Newport Tower (Old Stone Mill)
Newport, Rhode Island, United States
A round stone tower in Touro Park most likely built as a mid-17th-century windmill, whose odd architecture has fed centuries of Norse and Templar speculation that mainstream archaeology does not support.
The tower stands about 28 feet tall and 22 to 23 feet across, carried on eight cylindrical columns joined by arches, at the top of Mill Street in Touro Park. The documentary record is unambiguous: Benedict Arnold, first colonial governor of Rhode Island, left "my stone built Wind Mill" in his 1677 will, the structure stood at the upper end of his Newport property, and a 1741 document calls it the old stone mill. Across the 18th century it served as a haymow, a powder store, and a lookout during the Revolution.
In 1948 to 1951 the Society for American Archaeology excavated a trench through the tower under William S. Godfrey: every artifact recovered was 17th century, and radiocarbon testing of the mortar dated to the 1600s. Claims of Norse, Templar, or pre-Columbian origins have little or no support among mainstream scholars, and comparisons to England's Chesterton Windmill (1632 to 1633) are documented. The legend is nonetheless a genuine and long-running American one, and this entry holds both truths: the archaeology and the mythology it inspired.
Visiting
The tower stands in Touro Park, an open city park, and can be viewed free at any reasonable hour. See Discover Newport for park information.
Photo: ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newport_Tower_-_Newport%2C_RI_%2851488606239%29.jpg))
Associated traditions & practices
Visitor stories