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