User:GeeJo/Sandbox/Beebe Windmill

Image Credit 1: [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/images/eny673.jpg Measured drawing delineated by Chalmers G. Long, Jr., 1976.(Reproduction Number HAER, NY,52-BRIG,4- Sheet 4 of 6) Image credit 2: [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/images/eny671.jpg Photograph by Jet Lowe, 1978. (Reproduction Number: HAER, NY,52-BRIG,4-1) Image credit 3: PD-US, PD-art-70. Thomas Moran, 1837-1926 [[Image:Beebe Windmill LOC.jpg|right|thumb|Measured drawing of Beebe Windmill]] Beebe Windmill is an historic windmill in Bridgehampton, Suffolk County, New York. Ownership of the structure has changed hands numerous times, and the windmill has been moved from one location to another on more than one occasion.

Construction
The architect responsible for designing the windmill was Samuel Schellinger, who drew up plans on commission from Lester Beebe, a Captain working out of nearby Sag Harbor. The design was fairly innovative, describing a windmill that would be among the first in the area to make use of cast iron bevel gears, a fan-tail to keep the sails into the wind, and centrifugal governors to aid the millstones – ideas that Schellinger gathered from other recently-created New York mills and recent developments in windmill design made by the English. Beebe approved the plans, and the building was erected in 1820 on Sherry's Hill, within the Sag Harbor township. Records show that ownership of the mill was passed to a Samuel Beebe, and then to a Jason Beebe before being sold in 1837.

The buyers, Richard Gelston and Judge Abraham T. Rose ordered the structure moved to the Bridgehampton's commons, in the centre of the hamlet. There it remained for nearly seventy years, until it was bought by its most recent private owner, John E. Berwind, who had it moved to his estate in 1914. Berwind willed the mill to the town of Southampton, its current owner. It now sits on the corner of Ocean Road and Hildreth Road in Bridgehampton, on the John E. Berwind Memorial Green. The site appears on the National Register of Historic Places, one of six in Southampton to do so.

The most distinctive feature of the exterior is the ogee cap. Topping the cap is a stalk and ball finial supporting a whale shaped weathervane. This cap is believed to be original to the mill. It would have been an appropriate feature in style-conscious Sag Harbor.

Historic American Buildings Survey documentation provides information for the care and maintenance of structures for which the original drawings typically do not survive. The formats of HAER documentation for this windmill include a written history, photographs, and measured drawings. The selected drawings and photographs shown here demonstrate how the information in each format can supplement the other. The photographs record information as the camera sees it in a one-point perspective. The drawings illustrate the grain mill and clarify how its parts fit together, what dimensions they are, and how they interact to grind the grain.

Moved about several times, on one occasion fitted with steam power, it was bought by the Berwinds in 1916. This was the famous "Flag on the Mill - Ship in the Bay" windmill, recalling the time when a flag flown from atop the windmill was a signal that another whaling ship had returned home, and overjoyed villagers would rush down to Long Wharf to greet their family and friends.

A scaled-down replica of the Beebe windmill now sits at the foot of Main Street at Long Wharf in Sag Harbor, and is the summer home of the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce, which operates it as a Tourist Information Center. The Sag Harbor Lions Club also utilizes it during the month of December, selling Christmas trees and wreaths as an annual fundraiser.