Daily AncestorIce cutter
An ice cutter harvested ice from frozen lakes and rivers in winter, sawing it into blocks for storage in icehouses.
Before mechanical refrigeration, ice was a winter crop. Crews scraped snow from lakes and rivers, scored and sawed the ice into blocks, and stacked it in insulated icehouses, where it lasted into summer.
Ice cutting gave winter work to farmers and laborers, for example on the Hudson River and in Maine. In the 1800s natural ice was also a large export trade.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1920 census
Fred Dow, 24, Laborer (ice), Me.
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Ice cutter." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/ice-cutter. Last checked 2026-10-01.