Ice Pond & House - Rogues' Hollow v1.8 Traditional Cache

Available year round, dawn to dusk ONLY. Night caching is not permitted. Please park in the designated areas only. Please don't turf Mac's lawn!

This cache is located within the Rogues' Hollow Historical Park and Chippewa Nature Preserve with permission from Rogues' Hollow Historical Society. The Chidester Mill houses a small museum which is open Sundays from 2pm - 4pm during the summer. While visiting you may see the caretaker for this beautiful area. His name is Mac. He is fortunate enough to live in the residence at the Chidester woolen mill. Mac is very knowledgeable about this area so feel free to ask him any questions and thank him if you see him. At his discretion, Mac may open the museum and/or allow caching after dusk. The amount of work that he does is amazing! For those that are inclined Mac has given permission for CCW. In some areas of the preserve you may see "No Trespassing" signs. These signs are not directed toward geocachers as geocachers have permission to look for caches and explore the property. (These signs are to deter kids from hanging out and drinking beer.)

At this cache location you will be by the mill race and in the mill/ice pond. Water was diverted from Silver Creek by way of the dam. The head gate allowed water to flow through this mill race. You can see where water once traveled in a southerly direction. This mill pond to the east of the mill race would be a reservoir where water would be held.

In the winter this pond would turn into an ice pond. Local children would ice skate here although never on Sunday. Sunday was the day the devout Chidester family observed the Sabbath.  As evidence of this every morning before work began at the mill a prayer was said. Grace was said at each meal as members of the family and employees gathered around the table.

In 1894 Albert Chidester, Samuel Chidester’s son, built an ice house just south of the Ice Pond. Today, although most of it is covered, part of the foundation remains. When the ice was five or six inches thick it would be harvested by sawing it into pieces and storing it in the ice house. After winter ended sawdust would be used to insulate the ice.

In the summer months Chidester would make ice cream in the converted woolen mill. He now used the water power to turn a large ice cream freezer which was packed with ice from the ice house, using salt from the Wadsworth Salt Company in the freezing and packing of the ice cream. Inside the freezer would be the chunks of ice harvested from the ice pond the previous winter.

Most of the information for this cache series has been derived from the book Rogues' Hollow - History and Legends by Russell Frey. I have read this book many times as the stories of the Hollow are fascinating to me. Originally published in 1958 this book was more recently reprinted in 2002. For further information please contact the Chippewa - Rogues' Hollow Historical Society. http://www.rogueshollow.org

A special "Thank you" to the Rogues' Hollow Historical Society for allowing us to hide these caches and to the caretaker, Mac for his helpfulness.