While the antiquity of windmills is traced by some back to the Romans there is really nothing very definitely known of their existence before the period of the Crusaders. They were said to have been brought into central Europe in that period from the Far East; though this is open to question. Practically their origin is lost in antiquity, and we only know that they appear in the earliest records as existent in some form or other.
But by 1200 they were well established. The first English windmill is of 1191. There are numerous records of them in the thirteenth century. There is a brass tablet of 1349 at Lynn church, with a windmill graven on it. In old stained glass of the early churches windmills are shown in some of the landscapes; as at Great Greenford and Fairfield. In a view, “London in the time of the Tudors” (1560), windmills are seen; and Great Windmill Street commemorates to this day the location of one in the past in that city. Elsewhere it was the same. Rembrandt, of the early part of the seventeenth century, shows such mills in some of his pictures; and in the early prints and views of France, Germany and other countries is abundant evidence of the use of these old, useful machines, in various forms, places and ways.
What was standard in the old world was naturally brought into the new, and so we find in America, concurrent with the colonies and settlements of the early days, the introduction and use of windmills. The Dutch in New Amsterdam, in 1625 and later; the Swedes on the Delaware, in 1643; the English in Rhode Island, in 1665 and 1675, and Boston, in 1660; and on the Carolina coast—all had their mills, as shown by early records, maps and views. And these mills were logically the types used by the respective settlers, according to the district from which they had come. For instance, the old mill in Somerville, Mass., built in 1710 by Jean Mallet, a French Huguenot, is of the pure French type; as were those near Detroit, by the followers of the fortunes of Cadillac; while those in Talbot, Kent and Dorset counties, Maryland, reflected the clear English design of the old country. The same applies to the numerous ones erected in the colonial days of 1725 to 1775, in Easthampton, Bridgehampton, etc., on Long Island; at various points on Cape Cod; at Nantucket (1746); in numerous instances on Newport Island, Rhode Island, etc. A notable one of this type and period was that on Windmill Island in the Delaware River, shown in an old view, “An east prospect of the City of Philadelphia,” 1746. All these reflected the English design of the emigrant settlers, bringing with them and promptly setting up and using the motors or machinery of the mother country.
There are two forms into which these old mills can be grouped, viz., vertical and horizontal. By that is meant the relative position of the wheel and shaft. The vertical is that form in which the wheel is vertical, mounted on a shaft which is horizontal or nearly so. This is the form almost universal, for while various instances of the other have been tried, scarcely one in a thousand has been used compared with the vertical type. The reason for this is that in the vertical form of wheel, its face directly confronting the wind, all vanes are acted upon at once, and there is not only the greatest resulting power, but the greatest simplicity of construction and of operation and handling. The horizontal wheel, on the other hand, occupying a horizontal zone and attached to a shaft that is vertical, like the usual small water turbine, in position (but not in the fluid impact) receives the wind impact upon only some of the vanes at a time—not the whole circumference—with less proportional power and greater complexity of construction. So secondary has been the use of this style of windmill that consideration of it is negligible.
From the design standpoint, windmills involve four essential component parts:
(a) A tower, or means of support for the moving wheel and mechanism.
(b) A revolving wheel that receives the impact of the wind, converting it into power.
(c) Some means of turning the wheel, to follow the shifting of the wind; and,
(d) The driven machinery.
(A) The Towers or Supports.—The support in the earliest form of mill was merely a post, made of a suitable log or tree trunk—sometimes 30 inches thick—upon which the entire structure was carried or hung and pivoted, so that it could turn freely to the wind. This was the original type—the old “post-mill,” appearing in the earliest known prints and records, and alone used until about 1650. At that time the “tower mill” was developed, and this, of larger possibilities, soon resulted in great structures of that style being built, that generally replaced and threw far into the shade the earlier and simple post form.