Emma Grahn writes:
Early cold storage systems in America were located not in kitchens, but underground. A seven-foot pit found at Jamestown is believed to be modeled after an English-style ice pit. There may have been a hut built over the pit to trap cold air and help preserve perishable items like meat, packed in ice and straw for insulation. A more elaborate icehouse was found at the former site of the President's House in Philadelphia . The octagon-shaped pit, built in the 1780s, has a stone lining to reduce heat loss, and it would have contained ice brought from a nearby body of water. Not far from this museum in Alexandria, Virginia, an ice well from around 1793 has recently been restored.
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