Talk:Newport Tower (Rhode Island)
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[edit] Contradiction
Chesterton Windmill indicates that it is theory that these structures may be related, while this article claims that they are related. Desertsky85451 22:31, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
- The Newport Tower has so much hoogly-googly surrounding its origins, it's no wonder it's considered "a theory" on this page. It would be nice if we could get a solid source for both pages stating absolutely that the Newport Tower is a copy of the Windmill, but I have no idea where I might even begin to find one.--TurabianNights 01:59, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
- I have modifed the page to make it clear that the link to the Newport tower is contested. The Norse theory seems to me very unlikely. Why would a small group of traders or explorers spend the time and effort to build an indefensible stone building they were unlikely to ever visit again? David J James 6 September 2006.
[edit] Verrazzano, Mercator etc etc
I can't find any primary source evidence that Verrazzano said anything at all about a "Norman Villa" in his written reports of his voyages.
To describe a map by Mercator as "pre-Columbus" is nonsense as Mercator was born 20 years after Columbus' 1492 voyage.
Someone really needs to get a grip of the silly speculation and poor-quality sources cited in this article.
Ghughesarch 16:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] recent edits
Questions have been posed about the Colonial theory. Rather than add answers to the main page, which is poor in wiki format terms, I will attempt to answer them below, and hope the person who posed them might consider re-editing their contribution:
- Why would 17th century colonials choose to build a windmill of stone? The required excavation and cartage of one million pounds of stone up the hill would have made it far more costly than a traditional 17th century wooden mill, and yet not as able to withstand the stresses.
- a. That rather depends where the stone was quarried (presumably close at hand), and (by contrast) how much suitable-sized timber was readily available. As for not being able to withstand the stresses, there are no surviving 17th century wooden windmills anywhere in North America, whereas the survival of the tower of the Newport mill suggests the stone tower mill was more, not less, durable.
- Why would 17th century colonials build a windmill in an architectural style foreign to their sensibilities? And with no other examples anywhere in America? What master mason did this and nothing else?
- a. There is only one other windmill in the world with any degree of similarity to the Newport Tower, and that is Chesterton in Warwickshire, UK. The Newport Tower is an abbreviated, rather crude approximation of the same design, entirely consistent with being built by someone who had seen the Chesterton Mill (which stands about a mile from the principle early route across central England between the south-west and the midlands) a few years earlier and decided to building something similar based on their memory of Chesterton. Note, similar, not identical.
- It is a crude attempt at a classical building and is entirely consistent with the architectural sensibilities of mid-seventeenth century England.
- Why would a windmill be designed with the odd offset columns which further reduce structural strength?
- a. Do they reduce structural strength to such an extent that the tower has fallen down? Evidently not, so the question is spurious.
- Why would a windmill have a fireplace anywhere in it (since milling fumes are highly flammable) and especially on the second floor?
- a. Lots of English windmills have fireplaces. Milling “fumes”, by which you mean flour dust, are not generally highly flammable in the context of small-scale traditional milling – it becomes so where modern high-speed production methods (post c.1800) are concerned, where the concentration of dust suspended in the air is fair greater than in a traditional mill.
- In a document that dates to within a few decades of when the tower was allegedly built by Arnold, it is referred to as "the old stone mill." Why would a recently built (with great effort and cost) mill be referred to as old?
- a. “old” in this context could easily refer to condition – i.e. it had been a mill but was now disused – rather than age.
- The 1770 painting by Gilbert Stuart of the mill was done, presumably true to life at the time, only 100 years after the tower was allegedly built. The painting shows the tower as identical to today with no suggestion of the debris one would expect to find around an abandoned mill.
- a. That presupposes that nobody tidied up in the 1700s. In any case, I would not expect to find “debris” of any significance lying around a disused mill for any length of time – anything that was reusable (even as firewood) would have been carted away.
These are examples of the many questions that remain to be answered in order for the Arnold theory to prevail. To accept the contention that it must have been colonial unless it can be proven otherwise is bad science.
- a. To accept the idea that any of these questions remotely challenges the Arnold theory is wishful thinking. The only archaeological evidence for any activity, at all, round the tower is Colonial. While absence of evidence is not (always) evidence of absence, the total failure of successive excavators to find anything else points entirely to the Arnold theory.
Ghughesarch 13:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] and more recent edits
"Running counter to the Arnoldist theory is the fact that there is no other stone windmill from the 17th century anywhere in North America. Also, the enormous tonage of stone that would have had to be carried uphill to the site, and the advanced stonemason work involved makes it doubtful that such an economic and technological undertaking would have been feasible for a mere windmill which could much more easily made of wood."
I won't remove the above at present, but this statement presupposes that the stone had to be carted a considerable distance to the site rather than being local field stone (and in any case, that argument could be used against construction of any masonry windmill anywhere in the world). There's nothing specially "advanced" about the stonemasonry - indeed, I'm not sure why the masonry being "advanced" helps any of the alternative "explanations" either. Not only is there no other 17th century stone windmill in America, there is no 17th century windmill of any sort in America. Just because they no longer exist, it doesn't mean they never did. The (probably) wooden windmill which predated the Newport Tower had been destroyed in a storm IIRC. Building something more substantial to avoid a repeat is entirely logical. Ghughesarch 16:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
