[THE DC]

Triva (trivial?) background:


I remember seeing the old windmills on Long Island, NY. They were grand old artifacts of a time gone by, oft neglected by a society too enamored with electrical motivation to appreciate the value of ambient energy sources (Funny how times change and old ideas come back around...)

In a time period where everything is driven by plug or battery, it may be hard to recall the period where the resource of wind and water were main-stays...not "alternate energy." The Romans used hydropower mills to feed the masses their bread and the Dutch harnesses the free and present wind to mechanize their production of grain, sometimes having shops in the lower portion of the mill to sell bags of product.

Hence, back to Long Island.

New York was first settled by the European empire of the Dutch, buying the land from the natives in a series of poorly planned and thought out contracts. "New Amsterdam" was bought initially from some tribes of roving natives, who had no claims to the lands, requiring repurchase from the actual residents! The cheated Dutch never recovered the traded items to the native opportunists (tools, glass, etc,) and the experience unfairly led to negative generalizations about "indians" in general and equally unfair resentments toward natives.

Noting the strong winds and flat ground on the massive sand bar that would later be called Long Island, the Dutch began distributing windmills across the fertile land. Long Island has been noted for having very robust soil; resulting in crops of very sweet corn, rich, thick-skinned potatoes, and most recently, prized vineyards. The water on Long Island has been noted for its value in baking too, producing the famous hard roll that is difficult to describe to someone not familiar with it, and the baked goods that are difficult to reproduce elsewhere.

Windmills on Long Island were used by the Dutch, and then the English after, to support the strong grain industry that fed a great deal of New England, until transportation improvements made large mills along riverfront capable of more economically satisfying results. It was cheaper to ship larger farmland product over greater distances and the local, Long Island grain fields could not economically compete. These structures were used up into the nineteenth century, until the growing of potatoes on the island became more profitable than grain.

The Dutch design had persisted during those years, even with the shifting of the Dutch, English, and Colonial independence. The efficient Long Island Windmills were often shorter than their European counterparts (often only four to five stories), squatter in appearance, and with wider sails (the framework fins that are turned by the wind). The type of windmill most common on Long Island was the Smock mill, named as such because their shape resembled the smocks that farmers often wore in times past, when working in the fields.

They were expensive and sophisticated machines of their day and represented a long era in farming and industry. With the period of grain farming passing on Long Island, these massive, strong structures lost their initial purpose and they began to be dismantled for wood, destroyed in fires or storms, or neglected; coming to look like large wooden ghosts of a former age. A few remained as storage, barns, and even electrical generators, as well as observation towers. The storm of '38 wiped out a large number of them and by recent times, very few still existed.

I have to confess that I have always tinkered with the idea of having or building one. A friend and I calculated the power of the energy that might be garnered by generating electricity from the movement of the sails, and were surprised at the potential. The energy production would equal the expense of building, but it would have been fun to try it. The initial cost of the construction, and having a place to build it, has always prohibited my vision of making one into an office.

A note about the design of these smock mills should be added before moving onto the model. These structures were designed to pull rotation out of the wind turning the sails and the head, atop the mill, would rotate the sails about the lower body to better position the wind grabbing arms into the most effective position. Behind the main head of the structure a smaller sail complex was often rigged to guide the positioning of the sails into the most effective posture to maximize wind rotation.

The framework sails warmed more efficient with sail cloth across the frames, catching the wind and turning the single. Some of these had long arms off the back, that guided the moving-rotating head around, using a wheel or track to manage the head of the mill's rotation.

Most of the mills were clapboard or shingle sided, but for function more than appearance. They quickly weathered gray and attracted the attention of model building misanthropes and Don Quixote types; a pair of groups sometimes indistinguishable from each other...