships were undamaged and there was a market for cool drinks and ice cream in tropical climates. Taking into account the cost of harvesting the ice, carrying it to a wharf on Boston’s Charlestown quays, a modest freight charge and all other expenses, including the building of ice-houses, it seemed that a profit could be made. However, if enjoying ice was to become an established luxury in the West Indies, supplies would have to be regular. When he sought exclusive rights to sell ice Frederic would argue that if he was guaranteed sales and was free of troublesome competition he would be better able to establish regular shipments. That was what he hoped for in Cuba, but in 1808 there was no point in pursuing an exclusive deal because no ships were sailing.* To add to his frustration, his brother William returned from Europe with the news that in France he had been granted a Napoleonic privilege to trade with France’s West Indian islands.
The shipping embargo was to last until the spring of 1809, and Frederic did not bother to harvest any ice for export the previous winter. However, he and William imagined for a short time that they had chanced upon another speculation which would save them and the family from penury. William had taken his watch to be mended, and learned from the watchmaker that coal had been found in remote land on Cape Cod and the island of Martha’s Vineyard. If there were coal deposits in New England they could be worth their weight in gold, and Frederic became very excited. As with the ice venture, he wanted as few people as possible to know about this find. He asked his father for some funds to explore Martha’s Vineyard and look into the purchase of mineral rights, but the Judge had no money unless he mortgaged Rockwood, and the venture was too risky for that. But Frederic managed to put together a kind of mining company with a committee of six which included his cousin William Savage, back from Havana.
Three of this committee, including Frederic and his cousin William, set out to explore the prospective coalmines disguised as hunters: they took their guns and let it be known they were going to do some shooting. Frederic had been fond of the outdoor life since boyhood, and this was a not implausible cover story. They sailed to Cape Cod, where they found coal specimens, and hired a schooner to take them to Martha’s Vineyard. Here they collected more specimens, in weather which rapidly deteriorated and drove them to put up for the night at an inn. The next day they hired a boatman to take them back to Boston through treacherous seas which were running high. They were very nearly shipwrecked, and had to drop their sails and row eleven miles through the night to make shore. But the venture came to nothing. They had found coal, and a lease to dig for it was obtained from the native Americans who owned the land, but they had no money to take it any further.
The Tudors were at a very low ebb, driven back to their Rockwood estate. It had been left to them as a place to spend happy summer months; now it was their last resort. As a farm it was in a sorry state, with two horses, two yoke of oxen, two cows, one heifer, three hogs and fifty chickens. Because the family had no inclination to run the farm themselves they had hired two people to do the work, and their annual wage bill of $500 was more than the total income from the sale of hay, corn, potatoes and carrots. Rockwood ice was potentially the most valuable crop on the farm – with the possible exception of Frederic’s sister Delia, who was now of marriageable age. Delia had been courted by some respectably wealthy young men, but to Frederic’s annoyance had turned them down, and now she was spending what little Tudor money was left on the European jaunt with her mother.
In the autumn of 1809 Frederic’s only hope of financial salvation was the forthcoming ice harvest. He was aware that few if any Boston merchants regarded his enterprise as worth pursuing, and he must have felt very self-conscious as he mingled with them on their customary trading ground in State Street, where he would go still hoping to find backers. Then, late in 1809 he was approached in State Street by a sheriff and in full view of Boston’s mercantile community was put under arrest for debt. A creditor had waited long enough for payment. The debt laws were harsh, and Frederic expected to be marched straight to jail. However, as it was his first offence he was given a reprieve: if he repaid the money within a week he would not be put behind bars. Somehow the Judge and a few friends raised enough to save Frederic from prison. But he was mortified, and wrote to his brother-in-law Robert Gardiner that the experience had been ‘abominable’.
As the weather was hardening it was time for Frederic to plan his next season of ice sales to Havana. He decided to go himself, leaving William Savage in Boston to organise the harvesting and loading. This would enable Frederic to escape the social embarrassment he suffered in Boston and to continue his plan to build a more efficient ice-house, though just what his design improvements were at this stage is not clear. After a good deal of negotiation and the payment of a few bribes when he got to Havana he secured his monopoly. The following April two cargoes of ice arrived from Boston, and they sold well, bringing in $5,600 by August. In May a shipment of ice by a rival arrived in Havana – there is no record of who sent it – but Frederic was able to crow in his diary that ‘he made so poor a hand of it that after some days he threw his ice overboard and I encountered no further difficulties in my sales.’ It would be interesting to know more