Old Higgins Farm Windmill

Ihe Old Higgins Farm Windmill is a 30 Ieet high, shingled structure with a fixed octagonal base 20 feet across, and a revolving shingled cap constructed of framing members curved like the hull of a ship. The windshaft, 20 feet long and 16 inches in diameter, is original. A 48 feet tail pole, used to move the cap around, travels in a circle 110 feet in diameter, but due to its rotted condition it will have to be replaced. The sails have been lost and will have to be reconstructed, but 85% of the rest of the structure is original. The windmill has three levels and contains remarkably engineered wooden moving parts. The moveable cap, whose shaft is turned by windpower, contains a large wooden gear called the bread wheel, which turns the upright shaft in the middle of the tower.

This shaft turns the upper and lower grindstones in the middle level of the windmill. A hopper and trough above the grindstones are filled with corn, which feeds out to be ground by the two grindstones. The ground meal is forced down a long shute to the meal trough on the first level. The first level contains a sturdy wooden frame to support the weight of the stones above, as well as a corn cob cracker which grinds cobs into animal feed. The wooden moving parts of the windmill are still extant, and with the planned restoration work the mill will be able to function again very soon. As well as containing remarkable moving parts, the windmill has some unusual carvns an decrations reminiscent i scrimshaw.

These decorations, as well as the boat-like construction methods (curved cap, mast-like windshaft, pegged floor and all wooden materials), gave rise to the local belief that the mill was constructed by ship builders.

/ARCHITECT STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Old Higgins Farm Windmill is significant as one of the few remaining windmills of the type once so numerous on Cape Cod, and as the only extant one in Brewster. The design, common in 17th century England, has a fixed base and moveable cap. Because the base is not permanently attached to a foundation, but rests on top of the ground, it, and others of its type, were often moved around. The mill was used to grind corn, the main export crop of Cape Cod in the 19th century, and after the Civil War, when the demand for corn diminished, this mill, and others like it on the Cape, were used with less frequency. The mill is in remarkable condition, with all of its moving parts extant except for the arms and sails.

The interior 'scrimshawe' carvings also add to the windmill's significance. The windmill is now being restored to its original working condition. The windmill has been in the same general location since the late eighteenth . century. In 1795 there were three mills in the area, one of which stood on land belonging to the Crosby family. By 1845, Assessor records show that the Crosby's windmill was the only one in Brewster. At that time, of it was owned jointly by "Higgins and Crosby", I by Nathan Crosby and 1 by Isaac Hopkins. Interest in the mill passed through many hands, but the property never passed entirely out of Crosby ownership. The windmill was probably moved several times during the nineteenth century, but never far from its original location.

Around 1890 it was moved to the nearby estate of Roland Crosby Nickerson, where it served for many years as a club house at the ninth hole of his private golf course.