Sometimes windmills are built only for decoration but in earlier times they served a very important function. The wind turns the large wheel and gears inside and can turn things, like saws to cut logs or millstones to crush grain or wheat so flour could be made. Millstones are made of blocks of "Buhrstone" cemented together and bound with an iron band. All early millstones were brought to the United States from France but in 1850 a substitute was found in Ulster County, New York known as "Sopus Stone" that worked just as well as the French stones.
Flour was shoveled from the tub into bags or barrels. The power to turn the milestones was take from the vertical drive shaft that was geared to the main axle of the sail arms. If the mill was a sawmill it operated as shown in the sketch of the windmill here.
When building a windmill, one must consider the winds and whether there is enough breeze to have the wheel in almost constant motion. If there aren't good breezes of at least 10 miles per hour. On the good side, windmills are very inexpensive to build and have a free source of energy!!
Areas of Cape May County had many windmills in the 1700s and 1800s because there were good, steady breezes from the ocean and the bay. Most of the early mills were sawmills, but as farms continued to grow, mills began to open for crushing grain to make flour. Sometimes, the man who ran the mill (the miller) would take part of the flour as his payment but usually he would charge a price per bushel on the grain he crushed. It took almost four bushels of grain to make 100 pounds of flour. |