[MR] Newport Tower

[Garth Groff]

Noble Friends,

While thrashing around for something to post this morning, I remembered the Newport Tower. Here in lies a cautionary tale about the facts and what people (including us) want to believe about them (aka “fake news” in the current parlance).

The Newport Tower is a two-story stone tower preserved in a park in Newport, Rhode Island: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_Tower_(Rhode_Island) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_Tower_(Rhode_Island)> . There is no doubt that it is very old. For years popular books, and later writers on the internet, have linked this tower to the Scottish/Norse Earl of Orkney Henry Sinclair and his possible exploration of the New England coast around 1398: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_Sinclair,_Earl_of_Orkney <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_Sinclair,_Earl_of_Orkney> . Supposedly Sinclair and his men erected the tower as a fort while they wintered over in North America. 

I am willing to accept that the story of Earl Sinclair’s exploration is possible. I personally have seen the Westford Knight, or at least the knight’s sword (which is all that I could discern), a carving scratched into a rock in Westford, Massachusetts, and the possibly-related and very clear “Ship Stone” held in the nearby Westford Public Library. While these two artifacts might be clever hoaxes, they have yet to be proven or disproven: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westford_Knight <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westford_Knight> . The Westford Knight continues to be the darling of pseudo-historians who write popular books on the mysterious and quirky, and make many wild claims. The Westford Knight is frequently linked to the alleged lost treasure of the Templars (who were dissolved around 90 years earlier), and is also associated with Rosslyn Chapel.

Returning to the Newport Tower, the idea of this substantial building being erected in a few weeks to provide shelter for the explorers is absurd. It would have taken a lot longer to cut and join all those stones. More likely, the explorers would have erected a wooden palisade if they needed a protective structure. The tower would actually be a death trap to any soldiers trying to shelter there. All an enemy would have to do is sneak underneath and build a fire to smoke out the defenders above (turn the tower upside-down, and now you have something safer). Duh!

In reality the tower is a windmill dating from the late 17th century, and is recorded as such in surviving records. It was owned by colonial governor Benedict Arnold (yes, ancestor of the infamous traitor) and is mentioned in 1677. These records have always been there for writers of books, and spinners of tales, to consult. Of course, these records don’t fit with their “alternate facts". Recent scientific investigation and carbon dating of the mortar confirms the date. In addition, it is a near duplicate of a surviving mill in England, the Chesterton Windmill, which was a fairly common design in the 17th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesterton_Windmill <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesterton_Windmill> .

So I offer you this case as a caution about blindly accepting so-called facts and assumptions about history. As historians (most of us, of course, amateur historians), it behooves us to check our facts and weigh them to see if they fit reality. This is sometimes very difficult for Scadians, since we are dealing with material that is often hundreds of years old, and supporting documentation may not be there, or may be impossible for us to access. The same, of course, applies to current real-life situations as well, but I won’t moralize any further on that.

Someday I might comment on my own revelation about the arrows shown in the famous archery scene from the Luttrell Psalter.

Have fun with the links I’ve provided above.

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge