Penobscot River’s ice brought fun, profits

Ice! The word caused excitement that is hard to imagine today. When ice conquered the Penobscot River each winter a century ago, it changed the lives of thousands. Bangor’s two daily newspapers covered this annual event in as great detail as they covered politics and crime.

First came the promise of money. Before electric refrigeration was widespread, people kept perishable goods cool by buying blocks of ice for their iceboxes. It was a profitable business.

“Ice Industry to Boom Again?” asked a headline in the Bangor Daily News on Oct. 2, 1905, when balmy autumn weather still held sway. The top officials of the American Ice Co. had come to town asking a lot of questions and looking over the area’s ice houses. Before the big trust took over most of the ice industry in the Northeast in the 1890s, business had boomed along the Kennebec River and, to a lesser degree, the Penobscot River as many independent companies competed. Hundreds of day laborers and farmers with teams and wagons had been able to make some extra income to help get their families through the winter.

The American Ice Co. curtailed production of Maine ice to what it needed after it ran out of Hudson River ice and the “artificial ice” it manufactured. In the early years of the 20th century hardly any ice was harvested along the Penobscot compared with the half-million tons in 1890 back when Maine ships carried Maine ice to Cuba and beyond.

But things seemed to be looking up at the end of 1905. The American Ice Co. was predicting that it would harvest 70,000 tons, or about one-eighth of its Maine ice, from the Penobscot. Most of the rest of the ice would come from the Kennebec River along with a small quantity of pond ice from Boothbay, according to the Bangor Daily Commercial on Dec. 23. Of course, everything depended on the weather in New York and Maine.

As the autumn wore on and the air grew colder, the newspapers examined another big question: When would Bangor Harbor be iced in? No skipper wanted to be trapped in the ice. Back then, the Penobscot was an important trade artery. Hundreds of vessels carried lumber from Bangor and delivered coal and other needed goods to the Queen City. Travelers depended on the steamboats that visited the city and nearby towns

Most sawmills in the area stopped operations during the last week in November “as the ice is getting thick where the logs float,” the BDN reported. A skim of ice covered the river from bank to bank a few days later, but the little Bon Ton ferry, which shuttled people back and forth between Bangor and Brewer, was able to break a channel.

On Dec. 13, the last Boston boat of the year, the big, rugged steamer Penobscot, arrived preceded by a tug. A watch was stationed in the pilothouse all night, and both pilots and quartermasters were aboard “ready to start down the river if ice began making too fast.” The harbor was closed to navigation the next day, Harbor Master M.E. Tracy, reported; 1,544 vessels had arrived that season, from little coasting schooners to barks and brigs. Now a traveler would have to go to Winterport or Bucksport to catch a steamboat or else take the train

The temperature registered 23 degrees below zero at the Bangor Railway and Electric Co.’s power station in Veazie on Dec. 15. Two weeks later, however, things warmed up much to everyone’s chagrin, causing the river to clear all the way up to Stern’s mill at East Hampden. Nevertheless, area people were going ahead with their plans to have some winter fun.

“Frozen water everywhere and not a place to skate,” complained the Bangor Daily Commercial on Jan. 2. But people were finding places to skate near the ferry way and above Stern’s mill where they trekked on the trolley cars. The surface was sometimes rough, and sometimes the ice was unsafe, as 16-year-old Alice Manley of Brewer found out when she fell through by Stetson’s railway and had to be rescued by 10-year-old Ralph Bridges. Ice boats also were in evidence on the river and area lakes, as were “ice chairs” in which “men cottagers had the pleasure of sliding their wives and daughters over the lake all day.” The ice fishing season opened on Feb. 1.

While the river may have been having trouble holding onto its ice cover, there was plenty on Cedar Street, one of Bangor’s favorite coasting spots. “The rut in which people travel is clear ice from Fifth Street to Second and remarkable time is being made,” stated a BDN reporter on Jan. 8. Many people on big sleds got going so fast they had to “tumble into the ditch” as they peaked the hill at Second Street to avoid tearing down into Main Street where the trolleys ran.

The area’s many horsemen also were taking advantage of conditions. They were out late in December racing their steeds in the snow up and down the Hampden road between Wood & Bishop Co. at 329-339 Main St. and the poor farm. By Jan. 8 an ice track had been opened on the river above the dam. Sixty rigs were out on Sunday, and hundreds of onlookers lined the shores admiring “the good old nags.” The Gentlemen’s Driving Club soon would open its own track below the dam when the ice hardened up.

Spring was still months away. Ice in the spring sometimes had a malevolent face that few people liked to think about. It could become violent as it had in 1902 when big floes and logs pushed along by the swollen river had knocked out two important parts of the city’s infrastructure, the covered toll bridge and the nearby railroad bridge to Brewer. Of course, Penobscot River folk were hardly thinking about such possibilities so early in the winter. They were too busy sharpening their ice saws and their skates.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.