Newport Tower Research - 3D Imaging and Its Uses

By Patrick Shekleton

Enigmatic, and controversial, the Newport Tower is located within Touro Park in Newport, Rhode Island. A local landmark, the tower is oft-times referred to as “The Old Stone Mill,” a derivation of the key elements of the phrase “my Stone Built Wind-miln” recorded on 24 December 1677 in Benedict Arnold’s will. Ten months prior, in a land deed abutting the area, the tower was referred to as “ye Stone Mill.”

Proponents of what has become known as the “Arnold Theory,” the legend that the tower was constructed by the first governor of the Colony, cite the aforementioned two documents, both dating from 1677, as the earliest recorded evidence of the tower’s existence.

Unfortunately, Arnold Theorists overlooked the passage in John Josselyn’s 1674 published book, An Account of Two Voyages to New-England, in which Josselyn wrote “At the further end of the Bay by the mouth of Narragansets-River, on the South-side thereof was old Plimouth plantation Anno 1602.” Josselyn, who spent a year in New England (1638-1639) on his first visit, and then eight years on his second (1663-1671), obviously didn’t receive the memo that Benedict Arnold had constructed the tower. Instead, Josselyn ascribed the remnants of the “old Plimouth plantation” on the south end of present-day Aquidneck Island, formerly Rhode Island, to Bartholomew Gosnold, the leader of the 1602 English exploration of the southern Cape Cod region.

William Wood, the author of the 1634-published book, Wood's New-England's Prospect, likewise failed to receive the ‘Arnold built the tower’ memo. Wood illustrated a plantation on the southern end of Aquidneck Island, at exactly 41.48°, which happens to be the latitude of the Newport Tower’s latitude. Wood’s name for the plantation was “Old Plymouth.”

Johannes Bronstedt, the Director of the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, discounted the theory that the structure’s original purposed was that of a wind-powered grist mill, acknowledging that it might have been re-purposed as a mill, writing in a 1954-published article the following: “The deciding argument against the windmill theory, however, is the fact that the tower rests on pillars and arcades. This would be an anomaly in the case of a windmill” (Bronstedt 1953: 441).

Bronstedt continued:

In its style [the] Newport Tower undoubtedly contains medieval features. The pillars themselves and the flat arches of the arcades and over the fireplace are typically Romanesque elements. The double splay in some of the windows is also a common Romanesque feature…Thus there remain, as typically Romanesque architectural details, the pillars, the arches, and the double splay. These medievalisms are so conspicuous that, if the tower were in Europe, dating it to the Middle Ages would probably meet with no protest.

What is a tower with medieval architectural elements doing in Colonial North America? The answer is simple, but also controversial – it existed on the North American landscape prior to the English Colonial settling of the New England area. Bronstedt ruminated further:

May the tower originally have been a round church – or rather, the central part of one? This would provide a natural explanation of pillars and arcades. The eight pillars, placed in a circle and connected by arches form a design exactly like that of central ecclesiastical buildings; moreover, the exact orientation according to the cardinal points is of religious significance; again, the outward projecting capstones of the pillars, the so-called “offsets,” although credited with static significance, may also have served as bases for a light, sloping roof over an ambulatory. We do not know whether or not there was such structure (possibly with an apse), the archeological excavations having been insufficient on this point. The possibility has also been suggested that an ambulatory was planned but never executed, that the building was an unfinished emergency church. (Bronsted 1953: 441)

The argument of the origin of the Newport Tower, when it was constructed and by whom, will not be settled here.

What can be appreciated by all who read this short narrative, and then explore the various models and images created and shared by the Providence, Rhode Island-based Functional 3D, are the unique architectural elements of the Newport Tower. Explore the ground plan of the structure, the pillar design, the double-splayed windows, and the arch constructs. Drive your view into the fireplace and look up at the unique double flue-arrangement. Drive through the pillars to their interior, and then look up at the beam socket hole and the exterior of the structure wrapping through the space. Explore the unique arrangement of stones in the arch between Pillar 7 and 8, the Egg stone (Winter Solstice alignment focal point) on the interior and the Red Granite Orb and Keystone rocks on the exterior. You have an opportunity to view, examine, and assess the Newport Tower in a way that no one has done before.   

Above all, have fun with the terrific models created by Functional 3D!

Reference:

Bronstedt, Johannes. “Norsemen in North America Before Columbus.” Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution ... 1953. 367-405.Washington: U.S. G.P.O; available at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.57835.