Building Community: Windmills and Geography

Geography, Landscape, and Mills

Introduction | Watermills | Windmills | Resources | Activities

The other type of mill used to grind grain, as well as for other industrial uses (although less commonly), was the windmill. Windmills originated in the near east in the later first millennium C.E. (sometimes 9^th century Asia Minor – modern day Turkey – is mentioned, but we don’t know for sure), but by the later 12^th century, they had spread or had been independently (re)invented in England and the low countries (Holland and the Netherlands).

Windmills tend to be smaller than watermills in terms of power output and they also tend to take up less space on the ground. For one thing, the windmill does not need to be next to a river, nor does it need the millrace running from upstream to power the wheels. On the other hand, the windmill needs to be placed in a windy location, either on top of a hill or near the coastline where winds are unobstructed and relatively constant. But as the building of a windmill is rarely larger than a small house, they could also be found in urban settings, especially where the town was on a hill (as in some of the Quebec and Upper Canada [Ontario] windmills form the 18^th and 19^th centuries) or was a costal port town (both New York and Newport, RI had windmills right in the town in the 17^th century).

Locations

Since windmills tended to be placed either on exposed hills or near the seashore, locating them in the colonial context can be easy, although as you might expect, there were few windmills inland or in heavily forested areas where wind was not constant. In addition, although one of the best places to put a windmill would be on top of a tall hill or ridgeline (often the site of wind farms for electrical power generation today), this is a very inconvenient place for the farmers to bring their grain which was generally grown in the valleys. Consequently, if you are considering locating the historic site of a windmill, costal regions remain your best bet.

Many of the same exercises from the watermill section can be extended to windmills, although often determining whether a place with “mill” in its name was for a windmill or watermill can be difficult. If there was a river present, it was likely a watermill, but if on a hill, then a windmill was likely.

Cultural traditions

The functioning of technologies are not always immediately apparent to an observer, and the skills in building, maintaining, and running any large machine are skills that need nurturing and generational support. Hence, windmills tended to be strongly regional and even national in character. The Dutch are to this day identified with windmills, as are the Greek Islands.

Explore some of the areas that are known to have been windmill intensive, such as Long Island in NY, Acquidnick Island in RI, and Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard in MA. What nationality of settlers settled in these places? See for example, the use of mills in Colonial Cities.

Introduction | Watermills | Windmills | Resources | Activities

Some Resources:

Books

Robert J. Hefner, Windmills of Long Island (1983).
Richard Holt, The Mills of Medieval England (1988).
John Langdon, Mills in the Medieval Economy: England 1300-1540 (2004).
Daniel Lombardo, Windmills of New England : their genius, madness, history & future (2003).

Internet sites