Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1908-11-13

year. 1t Is said he did very little
bookkeeping, however. because he dis
covered q young man with a fondness
for such work and who accepted $500
for doing It. Morse thereby achieved
his first real finance when he col
iected $500 year without doing the
work for it, All the while he was not
unmindful Of the industries about
him.
Since the United States became a
nation there have been built at Bath
nearly 5000 vessels The elder Morse
built several schooners incidental to
his towboat business. This did not
suggest life calling to the younger
man, however The ice cutting on
the Kennebec, however. did appeal to
the younger Morse The pioneer fee
cutter was named Cheesman, and
since the year that Charles w. Morse.
the future "ice king" was born he had
been taking profits from the river.
1t is interesting that the Kennebec
ice cutting industry and the ''ice king"
We're both born in 1856. Cheesman had
built the first icehouse and shipped
the product to New York city. His
prosperity had caused imitation by
many others, so that by the time Morse
was graduated from Bowdoin college,
in 1877, ON both sides of the Kennebec
from Thwings, where the salt tide
stops, for twenty miles up the river to
Hallowell We're icehouses.
1t is said that young Morse, who
was becoming seriously Interested in
the methods of the ice industry, had
once seen Cheesman display his hand,
which was garishly sparkling with dia-
monds, with the remark, "See the dia-
monds have found in Kennebec Ice"
Soon after leaving college Charles W.
Morse began studying this ice business
in all of its details. Under the sys-
tenn as he found 1t numerous farmers
bought or leased the land along the
river, which gave to them riparian
rights to the ice AUDITING their land
holdings and out to the middle of the
stream. They housed the ice and
awaited the coming Of brokers from
New York Under this system the ice
cutters were very much at the mercy
Of the buyers. A year after he was
out of college Morse procured an ice
privilege just above Thwing point and
housed q cutting. In the summer he
sold this to New York broker, but he
did better than his neighbors, because
he arranged with the broker that the
ice should be taken to New York in
one of the Morse schooners.
1t was about this time that he in.
terested his father in the ice business,
pointing out that the towboat monop-
oily and the owning of schooners should
be supplemented by the taking over of
the ice business. An ice dealer own
ing the towboat privilege and schoon-
ers could make the business unprofita-
BILE for other ice cutters, because the
towboat commission and the schooner
freight could be arranged to take all
the profit away for the farmer ice
producer. Obviously a vessel owner
could sell ice in New York more prof
itably than the producer who was at
the mercy of broker, towboat man and
vessel owner
Many of the Morse vessels were en-
gagged In carrying coal from Balti-
more and Newport News to Boston
and Portsmouth. Young Morse gets
the credit for pointing out to his
father that they should take up the
ice business, because these vessels. in
stead of going back empty, could be
/ loaded with ice for New York or
| Philadelphia. In 1881 the younger
| Morse is said to have made $4,000
| profit on a cargo of ice his father had
| shipped to New York, because he at
once reconsigned 1t to Florida and in.
vested the profit in southern pine.
Morse's progress for the next few
years then became steady fulfillment
Of farsighted plan. He bought ice
| privileges along the Kennebec as fast
rs his schemes furnished the capital
There was good deal of competitive
| battle. but again the towboats gave
him the advantage. His competitors
depending on sail, got into New York
two or three days after the Morse
schooners, which were hustled along
with towboats.
He had already begun to profit heav
| lily from his StrateSleS, WHICH ne cX
| ecuted with daring AS rapidly as his
business grew he patiently surmount
ed the difficulties that were presented
| When his control of the producing
field became large enough to justify
the next move Morse left his native
town and took up his residence II
Brooklyn. His ice business ha(
reached such large proportions tina
the next source of profit lay in thu
distribution of It in the city. 1t wa.
to attend to this feature, in order tina
no profits might escape, that Morse
removed to New York in 1888.
| The story of his last twenty years II
the metropolis is more general!
known. He had gone so far In thu
! great game Of checkmating his com
/ petitors that his Ice business took Of
tremendous proportions. His source
Of production grew beyond the Kenne
| bee and included the Penobscot ant
! the Hudson. By 1891 he had merget
twenty-five ice companies of New Yorl
{ city and had taken over the control o
the business in Philadelphia and Baltl