Built in 1797. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1978. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“The Chatham Windmill is a historic windmill at Chase Park in Chatham, Massachusetts. Built in 1797, it is one of the state's few surviving wooden windmills, and also one of the few still in working condition.”
Wikipedia article Chatham Windmill, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 145 National Register listings in Barnstable County · listed in 1978 · category: Structure · built in 1797.
National Register reference number.78000421- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 39 fires within 5 miles of Chatham Windmill between
2003 and 2020, burning about 12 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 5 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
17
Arson/incendiarism
5
Equipment and vehicle use
4
Debris and open burning
4
Recreation and ceremony
3
Smoking
2
Natural
2
Fireworks
1
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,523 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Chatham Windmill between 1840 and
1975: 697 Animalia, 626 Plantae, 151 Fungi, 36 Unrecorded, 7 Bacteria, 6 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. Pealey, A. R. Hodgdon and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
2 workings within 5 miles of Chatham Windmill: 1 past producer, 1 producer.
1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Chatham, the town this property stands in, in 5 storm reports between 1999 and 2019: 2 flood, 1 heavy rain, 1 flash flood, 1 thunderstorm wind.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
In Chatham, a NWS survey found numerous large trees uprooted, consistent with 90+ mph microburst straight line winds, which is what remained after the Harwich tornado lifted. Two utility poles were leaning on Morris Island Road with one snapped in half and wires hanging low to the ground. A mesonet site reported a gust to 85 mph at 1115 AM EST (1215 PM EDT). Emergency management cited $426,000 in costs for the town to clean debris from roadways. Total damage estimates are much higher, accounting for individual homeowner and business claims.
At 112 AM EST, the Chatham Town Hall basement and parking lot were reported to be flooded. At 300 AM EST, the Automated Surface Observation platform at Chatham Airport reported storm total rainfall of 5.27 inches.
Several roads experienced street flooding, closing the roads. These included: Orleans Road at Frost Fish Road, Stepping Stones at Heritage Lane, Commerce Park South, Main Street near the Chatham Motel, and Route 28 near Stoney Hill Road.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
1,545 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
The Chatham Windmil1 is located in Chase Park on a small hill above Mill Pond in the southeastern corner of Chatham. The Windmill is a three-story octangonal structure with a rotating cap. The sides of the mill taper in to the cap which has a ridge and cambered sides. The blades are attached at one gable and the peak by tail pole extends from the other gable. The entire structure is sheathed in shingles. There are entrances on two sides; one to the north and one to the south. There are two small windows on the second floor. The blades are a simple rectangular grid and are fitted with two sails each to regulate the velocity. On the ground floor is the stone wheel powered by the blades. The mill was originally built in 1797 and much of the fabric of the existing structure is original.
Wearing parts, such as gears, have been replaced periodi- cally. Some of the structure has been replaced during restorations in 1956 and 1977. Both times the work was competently and professionally carried out, con- serving as much of the existing fabric as allowable and avoiding wholesale re- placement.
Statement of significance
/ARCHITECT Col. Benjamin Godfrey The Chatham Windmill is significant as one of the few surviving wind-powered grist mill in operating condition. The Windmill was the principal grist mill in Chatham throughout the 19th century. The Windmill was built by Colonel Benjamin Godfrey in 1797, whose family continued to own it until the end of the Civil War. The mill passed hands several times but re- mained in use until a gale storm in 1907 destroyed the top of the shaft and arms. In 1908 it was again put back in use and it remained so until 1916. In 1929 another storm tipped the cap, wrecking the trundle and blades again. In 1955 the Windmill was donated to the Town of Chatham by Stuart Crocker. At that time it was moved from its original location on Stage Harbor to its present site.
The Town maintains the Windmill as a museum and employes a miller who continues to grind corn.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 78000421, 9 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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