January was the month to fill the ice house in the days before the advent of manufactured ice and electric refrigeration. Then, prolonged periods of cold produced ice several inches thick, which was suitable for storing away for summer use.
The first colonists to these shores, accustomed to the cool temperatures of England, found the heat and humidity of Virginia summers almost unbearable. They were the first to attempt to carry winter ice over into summer. Archaeologists have found crude pits which they believe were used to store ice for use during at least part of the hot weather.
When the capitol was moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg in 1699 and the Governor's Palace was built, a method of storing ice was already in use. The restored ice house on the grounds of the palace today is an above-ground structure; a small brick house covered on three sides with earth to provide thick insulation. On the fourth side is a small door to give access to the contents.
The great Colonial plantations stored ice also but most used the opposite approach. A deep pit was dug, often in the woods where shade was constant, ice was packed in layers of insulating material and a heavy roof covered the contents. Vestiges of these ice houses may be seen today as deep depressions in the ground. Often new owners of old property have no idea that at such a spot once stood an ice house perhaps constructed more than two centuries ago.
The owner of an ice house also had an ice pond made by damming a fresh-water stream to flood a low-lying area. The water did not have to be deep. Ice from shallow water was easier to harvest than from a deeper pond; however, natural ponds and mill ponds were also used.
When ice was thick enough, men donned heavy coats and boots, got out the wagon, loaded it with straw or sawdust, hauled it to the site of the ice house and dumped it into the deep pit. Another load or two would be deposited at the door to be used between layers of ice as the building was filled. Then armed with axes and ice hooks (slender iron rods with a hook in one end made by a blacksmith), they went to the pond to cut huge three-foot blocks of ice, drag them to shore, load the wagon and haul them to the ice house where the ice was arranged between layers of insulation.
The ice house I remember was about 15 feet deep with a 4-foot well in the bottom for drainage. It was lined on all four sides with small vertical logs. The sides sloped outward so that it was wider at the top. The bottom was also covered with logs placed side by side with a second layer laid in the opposite direction. These kept the vertical logs in place and allowed water from the melting ice to drain into the center well.
This floor was covered with wheat straw, in my memory. Over it all was a slab roof that almost touched the ground. A door in front opened to the dark interior. We kept a ladder there for use as the level decreased. I knew the interior well because it was often my job to go for ice at meal time. It often took two or three freezes to fill the house.
John Segar of Wood Farm on the Piankatank River recalls the ice house there when he was a boy.
''It was in the orchard. We had one down in the woods at one time, I'm told, but my father built the one I knew closer to the house.
''We used sawdust to pack it in most times. It kept better, we thought. It took 15 or 20 loads of ice to fill it if the ice was thick,'' he says.
''Our ice house was about 15 feet deep, I think. It had a double roof for better insulation. Ice would last us all summer most years. I went down in it twice a day when it was hot. We always had plenty of company when my mother was living and it took a lot of ice. Time you washed off the sawdust and it was fit to use, a lot had melted; it didn't go far.'' He laughed remembering practices never known by most people living today.
The main purpose of the ice in the ice house was not refrigeration though people liked to put watermelons there to cool. It was to provide cool drinks in hot weather and to make possible the crowning joy of summer - home made ice cream.
While the custard was being prepared in the kitchen, someone would bring a burlap bag of ice from the ice house and crush it into small pieces. As soon as the custard was poured into the two-gallon cylinder, and it was put into place inside the wooden freezer, ice and coarse salt were poured around it. A top fitted over the custard container with a long handle which turned cogs causing the cylinder to rotate in the icy brine. The custard also was stirred by paddles inside to make freezing even.
Turning the handle was tiring work for one person but freezing ice cream was usually a social occasion attempted by willing workers who anticipated a big dish of the delectable dessert at the end of their labors.
The ice house did not solve the need for refrigeration and its passing is not regretted but at one time it was a colorful part of rural life.