inside the Ice House

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This is the Koford Ice House - the verbal background given by Alice Koford (b.1900) was that her father came to Concord MA after serving in the Danish Army as an enlisted man (infantry if the photo she had of him with his rifle is any indication).  He hooked up with the Ex-Pat Scandinavian group in Concord via the one of the church groups.  He met his wife through this group.  She was from a very well to do but strict Norwegian family near Oslo who owned a rain coat factory - the impression was that she was considered a black sheep because she came to American when she was 18 and married a Dane - this was about 1870 or 1880.  Alice Koford was the youngest of their large family of about 7 or 8 kids.

Mr. Koford bought the 150 acre farm in Carlisle as part of an estate sale - it had been abandoned for a period of time prior to his working the site.  The farm house was supposedly built in 1689 if I remember correctly by a country doctor named Davis.  In the latter quarter of the 20'th century, the house still had a field stone foundation and dirt basement with an interior insulation of dried corn cobs.  Wide pine board flooring throughout and a 'modern' oil fire stove - converted from wood.

Alice grew up onsite - electricity was installed in 1918 - the year that she graduated from Concord-Carlisle High School (in her house, old style screw in fuses).  The street was paved in 1933 or there abouts.   Going to school during the winter was via horse drawn sleigh until 1918 when they had a school bus.  The students used to rush to the back all as one which un-weighted the front wheels of the bus - that didn't make them popular with the driver!  They used horse drawn rollers to pack down the snow instead of plows.  One of her favorite stories was of her father taking the wagon into Boston Friday night for the Market to sell his produce.  He always took a bottle of whiskey with him- and he finished it by the time he came home - the only time he touched alcohol.  It usually took him the entire weekend to make the trip there, sell on Saturday and come back.  The land was very cleared at that time - firewood was hard to come by and usually came from designated woodlots - one of which was up the street.  From a high hill it was very easy to see all the way into the general Boston area.

Next door, at what is now called Spencer Brook Farm were, the Hutchinson's were her direct neighbors while she was little until they moved to what is the Benfield property now and the Larsens move in (Inga McCrae is of this family - abutter to Benfield A town property).   The Hutchinson's were strict and frugal but fair - in Alice's opinion, the last of the old time Yankees.  The Hutchinson's and the Larsen's had a major hand in raising Alice - she was the youngest on a working farm and her parent's did not have much time.  The Hutchinson's had been in town 'forever' and they were older  (my impression - 60's or 70's ) which takes you back prior to the US Civil War.  Alice used to comment that it was hard for a young person to get ahead with people like them around - she would collect black berries and try to sell a basket on the side of the road by her house for a nickel and people would tell her "why should I pay you a nickel for something I can pick myself for free?" - in her words, people were tight then! 

The Ice House

She told us to stay out of the ice house because it was dangerous and there wasn't a way out - we took that pretty seriously as kids in the 1970's but ranged all over the land elsewhere.  If I remember correctly, part of us staying out was the profusion of poison ivy in the summer and the general lack of interesting features as a fort - the structure is about 7' feet deep and the exit is slow if you are having a pretend war.  The general shape is pie shaped with one side being concave - curved and arched over and the other two bulged out- pushing into the cavity of the structure but are relatively straight in a linear line.  In one corner is a large rock and about 2-3' above that is a jutting rock shelf step allowing entrance and exit without a ladder.  Currently there is a very distinctive smell in the Ice House - sort of funky, moldy smelling - disturbing.  I did not remember having ever been down inside it before but when I climbed in for the photos here, it all of a sudden felt very familiar in a deja-vu sort of way and I think the smell was the trigger - in that the same smell was there 30 years ago.  The structure is about 13' by 13' by 13' and 7 feet deep.  The stones are dry laid and do not appear to be worked with tools.  Also, it looks like a cut was dug into the side of the hillside, the structure was built and dirt was built up around it to force the entire structure to be below ground level.  It is also dry on the bottom - no water seeping out of the hillside.

Comments:  Nick Fohl - Christmas Day, 12/25/2005