The Ice King | Indian Summer | 4

0:28Hello, American History Teller listeners. on tickets and upcoming dates, go to AmericanHistoryLive.com. That's AmericanHistoryLive.com. Come see my Days That Made America tour live on stage. Go to AmericanHistoryLive.com.

0:58Imagine it's January, 1835 in Boston, Massachusetts. You hurry along a downtown street, sweat trickling down your back despite the cold winter air. You skid around a final corner and finally reach your cousin Frederick Tudor's townhouse. You pound on the door with your fist and take a step back. After a moment, 51-year-old Frederick opens the door. His eyes widen when he sees your face. William, you look like you've seen a ghost. Come in, it's terribly cold. Without a word, you brush past him into the parlor, where a newspaper lies folded on the table beside a steaming cup of coffee. Frederick follows you in, a note of concern in his voice.

1:36Please sit down, William. Would you like something to drink? Frederick takes a seat across from you and adds a spoonful of sugar to his coffee and stirs it slowly. You watch the swirling brown liquid, your stomach, churning. Oh no, thank you. Well, is everything okay? What brings you here? Well, it's the coffee. Hi, I told you. Have a cup. No, not that coffee. The market. The coffee market. For the past few years, you've made a living in the coffee trade. Buying and selling large quantities of beans for a profit, but you've never actually set eyes on the coffee that you purchase. You're a futures trader.

2:10You agree to buy coffee at a fixed price in the future, and then you profit when the price goes up more than you promised to buy it for. It's been such a lucrative source of income that recently you convinced your cousin Frederick to invest his own savings in coffee futures too. Frederick sets his cup down slowly. Coffee market? What's happened? The price of beans has crashed. Well, how's that? It's been climbing 30 % a year. It was a bubble, apparently, and now it's just burst. My payments are due and I'm going to have to sell at a loss. How short are you? $200 ,000. Good Lord, William! I'm going to have to declare bankruptcy.

2:44I'm ruined. Frederick closes his eyes and exhales slowly, but you interrupt his thoughts. Frederick, you'll be taking a substantial loss as well. Well, I have the ice business as collateral. Will that be enough to see you through? I guess it has to be, because if it isn't, I'll lose everything too. Frederick only invested his money in coffee because you urged him to, so you feel dreadful delivering such bad news. You know the difficulties he had building his ICE empire, and now, just as he's finally made a fortune, he might lose it all, and it's all your fault.

3:23With the VentureX Business Card from Capital One, you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase. Plus, big purchasing power means you can spend more and earn more. The Capital One Venture X business card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com for details. I'm Raza Jaffrey, and in the new season of The Spy Who, we go back in time to meet Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. As America fights for freedom from Britain, Arnold emerges as one of the rebels' greatest generals. But when his loyalty is pushed to the limit, he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the rebellion and make George Washington a prisoner.

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4:36By the time Frederick Tudor was in his early 40s, he'd weathered 20 years in the ice trade. After a first decade of struggling to establish a foothold in the Caribbean, he'd experienced a turning point when he expanded his business to the southern United States. There, he found that the markets of sweltering port cities like New Orleans offered a more reliable and profitable income. And from that moment, Tudor's business began to thrive. But his journey to prosperity had not been an easy one, thanks to Tudor's enormous appetite for risk. Time and again, Tudor had wagered everything in order to expand the ice trade and constantly encountered setbacks that nearly wiped him out.

5:14But through all, he persevered, relying on his supreme self-confidence and sheer determination to succeed. So by his early 50s, Tudor had begun to stake his hard-earned fortune on other high-reward but high-risk ventures, like coffee futures, and like all gamblers, Tudor discovered that he'd lose more often than he'd win. It would only be when Tudor settled down and stopped taking risks that he'd finally managed to secure the riches he'd spent a lifetime chasing. This is Episode 4 in our four-part series on the Ice King, Indian Summer.

5:49By 1824, Frederick Tudor had ice houses in South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and Cuba. Every year, the amount of ice sold from his facilities increased, but Tudor soon hit a limit on how much he could sell. The demand was there, but he didn't have the supply to meet it. Five years earlier, in 1819, Tudor's mother had sold the family estate at Rockwood, Massachusetts, to settle her late husband's debts. Ever since, Tudor had been forced to harvest most of his ice from another source called Fresh Pond near Cambridge, Massachusetts. At 155 acres, Fresh Pond was larger than its name suggested. But while there was sufficient ice in Fresh Pond to meet Tudor's needs, harvesting it was painfully slow.

6:31Collecting giant blocks of ice by hand was backbreaking work. Hired laborers used pickaxes and chisels to hack the heavy blocks from the surface of the pond, then dragged or floated them to the shore. Once on land, more laborers set about shaping the ice into stackable units with two-man saws. It was arduous and time-consuming work. But while Tudor had come up with a technique to increase the amount of ice that formed in Fresh Pond by drilling holes in the partially frozen surface to increase its thickness, he hadn't found a way to harvest the ice any faster. And now the glacial pace of securing his product was holding his company back.

