Part 2

Turning now from the mechanical side of these old mills, as above, it is interesting to note the varied forms, uses and characteristics as found in the diverse parts of the world, and in the variety of races where and by whom these old home-made motors have been used.

Holland is usually taken as the home of the windmill, but that is so only in the greater proportionate number there in use than elsewhere. It is not true as regards origin nor the best development of them. It is a country notably flat, without water power, on the sea coast, and requiring great pumping equipment for draining, etc. This early resulted in the great number of windmills there found and associated with that little kingdom. It is said that in early days there were 10,000 of them. The greater number of them were used for lifting water to drain the “polders,” or meadows or lowlands, through the medium of a scoop wheel or Archimedes screw. Some of them can yet be seen and in use, with fat Dutch babies apparently ever on the edge of falling in the sluiceways, yet never doing so. Nearly all of these mills have been replaced by great steam-driven government pumping stations. For sawing wood, also, great numbers are yet used in the Zaandam district, where several hundred can be seen almost adjacent, a vista and forest of windmills. And in the heart of the chief cities one yet sees, here and there, an old-time brick tower mill, probably 200 years old--a family heritage, with its clean and trim curtained little Dutch windows, its individual name, as of a ship, such as “The Admiral” or “The Parrot,” over the door, and its old coat of arms and carvings and touches of color. For the Dutchman is fond of his substantial woodwork, and of his bits of color; and such finds expression in his mills, where carving like the stern of an old galley and color stripings of all the rainbow are both tucked in and flagrantly added.

The characteristic of the Dutch mill is, however, that of a thatch covering, both on sides and top, on the usual size common mill--something not found in any other country. It is said of them that there is also a code worked out--sort of a wigwag or semaphore system--so that by the position of the vanes as left when shutting down, the long-distance observer can read whether a carpenter is needed or a baby has been born, etc., etc. Certain it is that the mills make fine elevations for flag-flying on holiday occasions, for then the staunch colors of Holland will be found on the flagpoles atop the most of them. In noting the Dutch mills, one cannot overlook--nor wants to--the picturesque little “petmolens” or “jaskers”--diminutive post pumping mills, for small fields only--that, with long, slender vanes, seen through the haze or afar, almost suggest one of the old rocs from Sinbad the Sailor, caught in the act of alighting.

England, while numerically far inferior to Holland, is yet far in advance from the viewpoint of the fullest engineering development of this world’s motor, as may be gathered from what has been said above as to the automatic shutters, tail vanes, etc. The largest, the most varied and the most efficient are found there. Many fine examples of these mills can be seen, a few of which are still in operation. In the south of England there are plenty of old wood structures of all forms--of which the turret is perhaps the most locally characteristic. This is a huge, or at least large size, post mill, often for some fine estate, with the base enclosed with a circular low or one-story building, used for storage, so that the external effect suggests a turret. In central England a good number of the tall brick tower mills yet stand.

For picturesqueness, however, no country surpasses old France. There the mills are small; the huge, towering structure of the Dutch and English is unknown. But one can find many of great antiquity, great variety of form and of great charm. The type seems to be the true cylindrical tower--not tapering--with the cone top. In the racetrack at Longchamps, near Paris, is an instance, while on the golf course at St. Lunaire, overlooking the sea coast, on the Channel, as in innumerable other places in the northern part of France, these little sentries of the past can be found. Picturesque as they are, however, they are not yet as much so as even an older and cruder form suggesting an old blockhouse. For above the stone first story is an overhanging wood second story, as so well instanced at St. Briac. And in the Loire valley are the very unique hybrid mills with the folding boards vane arrangement, already referred to, which at Saumur date back to 1682, as doubtless do the others of that not-to-be-found-elsewhere form.

Of old post mills of the usual wood form France has plenty, of which the one on top of Montmartre, in the Moulin de la Galette grounds, is perhaps the most prominent. It is one of the two or three remaining that were part of a dozen or more that crowned that hill in the early days, as shown in several views of old Paris. What changes it has seen in its 600 years of accredited age! In its timbers are shot and balls of the revolutions of 1814 and 1871. Within are the old bells and bunks and shrines of the generations of millers who operated it, one of whom is said to have been killed and quartered and hung on the four arms of his own mill by the successful assailants. In the same premises is a dear little miniature mill, which, with diminutive stones of but 18 or 20 inches in diameter, was used for grinding spices, in place of the usual grain for bread.

