At times, the Old Hook Mill in East Hampton, Long Island, N.Y., resembles an old-time England oil painting. The wood-shingled building, with its skirt shape and massive lattice sails, sits on a grassy hill overlooking an old cemetery dating to the 1770s. A nearby road jogs in a hook shape, giving the mill its name.
Old Hook, constructed in 1806, is the only one of 11 Long Island mills—all built in the smock style, a name derived from its resemblance to a baker’s garment—that still operates, and then just once a year. It no longer grinds grain as it last did in the 1950s; even so, witnessing the windmill in action is a unique experience.
“You look outside and see the sails whooshing down past, the windshaft turning; it’s like it’s coming alive,” says Robert Hefner, author of The Windmills of Long Island. “The sails are not very fast, but they move very powerfully. There’s a real sense of energy.”
While Old Hook is the only wind-mill that’s still operational, it’s being repaired along with two of its East Hampton counterparts: the Pantigo and Gardiner mills, as well as the Beebe in Bridgehampton. The Pantigo, which dates back to 1804, has been fitted with new arms and windshaft, and is getting new windows, after being damaged in a nor’easter (a strong New England storm). The Gardiner, also constructed in 1804 and initially repaired in 1998, is getting replacement panes. A new floor will be built in Old Hook, and the Beebe, the last to be built on the island in 1820, has been overhauled completely.
“Taken together, these 11 Long Island windmills are the largest concentration of early 19th-century windmill technology,” Hefner says. “They tell the story of technology in the wooden age. Each is important; together, they’re more important.”
Windmills were among the earliest facilities to be built on the island, even before churches, according to Richard Barons, executive director of the East Hampton Historical Society. Those built in the 1650s were called post or spider-leg mills; they had awkward, long legs just like the arachnid. They didn’t last long because of their design. By 1795 they were replaced by the smock-style mills reminiscent of the ones still found in England. Because the mills were costly and complex, they were built by corporations of four to five people. The main builders in Long Island were Samuel Schellinger and Nathaniel Dominy V. They used locust wood when they could find it, and white oak as a substitute. The eldest surviving mill was built in 1795; it’s now in Watermill.
The mills quickly became the focal point of their communities. The local minister and magistrate could cut in line with their bags of grain and have it ground for free, says Barons.
Even during their heyday, the mills constantly needed repair, according to Hugh King, director of the Home Sweet Home museum in East Hampton. Yet there was incentive to keep the gears spinning: “The things benefit from use; there’s a danger of moisture build-up,” Barons says. “It’s good to keep them working.”
Most of the mills were idle by the mid-1800s, when grain was ground in factories. By the Victorian era, the mills had become romantic reminders of the “good ole days” as painted by popular artist Thomas Moran. Wealthy residents bought the mills and moved them to their estates. The Wainscott mill, built in 1813, was moved three times before it arrived in its final location on Montauk Point. The Hayground was moved twice and later used in a scene in a Mary Pickford silent movie. An 1810 mill, now part of a private residence on Shelter Island, was likely transported there by boat.
The challenge in restoring the mills is twofold: finding both suitable high-density, rot-resistant timber and a skilled carpenter to make the repairs. Long Island is lucky to have Richard Baxter, who enjoys working with antique adzes, planes, and hewing axes, although he’s not above using an electric drill. “I’m not a Luddite,” he says. After two years of searching, the Village of East Hampton was able to locate ipe, a South American hardwood, for the Pantigo. “It’s very difficult to work with, very dense, and dulls tools quickly,” Baxter says.
The village spent $200,000 to re-store the Gardiner and $56,000 on the Pantigo (another $250,000 was spent on Bridgehampton’s Beebe). The two East Hampton mills, built 16 years apart by Schellinger, are similar, though with some differences. The Pantigo represents the wood age technology at its zenith: It’s all wood. Unlike later mills, a capstan gear inside shifted the top into the air current. This mill is now located behind a museum dedicated to John Howard Pane, who wrote the song “Home Sweet Home.”
In contrast, the mill erected for Capt. Lester Beebe in 1820 exemplifies a wood structure built on the cusp of the Industrial Age: It has iron gears, unlike its peers. An exterior fantail on top turned the cap into the wind. It, too, was moved several times before ending up in its current location.
When Baxter was working on the Gardiner a decade ago, he said, “Every time I touched the timber, it struck me that in 1804 East Hampton was an isolated village; Beethoven was writing for Napoleon, who crowned himself emperor; and Lewis and Clark were just starting out after getting the go-ahead from Thomas Jefferson. It puts it all in connection—if you can get people to understand that instead of walking through a museum.”
Mary Beth Klatt is a freelance writer from Chicago.
Windmill Words
There’s an entire vocabulary associated with the old smock-style windmills of Long Island built in the late 1700s and early 1800s:
Windshaft: Attached to the inside main shaft, this central part of the mill held the sails.
Governor: An interior metal device that adjusted the distance between the millstones, controlling the fineness of the ground grain.
Tail pole: Often seen on the earlier mills, this long piece of wood stuck out of the back of the cap and allowed the miller to manually turn the cap into the wind.
Fantail: An apparatus with rotating blades, this machinery replaced the tail pole and automatically moved the cap.
Wallower: Also known as the brake wheel.—MBK