Newport Tower

The **Newport Tower** (also known as: **Round Tower**, **Touro Tower**, **Newport Stone Tower** and **Old Stone Mill**) is a round stone tower located in Touro Park in Newport, Rhode Island (USA), the remains of a windmill built in the mid-17th century.

The tower has received attention due to speculation that it is
actually several centuries older and would thus represent evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. Carbon dating shows this belief to be incorrect.

## Description:

The Newport Tower is located in Touro Park at the top of Mill Street,
 surrounded by a historical residential neighborhood on the hill above
the waterfront tourist district. Eighteenth-century paintings show that
the hill itself once furnished a view of the harbor and would have been
visible to passing mariners in Narragansett Bay, but recent tree growth now obscures the view.

The Newport Tower is not exactly circular. From southeast to
northwest, the diameter reportedly measures 22 feet 2 inches (6.76 m)
but, when measured from east to west, the diameter lengthens to 23 feet
3 inches (7.09 m).[2]
 However, the 19th century measurements of the interior gave an
east-west dimension of 18 feet 4 inches (5.59 m), which was slightly
shorter than the north-south measurement of 19 feet 9 inches (6.02 m),
 suggesting that the discrepancies may be due to the unevenness of the
rubble masonry. The tower has a height of 28 feet (8.5 m) and an
exterior width of 24 feet (7.3 m). At one time, the sides were coated
with smooth white plaster, the remains of which can still be seen
clinging to the outer walls. It is supported by eight cylindrical
columns that form stone arches,
 two of which are slightly broader than the other six. Above the arches
and inside the tower is evidence of a floor that once supported an
interior chamber. The walls are approximately 3 feet (0.91 m) thick, and
 the diameter of the inner chamber is approximately 18 feet (5.5 m). The
 chamber has four windows on what used to be the main floor, and three
very small ones at the upper level. Almost directly opposite the west
window is a fireplace backed with grey stone and flanked by nooks.

A representation of the tower is featured prominently on the Seal and unit patch of the former US Navy vessel USS *Newport*.

Nothing in early Norse architecture is similar to the Newport Tower in size or appearance. However, this 17th-century windmill near Chesterton, England shares many characteristics with the Newport Tower.

The tower is described in a document of 1741 as "the old stone mill."
 It was used as a haymow in 1760, while it was described in 1767 as
being used as a powder store "some time past". De Barres' plan of
Newport published in 1776 marks it as "Stone Wind Mill." During the American Revolution, the tower was used by the Americans as a lookout and by the British to store munitions.

## Construction:

The tower is located at the upper end of the plot behind the now-demolished mansion built by Benedict Arnold, the first colonial governor of Rhode Island, who moved from Pawtuxet to Newport in 1651.
 In 1677, Arnold mentions "my stone built Wind Mill" in his will; the
site for his burying ground is between this mill and his mansion and
still exists today.[9]
 The phrase has therefore generally been accepted as referring to the
Newport Tower, and is evidence that the tower was once used as a
windmill.

An illustration from the British "Penny Magazine" published in 1836
(shown at right) reveals that the tower is of a similar type to Chesterton Windmill, a 17th-century mill near Chesterton, Warwickshire, England. There is a mistaken notion that Arnold was born in Leamington, Warwickshire, only a short distance from Chesterton; the family lived near Limington in Somerset, about 100 miles (160 km) away.
 However, Chesterton windmill stands on a ridge within half a mile of
one of the main southwest–northeast roads of early modern Britain, which
 also runs past Limington, and it is entirely plausible that Arnold
would have seen it, or perhaps another colonist in a position to
influence the design of his "stone built windmill". One such candidate
is George Lawton, who was born in 1607 about 30 km (19 mi) from
Chesterton and is thought to have built several mills in the area.
"Georg Lawtons Mill" is mentioned in a 1668 document as being on the
current Newport Mill Street.

Various authors have suggested that comparable Mediaeval buildings can be found in Europe, particularly the Orphir Round Church on Orkney built in Scotland around 1115, and the round churches on the Danish island of Bornholm, such as Østerlars Church dating from around 1160.

## Scientific Investigations:

### 1848 mortar comparison

In 1848, the Rev. Dr. Jackson of Newport collected samples of mortar
from the mill and some of the oldest known structures in the town,
including the very early Bull house (c. 1640), the Easton house
(1642-1643), other houses, and the tombs of Governor Arnold and his
wife. Under detailed examination, all proved to be of very similar
composition, "composed of shell lime, sand, and gravel".

### 1948 excavation:

The city of Newport gave permission for a scientific investigation of the site by the Society for American Archaeology in 1948. The investigation was directed by Hugh Henken of Harvard University,
 with the field work headed by William S. Godfrey. As part of the
investigation, a one-meter wide trench was dug from the tower's exterior
 through the interior. The results were published in Godfrey's 1951
Ph.D. dissertation and concluded that all the artifacts discovered were
from the 17th century. Godfrey's dissertation identifies Benedict Arnold
 as the builder of the tower, stating that Arnold "purchased some of his
 Newport property, specifically the section on which he later built his
house and the stone mill, the year before he moved.... At some period
before 1677 Arnold built the Old Stone Mill."

