The Yorktown Windmill

Built in 1711 by William Buckner, the Yorktown Windmill served as a guidepost on the York River for nearly two centuries. After retiring as Surveyor General of Virginia, Buckner bought the pointed bluff above Yorktown from John Lewis of Gloucester to build a mill for grinding corn. Although Buckner died five years later, the mill continued to provide most of York County’s flour throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Though never photographed, it appeared in paintings, engravings, and sketches over the years, including Lt. Thomas Davies’s “A View of the Town of York Virginia from the River,” painted during 1754-1756, James and Charles Peale’s 1784 “Washington and his Generals at Yorktown,” and Robert Sears’s 1848 hand-colored wood engraving “View of Yorktown, from the Old Windmill, as You Approach from Williamsburg.” Its appearance in the Peales’ painting shows that it remained at its original location from 1711 through the end of the American Revolution, while research during reconstruction suggests it may have moved across Windmill Creek in the early 1800s. During both the American Revolution and the American Civil War, military and logistical maps showed the windmill as a Yorktown landmark. Plans to reconstruct it began in 2008 through discussions between engineer Walt Akers and Colonial National Historical Park superintendent Dan Smith. The design was based on surviving paintings of the original mill, Historic American Building Survey research, and visits to nearly a dozen surviving American windmills from the 18th and 19th centuries. The fully functional replica was built in Seaford, Virginia, by more than 100 volunteers over three years, then disassembled in the fall of 2011 and moved to a site less than 100 yards from the original location for the 300th anniversary of the first mill’s construction. Named Miss Evelyn for the designer’s wife, it was dedicated on October 19, 2011, and remains on permanent loan from the Akers family to the Watermen’s Museum.

Yorktown, Virginia · United States