Built 1746<\/p>\n
Abigail Swain climbed the steep path up the Popsquatchet Hills to the new mill where white sails whipped in the southwest breeze, turning the shaft that set the interior gears in motion to activate the granite mill-wheels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Her husband, Eliakim, and his partner, John Way, supervised the grinding of sack after sack of corn, producing the yellow meal used in every island kitch\u00aden. Swain and Way were the first owners of the Old Mill.Tradition tells us that a man named Nathan Wilbur built the mill in 1746, but there are more unan\u00adswered questions about this Nantucket Historical Association property than about any other.<\/p>\n
We wish Abigail could have described the mill in detail for us, because we aren\u2019t certain what it looked like in the mid-eighteenth century. The mill as it stands today is a smock mill \u2014 a tapering octagonal tower with wind vanes that project from a rotating cap. Yet two important early depictions of Nantucket\u2019s windmills \u2014 a 1772 map by James Tupper and a circa 1811 oil painting by Thomas Birch \u2014 show it as a post mill, a more ancient design where the entire structure, el\u00adevated on a stout post, could be rotated to face the wind. No written records survive that say the mill was rebuilt, and the structure of the mill itself offers no clues. The 1746 date of construction is based on numbers inscribed on the stone doorstep, the one piece of evidence that appears irrefutable.<\/p>\n
The Old Mill is a grist mill, used to grind corn. That there were five windmills on Nantucket demonstrates the size and value of the island\u2019s corn crop (which may have been supplemented by imported corn) and tells us something about the diet of eighteenth- and nine\u00adteenth-century Nantucketers, who depended on Johnny Cake, Hasty Pudding, hominy, Indian Pudding, cornbread, and cornmeal mush as tasty staples to round out a meal of mutton or chowder.<\/p>\n
The mill may have been a business investment for Swain and Way, who then hired a miller to run the operation. When Swain died, he left his share of the mill to his sons, Timothy and Charles, and other heirs; likewise, John Way left his share of the mill to his wife, Abigail, and after her death to his sons, John and Seth. In 1829, heirs of the original owners sold the mill to Jared Gardner (1775\u20131842) for forty dollars, Gardner\u2019s estimate of the value of the mill as firewood. Once Gardner examined the solid oak-frame construction of the building, he decided to repair it and put it back in working or\u00adder. In 1834, Gardner placed an advertisement in the Nantucket Inquirer offering \u201cthe Eastern Grain Mill\u201d for sale. Apparently, he had no takers. When he died in 1842, his heirs divided his estate and daughter Elizabeth G. Macy and son George C. Gardner 2nd each received one half of the \u201cCharles Swain Mill, so called.\u201d<\/p>\n