Robertson's Windmill
by ELDavis Photography
Title
Robertson's Windmill
Artist
ELDavis Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photograph
Description
Robertson's Windmill at Historic Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, circa 1966.
Williamsburg's William Robertson was appointed clerk of the colony's Council in 1698, a director of the fledgling capital in 1705, and a city alderman in 1722. He also operated a most serviceable windmill until 1723.
Reconstructed on its original site in 1957 (later to be known as the Payton Randolph site, pictured here), Robertson's tall, lattice-vaned, linen-sailed machine is a post mill, a design that appeared in Europe in the Middle Ages. Its superstructure is balanced on a huge, single timber--or post--to be turned into the wind by a man at the tailpole. When the breeze spun the windmill's blades, a shaft and gear arrangement turned a millstone to grind corn into meal or wheat into flour. A bolting or sifting apparatus on the first floor fed the product into bags.
As trees continued to grow over the next 53 years, the winds became less frequent and powerful, forcing the mill into prolonged disuse and decline. In 2010 the mill was moved to the Great Hopes Plantation nearby for refurbishing. The move enables Colonial Williamsburg to “reinterpret” the Great Hopes Plantation and the Peyton Randolph site, while also preserving the Robertson’s Windmill.
Uploaded
October 18th, 2014
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