Godfrey initially dismissed the Chesterton Mill theory,
 claiming that "on the other hand, there is very little probability that
 Benedict built his Tower as a mill... the tower mill form, as
contrasted to the smock, post and composite forms, was not common in
England until the beginning of the 18th century."
 Godfrey posited the hypothesis that "the tower was built as a
comfortable retreat and lookout for a very rich and very autocratic old
man." However, he later retreated from this position, noting in 1954 that "Rex Wailes, noted English expert on windmills... has supported the contention that both structures were built as mills."
 It has since been shown that tower mills were known in England from the
 late thirteenth century and that they became increasingly common from
the late sixteenth century onwards.
 Subsequent research has determined that Chesterton was, in fact, built
as a windmill in 1632-33, as the original building accounts have been
traced since Wailes' death in 1986, including payments for sailcloths. There are also several surviving seventeenth century stone tower mills in North America, which are similar in appearance to European examples of the same period (e.g., Moulin de Grondines, Quebec (1674)[23] and Moulin de Vincelotte, Quebec (1690)).

### 1993 carbon-14 dating:

In 1993, radiocarbon dating tests of the tower's mortar
 were undertaken by a team of researchers from Denmark and Finland. The
results suggest a probable date of construction between 1635 and 1698. In a 2003 report on this and related work, Hale, et al. put the date of the tower at about 1680.

## Alternative hypotheses:

###

In 1837, Danish archaeologist Carl Christian Rafn proposed a Viking origin for the tower in his book *Antiquitates Americanæ*, partly based on his research of the inscriptions on the Dighton Rock near the mouth of the Taunton River. This hypothesis is predicated on the uncertainty of the southward extent of the early Norse explorations of North America, particularly in regard to the actual location of Vinland. Rafn's popularization of the theory led to a flurry of interest and "proofs" of Norse settlement in the area. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow incorporated the Norse-origin view of the tower into his poem "The Skeleton in Armor". Philip Ainsworth Means, an archaeologist whose specialty were the Andean civilizations, attempted to compile all known evidence surrounding the tower in his 1942 book *Newport Tower*.
 As a supporter of the Norse hypothesis, Means dismissed the idea that
Arnold built the tower "from the ground up." He claimed that the Tower
was a church built between the 11th and 14th centuries, citing many
architectural features obsolete by the 17th century.

Since then, much of Means' evidence has been shown to be mistaken.
His assertion is incorrect that a windmill would not have fireplaces
because of the fire risk.
 Several have fireplaces aligned with windows, and it is not unusual to
find a double flue exiting the wall, generally with the exits aligned
parallel to the prevailing wind to improve the updraft on a relatively
short flue. A conventional chimney could not be used, as it would foul
the turning cap and sails of the windmill.

Examples include Upholland Windmill, Lancashire, where the fireplace is at second floor level (first floor in British English), and the doors and windows are aligned to the cardinal points of the compass, as well as Much Wenlock windmill, Shropshire, which has double flues of uncertain purpose rising from the middle floor level.

### Observatory Hypothesis:

Four of the eight supporting pillars of the tower face the main
points of the compass. In the 1990s, William Penhallow, a Professor of
Physics and astronomer at the University of Rhode Island,
 studied the windows in the tower and said that he found a number of
astronomical alignments. At the summer solstice the setting sun should
shine through the "west" window (actually just south of true west) onto a
 niche in the inner wall, next to the "south" window. (This no longer
happens due to urban development and park trees.) Similarly, the angle
from the "east" window through the "west" window is about 18 degrees
south of west, which is the southern extreme of moonsets during what is
known as the "lunar minor standstill".
 The smaller windows also form alignments, on significant stars. These
alignments could be accidental, but if they were deliberate it would
explain why the pattern of windows seems, according to Penhallow, "so
odd".

### Chinese:

Author Gavin Menzies argues in *1421: The Year China Discovered America* that the tower was built by a colony of Chinese sailors and concubines from the junks of Zheng He's voyages either as a lighthouse or as an observatory to determine the longitude of the colony, based on Penhallow's findings.
 Menzies claimed that the tower closely matches designs used in Chinese
observatories and lighthouses elsewhere. However, these claims have been
 debunked.

### Portuguese:

During the early 20th century, Edmund B. Delabarre associated the Dighton Rock with the lost Portuguese navigators Miguel Corte-Real and his brother Gaspar.
 This Portuguese hypothesis has been supported more recently by Manuel
Luciano DaSilva, who suggests that one of the Corte-Real brothers built
the Newport Tower as a watchtower. The idea of Portuguese construction
of the tower was also supported by former U.S. Ambassador Herbert Pell, who in 1948 argued that the tower resembles elements of the Convent of Tomar in Portugal.

### Medieval Templars:

British writer Andrew Sinclair has put forth the hypothesis that the Newport Tower was built by medieval Scottish Templars led by Scottish earl Henry Sinclair as part of an alleged voyage to New England about a hundred years before Columbus but such a voyage has been vigorously disputed.