Push To Bring Campus Windmill Home To Southampton Village Underway

“Alone in its exiles and shorn of its wings, The old Mill sits brooding of faraway things,” reads Abigail Fithian Halsey’s poem honoring the windmill that sits on a knoll on the campus at Stony Brook Southampton College. “The Old Mill” was published on a menu for the Tucker Mill Inn, which operated on the campus after World War II.

Fast forward several decades, and a group of community members, led by Mayor Jesse Warren, is looking to release the mill from its exile, and bring the oldest mill on Long Island home to its original site on Windmill Lane in Southampton Village. Well, nearly original. The windmill lived at the corner of Windmill Lane and Hill Street; community members are considering the open space on the corner of Windmill Lane and Hampton Road for its new home.

An 80-year resident of the East End, Porter Bibb has always been interested in the mill. He noted Southampton is one of only a few villages that don’t have a windmill and, at the same time, he’s eyed the Windmill Lane parcel and wondered about it. It was actually the village dump at one time, and was purchased for preservation through the Community Preservation Fund.

Mr. Bibb’s idea of bringing the windmill home began to percolate last year when he met Mr. Warren. “We started talking, and he said, ‘Let’s do it, let’s make it happen, put a committee together.” There’s a citizen committee of volunteers working on the project, but, said Mr. Bibb, “Jesse is the anchor that makes this happen.”

“I’m always open to good ideas,” the mayor said. “I like to say yes as much as possible, so when he pitched the idea, I loved the idea, and I’m very appreciative of his help.”

“The goal is to bring the windmill back to Southampton Village, especially if we’re going to rethink what our downtown is going to look like,” Mr. Warren continued. “We think that the windmill could really be a keynote in the overall downtown. It’s a possibility, but there’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of parties involved, so we’re going to have to work very closely with all levels of government — the village, the town, the state. We’re going to need the support of everybody.”

He’s optimistic the agencies involved will be supportive.

According to Mr. Bibb, the move is not a new idea, it’s been discussed for over two decades, but, he said, “Nobody really knew who owned it.”

Mr. Bibb searched for the deed and title and learned that the mill belongs to the State of New York, and the State University of New York Board of Trustees are the decision makers. The biggest hurdle, he said, is a new administration that wast set in place this summer — some members have never even been to Southampton, much less taken note of the campus windmill.

Another involved party is the New York State Parks Department, which Mr. Bibb said, is “wildly enthusiastic.”

The triangle parcel at the corner of Windmill Lane and Hampton Road where Mr. Bibb envisions the windmill being placed is an open space parcel jointly owned by the village and Southampton Town. That site is a possibility, the mayor said, but there are others, too.

“The key goal is to get permission to move the windmill over,” he said. “But that would be a nice location for it, beautiful actually. … We’re pushing it, but there are a lot of moving parts.”

One part that’s not moving are the blades of the mill. They were damaged in a storm last winter, removed, and are in storage, Mr. Bibb pointed out. Without restoration, in another 25 years, the mill would be “unusable,” he speculated.

“People have been talking about moving the mill for decades,” Mr. Bibb continued. “Right now, it’s locked, you can’t go in it.”

The mill was built in 1712 by Jeremiah Jagger, Mannaseh Kempton, and Thomas Stephens. About two and a half stories high, it was the tallest structure in the village, soaring higher than church steeples. It functioned as a working mill, as well as a lookout for approaching whaling ships.

Ms. Halsey’s poem notes, “The sight of a whale from the top of the mill, Sent a blast that would waken the dead down the hill. When the whale rally sounded at night or at morn, The call was a rival of Gabriel’s horn.”

It was sold in 1889 and moved to its current home in Shinnecock Hills.

“Southampton villagers, however, were distraught over the loss of the iconic, English-style windmill and area newspapers bemoaned Southampton’s loss of its cherished mill, the oldest on Long Island and generally considered to be the oldest windmill in the United States,” states a project report authored by Mr. Bibb after extensive research.

Textile magnate Arthur Brigham Claflin purchased the property in 1898, and built a luxurious mansion designed by architect Grosvenor Atterbury, and featuring 30 rooms.

Abandoned during the depression, the property lay fallow for close to 15 years before it changed hands again. The 60-acre estate was sold to Lorence Tucker, who converted the mansion into a high end resort, the Tucker Mill Inn. In the summer of 1957, Tennessee Williams lived in the mill, using it as a writing hideaway. During that time, he wrote “The Day on Which a Man Dies,” a play reflecting on the death of dear friend and East End resident Jackson Pollack.

Long Island University acquired the property in 1963. In “Ghosts of Long Island,” author Kerriann Flanagan Brosky articulates the legend of the mill’s ghost. Beatrice Claflin was playing in the mill, fell down the steps, broke her neck, and died.

“I could not find any evidence to prove this, but rumor has it that when the windmill became part of the college campus, students would often report seeing the face of a small girl peering out from its windows when nobody was there,” wrote Ms. Brosky. She also made note that the mansion itself was called “the haunted house.”

Mr. Bibb refutes the legend of the little girl ghost. Beatrice lived to be nearly 90 and died in California, he said.

“During Long Island University’s ownership, officials at the university tried to engage ghostbusters/alien body researchers to inspect the mill and confirm Beatrice’s ghost there, but there was no money for that research project and it was never undertaken,” he said.

When the college bought the property, the mill was used as a classroom and headquarters for the college fire brigade. Ms. Brosky wrote, “As the years went on, the windmill was used as a social center, a residence for visiting faculty, and a small lecture hall, while the old house became the college’s administration offices.”

Could it become a “social center” again? Mayor Warren, Mr. Bibb and committee members hope so.

Moving and restoring the mill could come with an approximate $1 million price tag, and Mr. Bibb has hopes of raising $2 million. There could be federal and state grants available for the work; it could be named a National Historic Landmark. Additionally, Mr. Bibb looked back at benefactors who donated to a 1990s restoration effort. Prominent summer residents, including Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and Angier Biddle Duke, raised $250,000 to restore the mill.

“That kind of enthusiasm is going to be repeated,” Mr. Bibb predicted.

Enthusiasm for the move is on the rise, Mayor Warren said. “It seems like there’s a lot of momentum, a lot of excitement,” he said, “but, ultimately, it does come down to whether the residents of the village and the town want it. Many people have suggested it.”