Larry Shurter, his father Jesse, his uncle John Traver, Irving Bell and Lester Vankleeck were some of the last people to cut ice. In the dead of the winter months, when the local waters froze to a depth of ten to twenty-four inches, the guys would head out of Samsonville to cut, harvest and deliver blocks of ice.
By the 1930's engines had taken most of the work away from oxen and horses. Larry and Jesse had a Model B Ford truck and a 1930 Dodge flat bottom. They'd load their T-20 International Crawler on the flat bottom to transport it to the ponds. The Crawler had tracks instead of wheels, giving it better traction in the ice and snow.
In these last years of cutting ice, some of the old timers and people who didn‚t have the means to do anything else were still using hand saws to cut ice. Others had gone to various homemade engine saws, but details have faded.
Larry remembers the details. The engine was taken out of an old Whippet or Star automobile. Both of these cars were saved as parts vehicles because their engines came apart from their transmissions, unlike the Model T Fords that had one caste for both. A wooden frame held the engine and saw. It was supported by wooden runners - like sleigh runners. George Vankleeck, the Samsonville blacksmith, made the braces and other forged odds and ends. With the motor sitting sideways of the "sleigh", the back of the motor was to the left with a pulley attached. That back pulley was lined up with another pulley four or five feet in front of it. The front pulley was attached to a shaft lined up parallel to the engine with a 30" crosscut saw at the other end. A Morris chain ran between the pulleys. The men stood in back of the sideways motor and held onto a wooden bar that came up waist high. The saw rotated clockwise, throwing the ice chips forward - away from the men - while it pushed the men backwards. This allowed the man on the right to sight the score on the ice. One man could run the saw, but it was easier with two.
They'd begin by cutting a channel out into the pond and then starting from the end of the channel, lines would be scored on top of the ice with a Marker. Their Ice Marker was an adjustable iron frame - like a picture frame - that was pushed along the ice by an attached V shaped plow handle that came up waist high. One side had teeth that dug into the ice, scoring the top. At the end of the run, it would be turned around so the non-scoring side rode in the last score, making the scores uniform. When the parallel scoring was finished, they'd turn horizontal, completing a crisscross pattern.
Leaving one end of a wooden chute on the back of a truck, the other end was slid out to the channel. The depth of the ice determined the weight of the blocks and weight determined how many blocks would be pulled up the chute at one time. The last block in the line was secured with two hooks attached to a chain on the hitch of the T-20 Crawler. The blocks were pulled through the channel, up the chute and onto the back of the truck. A man would be there with ice tongs to slide and lift the blocks into place.  Once the channel ice was cleared, the men would use a pike pole to push the blocks that were being cut out in the pond, into the channel for loading. A pike pole was a long wooden pole with a head of forged steel that came to a sharp pointed tip sided with a crescent shaped spur. 
           They'd deliver to the icehouses of Salvucci's restaurant (a local landmark in West Hurley on Route 28), the two Colange brothers, Willie's Store in West Shokan and Leonard's in Boiceville (currently the Creekside Restaurant) and Will Quick's General store (across from the Tongore cemetery in Olivebridge). The blocks of ice were lifted and slid into the houses with ice tongs and plenty of muscle. Snow was packed between each layer of blocks to keep them from freezing together and against the side walls for more insulation.
           As they had the time, they'd cut ice off the Shurter mill pond to fill their own icehouse in Samsonville, but for selling they'd cut on two popular ponds: Temple's Pond on Route 28 and the Weir Pond, 'under' the Ashokan Reservoir. Both of these names are extinct today.
Temple's Pond became part of the Pitcairn property and borders the Town of Olive going towards Kingston. Old Route 28 went down around part of the man-made dam at the base of the pond that had been a swamp. Temple‚s Pond is the largest body of water in the Town of Olive, other than the Reservoir, and a lot of people cut their ice from it. It was renamed Kenozia Lake, fifty to sixty years ago by a business association of Kingston bigwigs, that later let locals like Chet Lyons and Don Dubois join their private club. 
The Dubois family had a boarding house on Dubois Road in Ashokan and Don's father and grandfather, harvested ice from Temple's Pond for their boarding house. Don‚s wife, Betsy (Boyce) also remembers her father cutting ice from the pond for their boarding house in Glenford.
The beautiful and secluded Weir Pond can be seen by looking southeast over the side of the main dam of the Reservoir, or the "lemon squeeze", as people call it now. It was originally part of the Esopus Creek before the land upstream was damned. The dirt roadway leading to the pond is off of Route 28A, on the right, just after the pipeline, heading towards Olivebridge.
Mimi McGloughin's father, Alonso and her grandfather, Lester B. Davis also cut ice on the Weir Pond for their own use and to sell to Will Quick. Although electricity was available in parts of Olivebridge as early as 1924, Mimi remembers families continuing to use iceboxes. Most of the barns and outbuildings from their dairy farm can still be seen on Route 213 in Olivebridge. The icehouse is gone, but the building that they used to chill the milk with ice before they trucked it to Babcock and Boice Dairies in Kingston is being maintained.
In Olivebridge, two stores, Hover's (the current post office) and Quick's sold ice. Will Quick had a big icehouse and even though both were general stores, Will‚s warm pot belly stove with men sittin'round drinking beer, smoke curling in layers, and big tins of cookies you could buy just one out of, brings more memories to life. Until fairly recently, you could see the old gas pump and to many of us it served as a fond memory cue (not an eyesore).      
