In East Hampton, the windmills serve as a reminder that there’s nothing new under the sun, certainly not wind energy. They loom large in the telling of the village’s history, and they were at the forefront of a short but sweet East Hampton Village Board work session on Oct. 5, at which the village dedicated the Pantigo Mill behind the Home, Sweet Home Museum to Hugh King, the village historian.
“The village has been wonderful to me since my wife Loretta died,” he said in a phone call. “The garden behind Home, Sweet Home has been dedicated to her, and now with my plaque on the windmill, we’ll always be together at Home, Sweet Home. I was a little bit embarrassed about it, but it was very nice of them.”
Mayor Jerry Larsen had asked Mr. King to start the meeting with a presentation about the village’s three windmills: the Pantigo Mill, the Hook Mill, and the Gardiner Mill. “Where else is there a village in this country that has three 19th-century windmills that you can actually get into?” said Mr. King. “They represent the end of the wooden age. If you look inside them, they’re genius. They took horizontal energy, the wind coming into the arms, and transferred it into vertical energy. My God!”
Across the East End, there are 11 historic windmills. Mr. King said they remain, in part, because they were preserved by wealthier citizens for their estates. The life histories of those windmills, he said, were chronicled in Robert Hefner’s book, “Windmills of Long Island.” (Mr. Hefner is the village’s former director of historic services.)
Mr. King, who acted for over 30 years with community theater companies, has a flair for storytelling and he credits his acting ability for being able to make everything he says sound true, and authoritative. He also has a knack for infusing his stories with humor, sometimes dark.
The Hook Mill (perhaps confusingly located at the intersection of Pantigo Road and North Main Street) was built in 1806 by Nathaniel Dominy. Church records show that when it was raised, there was a big party. “Daniel Dayton’s kid drank so much flip, that he died,” said Mr. King at the meeting. The windmill can still turn; Mr. King said it was still going in the 1950s (“Maurice Lester was handing out little packages of flour”), but it’s delicate.
“When you put the sails on that windmill and it turns, it stops traffic,” he said.
The Pantigo Mill was built by Samuel Schellinger for Huntting Miller in 1804 at the end of Mill Hill Lane. Months later, Nathaniel Dominy started work on the Gardiner Mill, for an ownership group of seven or eight people, just across the green (the Gardiner Mill has never moved from its original location). The Pantigo Mill was eventually moved to where the Verizon Building sits, and then again. It was disabled by a storm in 1879 and bought by the Buek family, who moved it to its final location, behind Home, Sweet Home.
Mayor Larsen asked why it was moved so much, and Mr. King said apparently its arms scared the horses that were entering the village.
When Mr. King’s presentation ended, Mayor Larsen surprised him by reading from a plaque that will soon be installed at the Pantigo Windmill.
“With his theatrical storytelling, jovial disposition, and effortless humor, Hugh King has conjured living history for generations of students, museum visitors, and partakers of the Village’s celebrated walking tours. His strong commitment and dedication to our historic community ensures that the legacy of East Hampton lives on,” read the dedication. “By dedicating the Pantigo Windmill to Hugh King and the Home, Sweet Home gardens to his wife, Loretta Orion, we guarantee their rightful place in East Hampton history.”
What drives Mr. King? “It’s not important that the village historian knows the history of this place and no one else knows it. What good is that?” he said.
Also at the meeting, the village board accepted a replica of the Hook Mill that was built by Richard (Dick) Wood and featured in the 1998, 350th anniversary parade. For the last 25 years it stood as a landmark at the Wood family home at 201 Gardiner Avenue in Springs.
“Just like the Old Hook Mill, it has been adorned with holiday lights and has become a ‘landmark’ with the neighbors in Springs,” wrote Janet Wood in a letter to the board. “As a family whose ancestry dates back multiple generations in the Springs, we deeply appreciate the history and familiar landmarks of East Hampton and hope that this replica can become part of the same.”
Mayor Larsen said it would soon be displayed on the lawn at Village Hall.
