From the June 18, 2009 issue of The Cape Cod Times

History uncovered at Orleans windmill site

By Susan Milton
smilton@capecodonline.com

ORLEANS Ñ The Jonathan Young Windmill looks at home on Town Cove in Orleans, but the historic landmark has moved around since its construction in the early 1700s.

Yesterday about 15 people walked through the woods to see the windmill's likely first home on a hill in South Orleans. Marking the spot is a circle of large foundation stones rediscovered recently by amateur historian Michael Farber of Chatham.

"Everything fits," said miller and historian James Owens of Eastham, among those who came to see Farber's rare discovery in the town's watershed off Route 28.

Even the stones in the middle of the circle were historically correct, Owens said, describing how four to five-ton millstones "floated" in a support on a central foundation to keep weight off the walls of the mill.

Using a tape measure, visitors yesterday found the foundation is 68 inches in circumference, close to the 70- to 75-inch girth of other historic Cape windmills, Farber said. The foundation's diameter was within inches of the current mill's 22-feet diameter.

The Sparrow family owned the land for generations, Hamish Wilkinson said, remembering stories about how his grandfather, Eldredge Sparrow, would send his daughters to "go look for the windmill." They never found it, but Wilkinson did yesterday.

The mill's original location had faded from memory during its other moves over the last 300 years. The mill was moved by Jonathan Young to Orleans Center in 1839 to the present site of the Governor Prence Motor Inn.

In 1897, the mill took a trip across Nantucket Sound to Hyannisport and presided over a sea captain's estate off Greenwood Avenue, according to historian William Quinn. Its departure was a blow to a town with a windmill on its town seal and no windmill left in town. In 1983 the mill was donated to the Orleans Historical Society, which restored the mill to working condition and donated it to the town, according to the society.

Farber and the Lighthouse Charter School started searching for the mill's original site during their quest to find boundary stones, used by the Pilgrims in the 1640s to mark property and town lines.

In their search for Nicholas Snow's property bounds, they've also looked for the Cape's earliest windmill, built by Snow's son-in-law, master millwright Thomas Payne, near Namskaket. The Young windmill was likely built by one of Payne's sons who lived nearby, Farber said.

After talking to the Wilkinsons, Farber found an 1858 map that showed the windmill's approximate location. On June 9 he found the first foundation stones as he searched two hills for a likely mill site.

Around the site, Stephen Ellis of Orleans discovered a number of hand-formed iron nails and a pot handle.

"It's amazing that I'm holding a 17th-century artifact that was once held by a Pilgrim," history teacher Daniella Garran told two students.

Later she added, "It's important for students, in particular, to realize that the history books are not yet closed. Nothing is, as they say, written in stone.

"There is always more information and evidence to find that may further our understanding of our forefathers but it may also debunk a lot of myths and misinformation. It's important to never stop analyzing history."