Richard CanfieldPodcast Host and IBC Advisor, Ascendant Financial · Authorized Infinite Banking Practitioner | Author of 4 Books

Frederic Tudor turned down a FREE Harvard Education

11 Aug 2024 · 1 min

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Frederic Tudor turned down free Harvard to harvest pond ice in Massachusetts and ship it to Cuba, the Caribbean, and Calcutta. He went bankrupt early on but kept going, eventually becoming an ice millionaire by the 1820s, moving roughly 180 tons of ice across 16,000 miles.

Questions this video answers

Very early in the 19th century (narrator: “This is like 1810”).

Cutting blocks of ice from ponds in western Massachusetts and shipping them to Caribbean markets (e.g., Cuba) to sell.

He had become an "ice millionaire" (narrator states this occurred by the 1820s).

About 180 tons of ice shipped ~16,000 miles to Calcutta, India.

No — the narrator says he "failed miserably, went bankrupt" before later succeeding.

Chapters

Very early in the 19th century, his father offered Frederick Tudor a free Harvard education. Frederick turned it down because he came up with this idea. This is like 1810. He came up with this idea that people in the Caribbean have never experienced ice. And so he thought, I can cut blocks of ice out of ponds in western Massachusetts and put them on boats and take them down to Cuba and other Caribbean countries and sell it and become very rich at giving people ice in hot places. Well, he tried that. He failed miserably, went bankrupt. But he never gave up. And before long, by. By the 1820s, he had become an ice millionaire. He figured out how to take, like, 180 tons of ice on a ship carved out of ponds in western Massachusetts and shipped them 16,000 miles away to Calcutta, India, and still have enough of it left when it arrived that it could be sold at a profit.