The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. [volume] (Manteo, N.C.) 1959-1973, 1960-12-30

Editors Note: Within the memory Of n,ony
living people orc the old windmills which
fovrished throughout this eoastland. They
existed In gil counties. In Hyde they were
widely used for there was on abundance
Of .srain TO grind into meal. hominy or
Roanoke island. Nowhere were they more
Important fhon on Hqtteros Bonks where
fishermen went ceross the sound and traded
solt fish for corn, and must hove place
10 carry u 20 be ground. Some five years
ago. the following article about old wind
mills on the Outer Banks by NJ MoeNeili
wcs printed In the News and Observer
By BEN DIXON MacNEILL
BUXTON-Two feelings of the
story continue and the hearer of
them, seventy-odd years after the
event. is so enabled tn exercise a
certain choice as to whether it was
Bateman Miller. while reefin~ the
sails on his windmill in Kinnakeet
began to rotate RAPIDLY when his
son, Jones Miller, thinking that his
father had finished with shorten
ing sail. released the brake and
continued. merrily with the milling.
Some inheritors of this item of
Outer Banks folklore hold that it
was Mr.. Miller who loosed the
brake before his son, Jones Mil
Ter. had finished with reefing the
windmill's sail and so began to
rotate in the freshening breeze
and the creaking of the mills
ponderous gears completely neu-
tralized his anguished bowling. But
the mill ran unevenly and was
presently stopped. whereupon
whichever one of the Millers it was,
descended to the earth unframed.
In Great Hurricane.
Either way the Millers, father
and son, continued to grind corn
and wheat, as their forbears for
perhaps two centuries had done,
until the end of the windmill in
North Carolina came with the
Great Hurricane, of 1899 which
blew three days and three nights
with peak winds reaching 1856 miles
per hour. The mill might have ben
rebuilt but the era of the internal
combustion engine had come and,
despite the opinion of Capt Ban
mister Midget who had installed
one of the things in a skiff, the
unsanctified device had come to
stay.
There were at least ten of these
ponderous machines on Hatteras
Island. These 1 have discovered
records of and there are as yet not
wholly verified accounts of two
others. There were others on Ocra-
coke, probably two, at least one
on Harkers Island, at least three
on Roanoke Island and on the tip
of land where Camden County
touches North and Pasquotank
rivers there were at least five.
These add up to % windmills in
the tidal reaches of the Sound
country and no trace of them re-
mains except here and there, a pair
of weathered mill-stones.
Massive things they were, these
windmills, with a sail diameter
of 40 feet and more and they be-
gan to dot the landscape long be-
fore there was a North Carolina,
They were, indeed, the subject of
legislation of general protent pass
ed by the Governor and Council not
long after Charles Eden came as
governor of the province under the
Lords Proprietors. On November
%, IT'S. meeting at the house OF
Capt. Richard Sanderson on the
south bank of Little River in Per
quimans County these worthy
statesmen passed "An Act to En-
courage Windmills."
| Still on Books.
He began what a latter generation
would denounce as creep-socialism
| in America. It was stated that
anybody who would agree to erect
a windmill for the grinding of corn
and wheat would be given a halt
acre of land upon which to estab-
lish his industry and that the land
be paid for out of public money
provided the mill was put into OPP
Grafton within two years from the
time application was filed. The
same act fixed the tolls that a
miller might charge for his serv'
ices and the law continues OH the
statute books until this day-one
eighth Of the grain ground.
Present and subscribing theil
names to the law were Charles
Eden, governor; N. Chevin, G
Gale, Frank Foster, Tobias Knight
and Edward Moseley.
And so windmills for the grind
ing of corn and wheat began to APP
pear. There is no knowing which
of them was the first, or where
it may have been, but it may have
been, but it is now generally agreed
by those who can remember them
that the mills built in eastern
North Carolina, below the fall line
where IL WAS nossibIe to turn a