Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-11-12

the younger Morse. The pioneer leo cutter was named cheesman, and since the year that Charles W. MoryA the future "ice king" was born he had been taking profits from the river.
 It Is interesting that the Kennebec leo cutting industry and the 'ice king" were both born in 1856. Checsman had built tho first icehouse and shipped the product to New York city. His prosperity had caused imitation by many others, so that by the time Morss was graduated from Bowdoin college, in 1877, on both slices of the Kennebsc from Thwings. where the salt tide stops, for twenty miles np tho river to Hallowell were icchouses.
 It 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 I have found in Kennebec ice"
 Soon after leaving college Charles w. Morse began studying this ice business in all of It's 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 abutting 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 a 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 tho Morse schooners.
 It was about this time that he in- terested his father in the ice business, pointing out that the towboat monop- oly 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- CTS could make the business unprofta- ble 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 $50,000 profit on 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 as hts 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- fly from his strategies, which he ex- 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 in Brooklyn. His ice business had reached such large proportions that the next source of profit lay in the distribution of it in the city. It was to attend to this feature, in order that no profits might escape. that Morse removed to New York in 1888.
 The story of his last twenty years in the metropolis is more generally known He had gone so far in the great game of checkmating his com petitors that his ice business took on tremendous proportions. His sources of production grew beyond the Kenne- bee and included the Penobscot and the Hudson. By 1891 he had merged twenty-two ice companies of New York city and lad taken over the control of the business in Philadelphia and Baltl- more. He next turned his attention to the consumption of ice and reaped maledictions from the public when he checkmated the consumers. Ice deliv- cred in New York city cost his Aneri- can Ice company about $1 ton, and they had sold it at $6 a ton. Having effected a corner of the supply, the company marked up the price of ice 100 per cent.
 Then Morse got into the whirl of the Wall street game, and he began "cut- ting ice" in another way. Ice stock was pooled and advanced to the top, sold out and bought at the bottom. And there followed the organization of the Morse chain of banks, which start ed in 1895 by the control of the Gar