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Harnessing Water and Wind

Colonists build mills to grind grain, saw wood and pump water

By George DeWan | Staff Writer

The man who could harness the power of water and wind was a major figure in a colonial village. The miller and his gristmill were equaled in importance only by the blacksmith and his forge.

Before steam engines made them obsolete, there were hundreds of gristmills on Long Island. Whether they were water mills or windmills, they were built by craftsmen primarily for the milling of grain, but also for the sawing of wood and the pumping of water.

Few sights evoke the past more than a briskly revolving waterwheel next to a dammed-up stream and a millpond, or a windmill in an open field, its sails reaching out to catch the breeze. Though these are common sights, in picture books if not in real life, most people know little about what goes on inside. It is much like being inside a giant clock, midst a fascinating collection of wooden gears, pulleys and shafts that translate the power of wind and water to millstones, saws and pumps.

Some waterwheels were turned by controlled flows of water from a dammed-up stream. Many on the North Shore, however, used the flow of the tides, and thus could be operated only at certain times of the day.

``We had probably the greatest concentration of tide mills on the eastern seaboard, and we have the greatest surviving concentration of windmills,'' said Robert McKay, director of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities. ``This is due in part because we don't have a lot of rivers to provide the kind of falling water that powered the Industrial Revolution in New England.''

There are 11 surviving windmills on eastern Long Island built between 1795 and 1820. These are called ``smock'' mills, supposedly because they look like someone wearing a smock; the upper part moves, while the rest of the mill remains stationary. None of the windmills built in the colonial era still exists. These were so-called post mills, mounted on a large post, with the entire structure turned into the wind by moving a tail pole projecting from the rear.

In 1699, Adam Smith, the son of the legendary Richard (Bull) Smith, the founder of Smithtown, built a gristmill on a stream called Stony Brook. The original water mill and dam were washed out in a flood, being replaced in 1751. Now, 246 years later, that gristmill is not only standing, it is - after an extensive overhall a few years ago - the finest example of a working gristmill on Long Island.