Gardiners Island Windmill

Gardiners Island Windmill is a historic windmill on Gardiners Island in East Hampton, New York. The mill was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.^[2]

Gardiners Island Windmill
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
1978 Historic American Engineering Record photograph of the windmill from the south.
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Location	East Hampton, New York, USA
Coordinates	41°5′28″N 72°6′40″W
Built	1795
Architect	Dominy Family
MPS	Long Island Wind and Tide Mills TR
NRHP reference No.	78001912[1]
Added to NRHP	December 27, 1978

History

The windmill, by Nathaniel Dominy V, was raised on 23 May 1795 on the "Mill lot" within 50 feet of the old "Petticoat mill" (1771). The 'Petticoat' was dilapidated after the Revolutionary war and need replacement. It was painted white, like the nearby wharf, to aid sailor's navigation. For the next 20 years John Lyon Gardiner (1770-1816) made no notation in his farm book about the mill, then there was a storm and collapse in 1815 and he required new timbers.^[3] The dock also blew away in the storm.^[4]

Gardiners Island from Springs, New York showing the windmill (r) and family home (upper left)

Repairs

Dominy V and his workers came and restored the mill to working order from October to February 1816. Indications are the 1816 version was different inside than when newly built in 1795. This had to do with V's evolving use of different technology than when apprenticing for IV and the inside was more like contemporary windmills on Rhode Is. and Cape Cod. Nathaniel Dominy V did more repairs in 1826 and worked for 6 days on Gardiner's Island in 1833, where he installed a new windshaft, stocks and points in the mill.

19th century

An 1885 article on Gardiner's Island appeared in The Century magazine which mentioned "the windmill that supplies flour for the whole population.", meaning Gardiner's Island, indicating it was still in operation.^[5] The last known record of the operation of the windmill was an entry in Jonathan Thompson Gardiner's account book in 1889, which credited John B. Lawrence with "making Mill Sails".^[6]

See also

• Shelter Island Windmill
• John Lyon Gardiner Mill Cottage
• List of windmills in New York

References

1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
2. Historic American Engineering Record. Gardiner's Island Windmill NY-125 Archived 2022-06-15 at the Wayback Machine
3. https://archive.org/stream/earlymemoriesofg00gard/earlymemoriesofg00gard_djvu.txt pg.11
4. Raymond W. Smith (September 1978). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Gardiners Island Windmill". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Archived from the original on 2012-10-09. Retrieved 2010-02-20. See also: "Accompanying photo". Archived from the original on 2012-10-09. Retrieved 2010-03-03.
5. Lathrup, George Parsons, "An American Lordship," The Century, December 1885, p. 217,218.
6. Receipt, John 3. Lawrence to Jonathan Thompson Gardiner, 4 May 1889? manuscript, private collection

External links

Media related to Gardiners Island Windmill at Wikimedia Commons

• Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) No. NY-125, "Gardiner's Island Windmill, Gardiner's Island, Suffolk County, NY", 16 photos, 5 measured drawings, 31 data pages, 1 photo caption page