Pantigo Windmill facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Pantigo Windmill |
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Pantigo Windmill, September, 2018
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| Coordinates | 40°57′24″N 72°11′28″W / 40.9566°N 72.1911°W |
| Information | |
| Smock sides | Eight |
| No. of sails | Four |
| Other information | |
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Pantigo Windmill
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U.S. Historic district
Contributing property |
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| Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 420: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). | |
| Location | 14 James lane., Easthampton, New York |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1644 |
| Built by | Schellinger, Samuel |
| Part of | East Hampton Village District (ID74001309) |
| Designated CP | May 5, 1984 |
The Pantigo Windmill is a cool old building in Easthampton, New York. It's a special type of windmill called an smock mill, which means it has a wooden tower that gets narrower at the top. This windmill has eight sides! A weathervane from 1771 sits on its roof. In 1984, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, which means it's an important historical site.
Contents
The Pantigo Windmill's Story
The Pantigo Windmill stands on a spot called Mill Hill in East Hampton. This was actually the third windmill built on that same location. Mill Hill was made taller in 1729 to help an earlier type of windmill work better. That first windmill was later replaced by a new one in 1771.
Building the Windmill
A skilled builder named Samuel Schellinger started building the Pantigo Windmill in March 1804. He was building it for a man named Huntting Miller. Samuel Schellinger was famous for building windmills. He also built the Beebe Windmill in East Hampton and another one in Setauket, Long Island.
His apprentice, William Baker, said Schellinger built windmills in other places too. These included Brooklyn and Block Island in New York, and Nantucket, Massachusetts. Schellinger also worked a lot on boats in Sag Harbor.
Schellinger worked on the Pantigo Mill for 83 days himself. His helpers, James Raynor, Mathew, and Richard, worked for 144 days. Another person who helped was David Sherril, a carpenter from East Hampton. He often fixed windmills in the area. In the summer of 1804, Sherril worked on the mill for 35 days. He helped frame the mill in June and worked on its "running gear" in August.
Other Windmills and Laws
A few months later, owners of another windmill nearby also started building a new one. This was the Gardiner Mill, built to replace their older mill from 1769. Nathaniel Dominy IV was in charge of building this second windmill.
In the 18th century, laws made things easier for millers. There's a story about Miller, the owner of the Pantigo Mill. While the minister was giving a sermon, he heard the wind outside. He supposedly said, "Church will be dismissed, Miller, go to your mill and grind!" A town law even said that the minister's grain should be the first to be ground.
Who Owned the Windmill?
The Pantigo Windmill changed owners many times over the years. Huntting Miller left the windmill to his grandson, Captain William Hedges, in 1832. In 1834, William Hedges had the mill's machinery fixed. Nathaniel Dominy V worked for 16 days to repair parts of the mill.
In 1845, William Hedges sold the mill to David A. Hedges. David moved the windmill to his property on Pantigo Road. It was about half a mile east of the village. Later, David Hedges sold the mill to Hiram Sandford. Sandford moved it again, to the corner of Pantigo Road and Egypt Lane. It stayed there until 1917.
Because the mill was on Pantigo Road for 72 years, it became known as the Pantigo Windmill. Before 1865, Sandford sold the mill to Nathaniel Dominy VII. He also owned another famous windmill called the Old Hook Mill.
An old message inside the Pantigo Mill says that Dominy was fixing it in February 1878. It also says he "Commenced to Grind" on June 12, 1878. But Dominy only used the mill for about a year after these repairs. In August 1879, a huge storm hit. It was described as the "heaviest since 1811." The storm broke the iron cross that held the windmill's sails. Dominy never got the mill working again after that.
The Windmill's New Home
In 1917, Gustav Buek bought the Pantigo Windmill. He moved it to the back of his house on the East Hampton Common. After Mr. Buek passed away, the Village of East Hampton bought his house and the windmill.
This house was special because the American writer and actor John Howard Payne had visited it as a child. His grandfather owned it back then. The village decided to call the house "Home, Sweet Home" because of Payne's famous song from 1822. That song made him very famous and was popular during the American Civil War.
The Village of East Hampton did a lot of repairs to the windmill in 1978-1979 and again in 1984–85. Both the house and the windmill are important parts of the East Hampton Historic District.
Interestingly, a copy of the Pantigo Windmill was built in Aquebogue on the North Fork of Long Island. They used the original plans to build it!
See also
- Samuel Schellinger
