Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-08-13
THE FLEETING SHOW.
Some OF It's Facts and Fancies.

Some OF Its Facts and Fancies.
Written for the JOURNAL AND CoURIKR.l
= THE sold STONE MILL" AT NEWPORT.
This venerable and picturesque ruin,
s'fort, baptistery, monument, or mill, ," has
been the subject Of much research and dis
cussion on the part both of antiquaries
and architects. Mr.. George G. Mason
seems to have solved the problem of its
age and use, and his study of the building,
with published diagrams of its construc-
ton, seem for ever to dispel the air of ro-
rude arches and rough walls. Mr.. Mason's
belief, expressed practically, architec-
turally, and unpoetically, is that it ia, or
rather was, a mill, and only mill. Lief
Ericsson and his hardy sea-rovers had
nothing to do with its construction, nor
did Longfellow's Viking build i. for his
lady's bower. His argument, briefly stat
ed, is this: If erected by English colonists,
| it could not have been earlier than 1888,
when Rhode Island was first occupied by
them. To no other known period
| can it be attributed save that of
| the we'll authenticated visit of Lief Erics-
| son AnO ulS NOTtuuCA odIlJ lh UA0 C1CfCubh
| century, If built by them, the tower
must have remained undisturbed for six
hundred years, and when discovered by
the English would have been a venerable
pile, and would hardly have escaped
description in their written records of the
marvels of the country, its bays and har.
bors, and savage Inhabitants. Thus mar.
rowing the time of its erection to two
periods, six hundred years apart, he pro
oeeds to investigate its constructive fea
lures, and finds that the alterations which
would be necessary to change it from {
circular baptistery of Norman type to
windmill for the.guse of the colonist
would be very difficult, and in some case
impossible to make. The irregularl,
placed windows, the mortises, freplac
with fues, the Offset for the second floor
and the staircase, of which the evidence
: are plain must all have been parts of tn
original construction.
This, and a good deal else, being sci
tied, Mr.. Mason goes on to state that th
earliest written record of it is in the wi
cember 20, 1877, where it is spoken of q
. his "stone built windmill" One Pete
= Easton, who kept a diary, recorded thu
q the FIRST mill, q wooden one, was built
i. 1868, and blown down in 1875 This Ben
dict Arnold succeeded Roger Williams
's governor of Rhode Island. He had r
T. sided near Leamington, Warwickshir
England, where one of the most prominel
architects of the seventeenth centur
J. lingo Jones, built, in 1882. a windm
a. which was then new idea in mill co
II struction, and which at the present day
= still standing, and admirable for. beau
" and the fitness of its details; Govern'
10 Arnold was familiar with this mill al
at copied its characteristics as we'll as pos
a. BILE with the very different materials
NJ hand. The bennington mill is of c
". stone, with six arches; the Newport m
Mt is made Of rough boulder stone. pieces
ad slate, and sea worn stones from the beac
av cemented together with remarkat
~ tenacious mortar, and built, for great
d. safety, with eight arches, which give to
IN an octagonal rather than circular for
in "Other features in both mills show I
sources of inspiration that guided
Newport workmen in their efforts" ei
as Nr. Mason. "Stone, mortar and the VIII