In Shokan, at Winchell's Corner, Winchell's General Store (Winchell's Pizza) had a large icehouse it filled for their customers. They probably bought ice from one of the large distributors on the Hudson River or from one on the Rondout (almost under the Eddyville Bridge) or the one in Springlake.
In Ashokan, behind the Methodist Church, the Lasher Brook was dammed creating a pond approximately a quarter to half acre in size. The Lasher family owned the pond and all the neighbors would ice skate there before it was filled in by subsequent owners. Mr Lasher was a butcher, so to keep the meat cold, they‚d cut ice and store it in their sizable icehouse next to the pond.  A conveyor brought blocks of ice the short distance up and into the building.
Bailey‚s Pond was another manmade pond that no longer exists. It was in the southern corner of Beechford Farm (Beechford subdivision) in Boiceville. Before the fast moving waters of the Esopus froze to a good depth, people would cut ice and skate on Bailey's.
Behind Leonard Colange's General Store in Boiceville was a manmade pond that he used for cutting ice. It was another favorite ice skating spot and a discerning eye can make out the original size and square shape of this disappearing pond.
Ice was also harvested from the New York City Ashokan Reservoir. The 1905 Watershed Act of New York State, Section 38, grants people the right to fish and cut ice. Snatches of memories reveal that clusters of neighbors living close to coves on the shores of the Reservoir would cut ice in their local spot.
In West Shokan there were at least four locations; the cove off of Wiedner's Point, Ice House Cove (down from the twin bridges over the Bushkill Stream), across 28A from Watson Hollow Road, and across from Skin Davis‚s Store.
Betty Cady remembers her father, Arthur Snyder and some of his friends and family driving their truck through Reservoir property to Weidner's Point (across from Weidner‚s chicken farm) to harvest ice. With a chuckle, Betty said she doesn't know how they cut the ice because her mother wouldn't let her go with them. They‚d cut and sell to Willie Colange and for their own boarding house, the Traver Hollow Inn, that is now Snyder‚s Tavern. Even though electric lines had been put up on Route 28A through West Shokan beginning in 1927, many families could not afford to wire their homes until well into the 1930's. Some houses had electric only in a few rooms. Having electric didn't mean a family could also afford an electric icebox. The first electric iceboxes were basically the same wooden icebox with an electric motor built to fit on top. Art Synder hired a guy from the City to wire the Inn in 1932, but they still cut ice for a few more years to use for certain things like making ice cream every Sunday afternoon.
Bob Burgher also remembers his family continuing to use ice after the electric was installed ˆ particularly for making Sunday ice cream. His family had a boarding house on Burgher Road in West Shokan and Jim Burgher had one across the road a bit. Jim had an icehouse that both Burgher families would fill and use. Bob's family cut their ice off the reservoir across Route 28A from Watson Hollow Road. The access road is still being used. They had made an ice cutting saw with a motor on a sleigh that they used to cut the ice and a large scoring apparatus that was pulled by a horse and scored multiple lines in one pass. Bob says he remembers his family talking about who had the "better ice" and speculates that they meant ice that was the hardest - most frozen. The icehouse that was more insulated and better packed kept the blocks of ice more solid, therefore lasting longer, once a family got it in their icebox.
Frank Carle says he heard repeatedly that the "best ice" was across from Skin Davis' store, but no one remembers just what the "best ice" or "better ice" means. Skin sold blocks out of his icehouse behind the store. Maybe the best ice meant Skin would write down the price of a hunk of ice in his well-known credit book.
In 1931, Alberta (Gordon)Corwin worked with Skin Davis at Colange‚s store when she was in high school. Skin was a few years away from beginning his own store down the road. Alberta lived at the top of the hill on McMillan Road in Broadhead. The Brodhead post office was on the corner of Route 28A and Turner Road. The postmaster sold candy, but the nearest general store, hence the nearest place to buy ice was Willie Colanges in West Shokan.
Alberta's father, Virgil Gordon, became foreman at the Reservoir right around this time. Reservoir workers and their families lived in the numerous buildings at the intersection of Route 28A and Beaverkill Road. The Gordon family lived in the last house on the right before going up the hill to what used to be the Town of Olive dump. The icehouse that supplied the families and the laboratory with ice was next to the Gordon house. The buildings had electric generated by water from the Reservoir, but no one had electric iceboxes. Alberta and her brother Bob, remember their father and other NYC Reservoir employees going to cut ice on the corner of Route 28A and the Main Dam Road on the upper Reservoir. The road they used is still maintained. They also cut ice on the Weir Pond with the rest of the community.
Not every ice harvesting operation involved a lot of people and equipment. Gordon Miller, who was quite likely the last man to cut ice in the Town of Olive, delivered blocks out of the trunk of his car.
 But mostly it was a joint effort. The last years of ice cutting in the 1930's marked a time of overlapping era‚s. People using oxen and horses with wagons and hand tools were working with people driving trucks and tractors and using motorized equipment. Now and then some young men would drive their cars out on the ice and do spins to impress the young ladies.(I wonder who and am only rewarded with tightlipped smiles and sparkling eyes.) Extended families and neighbors came together to help one another in the back aching, muscle bulging necessity of harvesting ice for the warm months ahead. It was hard work and often cold, and sometimes dangerous if a person wasn't paying attention. But, it was a part of winter life and the adults made the best of it, while the children skated and played games and dreamed of warm Sunday afternoons making and eating ice-cream.