7:11Imagine it's January 1824 at Fresh Pond. Despite the bitter cold, you strip off your coat and toss it aside. For the past hour, you've been hacking away at the frozen surface, cutting the ice into large chunks. For most of the year, you run a hotel on the banks of the pond. But in winter, when the tourists have gone for the season, you and your men turn your hand to harvesting ice for Frederick Tudor. The pay is good, but the work is punishing. But just as you're about to take another swing of your pickaxe, you hear a shout. Hey, you there! You turn to see Frederick Tudor picking his way gingerly onto the ice, taking small and careful steps to keep from slipping.

7:49You set down your pickaxe, steam rising from your shoulders. Mr. Tudor, what brings you out here? I'm coming to see what's taking you so long. My ships are idle in Boston Harbor. My ice houses are empty. We're waiting on you. Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Tudor. The men are working as quickly as they can. Tudor looks over at one laborer who's put his pickaxe down and is wiping his sweaty brow with a cloth. Oh yeah? You sure about that? Tudor then shouts over to the man. You there, get on with it! As the man lifts his pickaxe and gets back to work, you guide Tudor back to the shore where ice is stacked in piles.

8:23Now please, Mr. Tudor, this is hard work. The men do need to rest from time to time, but I promise you, we are working as fast as possible. Well then what's causing the delay? You've never asked for this much ice. Every year you need more, but we can't go any quicker. Maybe you should bring in more men. I already have every able-bodied man in the district. Well, there's$50 ,000 worth of ice floating in this pond, and I need it in Boston. It's a time-critical industry. Well, I don't know what you expect me to do, Mr. Tudor. Ice is ice. We can't harvest it any quicker. Tudor stops to think, and his gaze drifts back to your hotel on the shore.

8:58You have empty rooms, don't you? I do. Not many travelers passing through in winter. Well, good. I'll advertise for laborers in Boston and send them up here. Put them up in your hotel. I'll pay for the rooms. But as soon as they arrive, set them to work. I need that ice. Well, all right, sir, but if you're going to need that much ice every year, we're going to need a different solution in the long term. As you head back onto the frozen pond, you turn the problem over in your head. Tudor is right. The bottleneck in his supply chain is real, but you're not sure more men is going to fix it. So while you could use more muscle in the short term, in the long term, you're determined to solve this problem with brains, not brawn.

9:41By increasing the number of workers harvesting ice at Fresh Pond, Frederick Tudor eventually obtained enough stock to supply his customers. But employing more workers from further afield cost more money, which reduced his profit margin. And the following winter, as the ice harvest season began again, Tudor prepared to recruit extra workers once more. But before he could, ice from Fresh Pond began arriving at Tudor's ice houses in Boston Harbor in greater quantities and frequency than usual. The holdup in his supply chain had unexpectedly disappeared. Tudor was, of course, pleased, but he was also puzzled.

10:16His meticulous diary suggested that nothing had changed. The weather was no different. He wasn't paying for more labor. So Tudor decided to travel to Fresh Pond to see what had caused the sudden increase in supply. When Tudor arrived, he found an odd-looking plow being dragged across Fresh Pond by two horses. One of Tudor's ice harvesters, Hotelier Nathaniel Wyeth, explained that this peculiar contraption was his new invention, an ice-cutting machine. Wyeth had fashioned an adjustable metal blade and fitted it to a plow that normally worked the fields in summer. Horses wearing spiked shoes pulled the machine across the ice, scoring a line into the surface.

10:54By cutting parallel lines at fixed intervals and another set of parallel lines at right angles, Wyeth marked a grid into the surface of the ice. Then the blade was lowered, and the machine was dragged over the lines again. After repeating this process to gradually cut lower and lower, laborers used chisels to gouge large blocks from the frozen pond. The horse-drawn blade was quicker than cutting the ice by hand, and since all the blocks were a uniform size and shape, they no longer needed to be refined with a saw. They were also in the perfect shape to stack and store. Tudor was impressed with Wyeth's ingenuity.

11:29With one stroke of his ice-cutting machine, Wyeth has slashed the limitations on Tudor's ice supply. And that winter, Tudor's ship set sail without having to wait in port, and his ice houses in the tropics never ran short. So in return, Tudor rewarded Wyeth with a new title of Chief Ice Harvester and a salary of$500 a year, a handsome sum at the time. But Tudor wasn't motivated simply by gratitude and generosity. He also hoped the lucrative wage would ensure that Wyeth and his revolutionary machine weren't lured away by a competitor. Now, with plenty of ice on hand, Tudor once again set about expanding his business.