In Belgium we find, in the main, the post and tower mills of Holland and the Netherlands; while in Germany, as well, the similarity to the Dutch mills is the only or chief characteristic. In Denmark and Sweden and in Iceland are the usual mills of this section, excepting that their octagonal, typical squatty grist mill nearly always has the Turk’s head top instead of the irregular shape of Holland and Germany. And so pronounced is that that in Lawrence, Kan., where a mill was erected in 1858, with a Swedish top, inquiry develops that it was by Swedish emigrants. Iceland can claim probably the most northern mill ever erected, for in Reykiavik, a little isolated town of about 3000 inhabitants, we find an old mill, probably the first and only motor in the early days in Iceland.

There is greater picturesqueness--but, as usual, accompanied with less efficiency--in the southern part of Europe, as, for instance, in Spain. Here, aside from the jib flying mills of the

Mediterranean, we find primitive construction, crude devices and even the clay water bottles, or jars, bound to a cumbrous wheel, slowly turning over by wind power, for lifting water for irrigation, similar to devices seen on the banks of the Nile--although there operated by oxen. And in Spain we tread the country where the ever immortal Don Quixote, despite the adjurations of the faithful Sancho Panzo, charged at full speed a flock of windmills on the plains of Montiel.

The crude structures of Greece and Turkey, already mentioned, are so crude that often no device is provided for turning to the wind, but, on the contrary, four mills are sometimes built in a field, facing, respectively, north, south, east and west; so that whichever way the wind comes some power can be secured. It is, however, more likely that prevailing winds are so constant from one quarter there is but little use for a turning device, resulting in its omission.

And so one can go the world over and find these old mills; to the Barbadoes, where they are still extensively used--and of English type--for crushing sugar cane; to Jamaica, where they once were, as shown by an old print of the earthquake of 1792, in which several mills are depicted bodily upside down almost, as would be a child’s toy; to Peru, where over 13,000 feet above sea level in the Potosi silver mining districts of past times--centuries past--old prints show mills of the manifest Spanish type operating stamps for crushing silver ore; to the St. Lawrence, where the early settlers, both French and English, left their imprint in the shape of old mills on several promontories and points; to southern Illinois, where the German emigrants of the

1820’s and ’30’s brought with them the mills of the Fatherland, etc. In all quarters of the globe the world’s chief motor for eight centuries can still be found.

And in closing this review of old windmills there is no instance to which reference should be made of quite as much interest as the old mill at Newport, known to every American antiquary and which, some two or three generations ago, was ingeniously ascribed to the Norse in the period of 1100 or thereabouts. This theory, while highly picturesque, was unfortunate chiefly in never having anything except surmise to back it up. Not a jot nor tittle of record or physical remains could be developed to substantiate it, and it has long since been practically dropped by most students of American history. And when the following, that has in recent years been developed, is borne in mind, there seems no vestige of reason left in the Norse theory. There is no question as to the following facts in relation to the Newport mill, and I speak with confidence, having in person surveyed and thoroughly investigated both it and its English prototype, as described:

In 1675 Governor Benedict Arnold (the grandfather of the traitor) was in charge of the then early colony of Rhode Island. Sixty years before he had been born in the Warwickshire section, England, in which the Peyto estate was perhaps the greatest and finest. On that estate there was completed the most elaborate windmill ever built. Inigo Jones, England’s great architect of that time, designed it, and it was unique in its open arch design, its finely chiselled stonework and unusual adornment. Young Arnold was a lad of 17 at that time, and the building of this beautiful and remarkable windmill, in 1632, was, with small

doubt, a marked episode in his life and knowledge. Forty odd years later, he, by the chance of fate, was the Governor of the Rhode Island Colony. With the destruction of a previous wood windmill of 1665, blown down in a great storm, it became his duty to provide another one for the use of the little colony. And there is small doubt, indeed, that in doing that he undertook to provide a mill that should be as nearly as possible a copy of the old mill at Chesterton, near Leamington--the best mill of which he knew. And so, without the measurements as to the general arrangement, size and design, from memory only, he there built, with the most limited facilities, a virtual replica of the Leamington-Peyto-Jones mill. In order to secure greater permanence and protection against Indian attacks the mill was built of stone instead of wood.

For, while of course the fine stone work and carving and detail are missing, in this colonial condition, the general dimensions, the design and the interior arrangements are in substance the same throughout. It needs only the comparison of the plans of the two--side by side--to be satisfied as to that. Governor Arnold’s birthplace and connection afford the reason of the similarity, and his will even speaks of “my stone built windmill.” This old structure, still standing--as to its walls--in Truro Park, Newport, R. I., is perhaps America’s greatest colonial relic, and with its prototype of Chesterton constitutes the most unique pair of windmills, having the greatest historic interest, of any attaching to our country’s windmill history.

NOTE:

[A] Presented at a meeting of the Mechanical and Engineering Section, held Thursday, March 14, 1918.