Little Echo

Little Echo. An Ice Pond. , The Willis E. Blount Ice Company was created circa 1918 on Little Echo to provide ice for the Warren-based Blount Oyster Company. The pond, a flooded claypit, had been used for ice harvesting since the late 1800s. Willis' sons, Luther and Francis "Nelson," assisted with the family business. As a teenager in the 1930s, Nelson helped haul ice to Warren, where it was packed onto railroad cars to keep oysters chilled during transport., During the cold winter months when ice was at least six inches thick, workers used long saws to cut the frozen water into thick rectangular blocks. With sharp poles, they pushed and guided the floating ice blocks to a conveyor belt at the edge of the water. From there, the ice was pulled up the belt and into the ice house (formerly on the pond's west bank) for storage, where it was stacked in layers of sawdust to prevent melting. Depending on the weather, ice could remain frozen throughout the summer., To receive an ice delivery, residents would play a 12-inch by 12-inch card in a window that could be viewed from the street. The card had a number, 25, 50, 75 or 100, on each side and was positioned with the number of pounds needed at the top. The ice man would deposit the requested amount into the residents' ice boxes. Ice delivery ended when electricity and refrigerators became common in the 1930s and 1940s. The Blounts sold the ice house and surrounding property in 1944; the house deteriorated and ultimately was destroyed by fire in 1955. A private residence now stands on the ice house site., The Lombardi Family bought the property in 1971. In 2005, they donated almost 3.4 acres of land to the Barrington Land Conservation Trust, including the pond and the bordering wooded overlook. This area is now called Lombardi Park., [Captions:] , Ice delivery trucks line up at the Willis E. Blount Ice Company., Workers push ice toward a conveyor belt that pulled the cut blocks into the ice house on Little Echo. January 1932.,

"I'd be up and at the plant by 3:30 a.m., loading ice on our trailer. I'd unload it on the Cape, be back at Barrington for a second Cape rip at 9, and then make 2 trips to Boston to pick up ice that we bought from another supplier." , , Nelson Blount, describing his work delivering ice as a young man. , From Blount, "The Character of a Company: The History of Blount Seafood Corporation," 2002.

, The Blounts (Luther, Willis, Nelson, and Willis' wife, Ruth) pose in front of their newly rebuilt ice house. Photo circa 1929.