12:06In 1827, he built a new, larger ice house in Charleston, South Carolina. He intended to build a bigger ice house in Savannah, Georgia, too, but ran out of time, though he did manage to find an existing warehouse and fit it with insulation to act as an overflow storage unit that season. Then the following year, in 1828, Tudor predicted an even greater yield of ice. That's because Nathaniel Wyeth had been busy during the summer again, this time building a lifting platform that would speed up the process of getting the ice from the pond to the shore. Wyeth's ice lift looked like a giant balance scale with platforms at either end of a beam.

12:42When one side lowered into the water, the other rose into the air. Wyeth intended for an ice block to be floated onto the platform in the water. Then it would be lifted by a horse-drawn pulley. While laborers dragged the ice block off the raised platform, another team would float the next ice block onto the lowered platform. It was another ingenious device, and Wyeth and Tudor wanted to put it into action straight away. But in mid-December 1827, a low-pressure system settled over New England, wreaking havoc with the weather. One day, temperatures would plunge below freezing, but the next, they rose so high that Bostonians walked the streets in short sleeves.

13:17As a result of this unpredictable weather, the ice on Fresh Pond never thickened enough to use Wyeth's heavy ice-cutting machine, and the few blocks that were managed to be cut by hand weren't big enough for Tudor's needs. So by the end of January 1828, Tudor was back in the situation he'd been in three years earlier. His ships were moored in Boston Harbor with empty holds, and there was no prospect of beginning the larger harvest on Fresh Pond. Desperate to find an alternative source of ice, Tudor and Wyeth scoured other bodies of water in Massachusetts. They found a few shaded ponds where temperatures had fallen low enough for thick ice to form, but they were few and far between.

13:56None were as large as Fresh Pond, and none were set up for large-scale ice harvesting. In the end, the only viable option they found was Swain's Pond, north of Boston. But getting there was a nightmare. There was only one narrow path that led to it, which was blocked by a large boulder. Even after they blew up this rock with gunpowder to remove it, the surface of the path was rutted and slow, and as a result, an impatient wagon driver pulled down a fence and drove a shortcut through a farmer's orchard. Meanwhile, Tudor's laborers chopped down the farmer's trees near the pond's shoreline to give them room to work.

14:31Upon discovering this destruction of his property, the farmer demanded that Tudor pay him compensation. At the same time, the wagon drivers Tudor had employed realized that they had him over a barrel and hiked their fees. It was too much for Tudor. Whatever ice he would be able to get from Swain's Pond wasn't worth the cost of harvesting it. So within only a few days of arriving, Tudor and Wyeth abandoned their plans, leaving a trail of destruction behind them. Eventually, Tudor decided to send Wyeth 150 miles north to the Kennebec River in Maine, which was completely iced over. But it took time for Wyeth to pack up his ice-cutting machine and travel there.

15:07By the time he arrived, it was the end of February, and Tudor's ships were still in port. With his ice houses in the tropics sitting empty, Tudor repeatedly wrote to Wyeth, imploring greater urgency. As a result, Wyeth and his laborers worked from dawn to dusk, and with the ice-cutting machine at their disposal, they made quick progress. They were also lucky because the air temperature in Maine remained below freezing, meaning they didn't even need to put the ice they harvested in an ice house. They just covered it with straw and wood and loaded the cargo straight from the riverbank onto boats for transport.

15:40After a frantic few weeks, Wyeth returned home, and despite the unseasonably warm winter, Wyeth's ingenuity and hard work meant by the end of March 1828, Tudor had managed to supply every one of his ice houses. And although profits dipped slightly compared to the previous year, the following year they recovered. Tudor's business resumed its upward trajectory so that by the end of the 1820s, Tudor was exporting over 4 ,000 tons of ice a year, a threefold increase over the previous decade. And now that the supply chain was no longer a limiting factor, Tudor had more ice than he needed to sustain his markets in the United States and the Caribbean.

16:17This glut meant he could now set his sights farther afield, much, much farther. In pursuit of even greater success, Frederick Tudor would look to send his ice halfway around the world.

16:32I'm Raza Jaffrey, and in the new season of The Spy Who, they open the file on Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. America is fighting to free itself from the British Empire, and one of its foremost generals is Benedict Arnold. He's a smuggler turned battlefield hero and admired for his aggressive tactics. But when a war wound, a new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the mags, he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commander-in-chief General George Washington. And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in US history.

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17:50will cut off your head. Oh no, maybe just tell them about the guest stars like Richard Kind, Carrie Coon, Jimmy Fallon, at all. But they were in it, and if you don't listen to them, then I will cut off your tongue, then cut off your head, and then put the tongue in the head hole. Aw, you tried. Listen now exclusively on Audible and Donald the Audible app today, or off with your head! I'm kidding.

