Gateway Essay: Colonial America and Medieval Technology

IV. Mills and Forges: Problems and Solutions

Whether in the highlands of Europe or North America there was a common problem: the transportation of bulky goods over rough terrain. The solution was the same in both: river transport. The location of Pittsburgh at the confluence of three rivers is testimony to water as the economic lifeblood of colonial society much as the river Shannon is the artery for society in rolling lands of western Ireland.

The use of mills and forges reveals the structure of colonial society. These crucial industries needed to be near to sources of raw materials. To make even greater profits, they were located near to their customers. One of the most profitable customers was the military, so many mills or forges are near forts. The importance of forts/military bases for technology began with the Romans, whose fortifications marked the bounds of their empire. To take one example: alongside Hadrian's Wall, in northern England, were the garrisons for the Roman troops. In addition to the living quarters were bake houses, smithies, infirmaries, and miscellaneous offices. The flour for the ovens, and the different lengths and qualities of metals for the smithy, came from a mile or so south of the garrisons, from the towns that serviced the military bases. Northwest of the modern town of Hexham, England, are the remains of the village Vindolanda that supplied the fort at Housesteads two miles farther north.

The Middle Ages imitated the Roman use of fortifications in defensive structures such as Newcastle upon Tyne, built by the Normans and now completely submerged under the settlement that existed originally to serve it. In the eleventh century, Domesday Book, the tax survey of England and Wales, shows the importance of a fort. A note mentions that there had not been a town at Rhuddlan, in Wales, until the building there of a castle. This was a direct parallel with the situation in colonial America, where the building of fortifications was part of the settlement of a region. In central Pennsylvania, the crossroads known as Old Fort is testimony to the need to protect the village of Spring Mills, a few miles to the east. The great colonial port of Baltimore had the protection of Fort McHenry, which it supplied with flour and iron.

The analogy with the Romans is closer than the chronology suggests. Under Roman law, members of the senate could practice only one occupation: farming. This was continued through the Middle Ages. Kings rewarded their barons with land, not business, and the landowners were the important individuals of society. As late as the nineteenth century, the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had to go into debt to buy land so that he could accept elevation to the House of Lords. Colonial elites prided themselves on their classical parallels as well as their classical education. That included immediate familiarity with authors such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus, whose father-in-law Agricola was Legionary commander in Britain. Not only did these men have estates, but also their military activities were, to some degree, directed by Rome's need for fertile land. In Rome as in colonial America was the belief that to be a farmer was to be virtuous. The city of Cincinnati in Ohio honors the Roman general Cincinnatus, who left his plow to lead the Romans to victory and then refused further honors to return to his farm; George Washington was the American Cincinnatus.

One of the many curiosities of history is the way discarded technologies can acquire a new "lease on life." Take, for example, the windmill. Two developments made them obsolete. The first occurred by the eighteen century, when the more potent water-powered mills largely replaced the wind-powered mills in America. The second development took place in the nineteenth century, when steam power replaced both water and wind power. There have been, however, two revivals of the windmill, both using medieval designs. The first revival occurred in the nineteenth century, when settlers on the American prairie needed to find a way to pump water. Daniel Halladay discovered the answer in 1854 with his watermill that used the design of the Dutch windmill. The main design change was the substitution of wooden sails for cloth, due to the height of the apparatus and the constant movement of the air. The second revival is one currently at the center of debate on the generation of electricity. The movement of the wind turns a dynamo that produces electricity. The question at the heart of the debate is if the amount of power produced justifies the expense of the windmill.