Knickerbocker Ice Company

Early history

When John J. Felter, John G. Perry, and Edward Felter started selling ice taken from the Hudson Lake and sold it in New York City, it became so profitable that the group created a company called Barmore, Felter, and Company. The success of this company prompted other ice businesses to come together in order to compete and these formed the Knickerbocker Ice Company. The Ice trade company, was founded in 1831 on the eastern bank of Rockland Lake in the hamlets of Congers and Valley Cottage in Rockland County, New York. It rapidly became a commercial success because it was the cleanest and purest ice of the Hudson River Valley region. Icehouses could be found along the Hudson River and on lakes from the Catskills to Albany making the Hudson River Valley the largest producer of ice in the area. Aware of the purity of the ice, numerous companies purchased land around Rockland Lake hoping to gain complete control of the lake.

In 1855, the Knickerbocker Ice Company was incorporated from the consolidation of the surrounding companies, which each brought valuable techniques to improve the harvesting of ice. When the gravity rail was built in 1856 and purchased its former rival, the Washington Ice Company, as a tow company in 1869 then purchased the entire company for the then astronomical sum of $1.1 million.

Facilities

During this time, the company owned dozens of steamboats, 75 ice barges, and employed 3,000 workers, which was economically important because the ice industry opened up more jobs for the hundreds and thousands of people who were looking to find work in the booming industries that resulted from the Industrial Revolution.

As the company grew and the demand for ice increased, the Knickerbocker Ice Company needed to build more icehouses to store its products and to fill them more efficiently. Before steam-powered conveyor belts, which were generally found in large icehouses, the company used ice cakes moved by either man or horse to fill the houses, which was extremely time consuming. By using conveyor belts, the workers simply had to load the ice onto the belts. New York City was the home of numerous hotels, businesses, and restaurants that consumed more ice than any other city in the United States. By 1882, the Knickerbocker Ice Company was the largest ice company supplying New York City and maintained storage facilities at West 43rd Street, West 20th Street, Bank Street, 432 Canal Street, Delancey street, East 33rd Street, 92nd street, and East 128th Street.