18:28Imagine it's April 1833, and you're in a tavern in Boston, Massachusetts. You hand a few coins to the bartender and then take your drink, eyes scanning the room. You're not a regular here, but the man you're looking for is. Frederick Tudor rents a modest apartment close to the Customs House on State Street, and word is he likes to come to this bar to enjoy a quiet drink after work. Soon enough, you spot Tudor alone at a corner table, so you make your way over and slide into a seat across from him. Mind if I join you, Mr. Tudor? He looks up, his eyes narrowing, then softening in recognition. Oh, I know you, Mr.

19:03Austin, isn't it? Please, yes, please, have a seat. Well, I hope you don't mind me disturbing you, but you're quite the celebrity in the Custom House. The man who made his money in ice. Celebrity, eh? Well, not long ago, I was a laughingstock. I proved them all wrong, didn't I? Well, I certainly admire what you've done, yes. In fact, I have a proposal that I think you might be interested in. Next week, my partner and I have a ship coming into Boston with a cargo of Indian spices. But when it heads back to India, it's going to be empty. Normally, the captain loads stones as ballast, but that's got no value.

19:34It just gets dumped into the sea before the ship docks. So I was thinking, maybe ice can be your ballast. Exactly. If we have to load the ship down for a voyage to India, why not use something we can sell when we get there? Tudor leans back in his chair and folds his arms. Well, 20 years ago, I'd have jumped at the chance. But now? Well, I've had some bad experiences exporting ice to the wrong locations. Lost a lot of money. I learned to trust my own instincts, not someone else's. What are your instincts telling you now? Well, there's no doubt India's a large market. The British colonials out there must be roasting, but it's a long way from here.

20:09Yes, but it's a new era, Mr. Tudor. The world is shrinking. You might be surprised to hear that my ships can get there in only four months. Tudor shakes his head. Even so, four months on board a ship? I'm too old to be traipsing halfway around the world. Well, you won't need to. My partner, William Rogers, will be our man on the ground. Tudor falls silent, lost in thought, and you wait, heart thudding, fingers crossed beneath the table. After a long pause, Tudor leans forward and picks up his glass. Well, maybe it's this drink talking, but all right. Bring the figures to me tomorrow and we'll take a look.

20:44Oh, great news. You tap your glass against Tudor's, but then he pauses, buying your drink with distaste. Oh, there's just one problem. And what's that? Your whiskey. How can you drink it without any ice? You grin, leaning back in your chair. You've done what you came to do. Tudor's experience will be invaluable to your new venture, even if he doesn't yet realize that you have no intention of making this a long-term partnership.

21:15After years of aggressive expansion in the Caribbean and along the southern Atlantic coast, Frederick Tudor found the opportunity to expand all the way to India all too enticing. Tudor believed that if he played his cards right, India, then known as the jewel of the British Empire, would become a vital part of his business empire too. But the distance from Boston to India was a staggering 16 ,000 miles, and the four-month journey to get there was far longer than any ice ship had sailed before. Tudor's new partner in the scheme, Samuel Austin, would provide the ship, but Tudor knew from experience that it wouldn't simply be a matter of loading ice and hoping for the best.

21:52The ship carrying his product would need to cross the equator twice during its voyage, and air temperatures would peak at more than 100 degrees. Tudor couldn't imagine a more hostile environment for a cargo of ice, so if he was to make any money on this Indian expedition, he had to prevent as much of the ice melting as possible. That meant Tudor would need to outfit the merchant ship carrying the ice, the Tuscany, before it sailed, and he set about putting the knowledge he'd gained over the past three decades to use. He instructed laborers to add an insulating second skin to the cargo hold, leaving a one-inch gap between the hull and the new planks.

22:28He then had them line the internal hulls with sawdust, dry hay, and animal skins. Only then did he fill the hold with 180 tons of ice. And once the hole was sealed, Tudor gave the crew strict instructions not to open it under any circumstances. If they did as he said, Tudor estimated that two-thirds of the ice would last the voyage. On May 12, 1833, the Tuscany set sail and arrived in Calcutta on September 13. Only then did Austin's business partner, William Rogers, open the hold, and he found that 120 tons of ice had survived the trip. Tudor's predictions that two-thirds of the cargo would make it was spot on.

23:06And after the Tuscany docked in Calcutta, the city's newspapers hailed the arrival of American ice as a monumental event. The British officials who ran the East India Company were accustomed to a much colder climate back in Britain, and the stifling heat in India left them desperate to find ways to keep cool. They had few options, however. One solution they'd found was to hang wet blankets across windows as a makeshift form of air conditioning. Another involved servants pulling ropes to operate rudimentary ceiling fans. But neither of these methods did much against the oppressive subtropical heat.