The Miller in Eighteenth-Century Virginia / An Account of Mills & the Craft of Milling, as Well as a Description of the Windmill near the Palace in Williamsburg

by Thomas K. Ford

Beneath the body of the mill are the heavy timbers on which it rests: the horizontal “crosstrees,” the sloping “quarterbars,” and the great post, all hand hewn of well-seasoned oak. The tree from which the post is hewn was itself young when Williamsburg first became the colonial capital. A count of its annual rings shows it to have been a sapling in 1675, which makes it one of the town’s oldest “antiques.”

An eighteenth-century cutaway drawing, from Diderot’s great French encyclopedia, showing the structure and mechanism of a post mill. The artist has “lifted” the body of the mill a few feet off the post to reveal the pivot bearing on which the massive crowntree would in fact rest. Note also the power takeoff from the brake wheel for the sack hoist.

Mounting the ladder and looking into the mill’s lower or “meal floor,” we see that the post ends in a wrought-iron bearing set into another beam of impressive size that “crosses” the post like the top of a giant “T.” This beam is the “crowntree,” on which the framework of the mill body is built. Below the lower floor is another bearing or loose collar around the post to keep the body steady on its perch.

The primary machinery of the mill consists of sails, stones, and the necessary shafts and gearwheels to transmit power from the sails to the stones. In addition, there are devices for braking the sails, for hoisting bags of grain from the ground to the upper or “stone floor,” for feeding grain at the proper speed to the stones, for warning the miller when the supply of grain in the hopper is getting low, for adjusting the distance between stones, and for separating the meal from the bran.

The sails of the Williamsburg mill are of the early pattern in which the backbone of each sail frame extends along the centerline of the sail. That is, the area of sail ahead of the backbone—in the direction of turning—is the same as the area following it. Incidentally, windmill sails usually turn counterclockwise (viewed from in front of the mill).

The sailcloths themselves are handmade, of imported Scottish linen. To meet changes of weather they are furled by hand, each arm in turn being stopped at the lowest position while the miller unties the outward corners and twists the long strip into a more or less tight roll. For this purpose he can set and release the brake from the ground, using the rope that hangs out the side of the mill.

Whereas each sailcloth of Robertson’s windmill must be wholly furled or not trimmed at all, the sails of many early mills could be partially reefed. The four degrees of reefing were known as full sail, first reef, dagger point, and sword point. Trimming the sails was a difficult and sometimes dangerous task, for a sudden storm with sleet and shifting gusts of wind could make the job almost impossible at the very moment that it had to be accomplished quickly. A miller caught with his sails up in such a storm might suffer what was known as “tail winding” if the wind veered faster than he could work. In this event he might be lucky to get off with nothing worse than having the sailcloth stripped from the frame.

A hurricane could do more serious damage—and might overturn the whole mill—no matter which way it faced. For the wind was the miller’s master as well as his servant, an evil genius that he feared as well as a heavenly blessing for which he prayed. Without wind the mill stood idle and the miller earned nothing. When the wind arose the miller must heed its call to work, whether in the middle of a meal or in the middle of the night. And always, he must keep a weather eye on the horizon for signs of too much wind.

Fire and lightning were other great perils to every windmill. If the hopper ran empty of grain, the friction of the stones rubbing against one another could generate enough heat for combustion. So could the friction of the brake if it were used continuously in a strong wind. In either event, a building made entirely of wood and open to every breeze burned readily, and more windmills probably fell victim to fire and storm than to old age. Similarly, its height and exposed position made the windmill an attractive target for lightning.