This gambrel-roofed colonial house was moved to its current location at 26 Bridge Street in Warren, RI. Originally part of a 200 acre parcel (Boundfield Farm, page 9, and mentioned here) owned first by William Bradford, Jr. in 1680, an original proprietor of Bristol, that was later purchased by John Saffin in 1681, Robert Jolls in 1710, and passed 170 acres (some of which was in Swanzey) to his son, Thomas Jolls, in 1739, the house first appears in the record in 1806, when Nathaniel Phillips, a prominent local figure who served as the Surveyor of the Port of Warren and Barrington, bought a small lot from Samuel Burr for $75 and built a windmill near a house that was moved there from another area. The Munroe House (now at 833 Main Street) was the only house in the area until the windmill was built. The architectural details of the windmill house suggest that it was built decades prior to its first appearance in the town records. The windmill was built at what is now the corner of Beach and Hall Streets. A dirt path was made to the house and windmill, later forming the north end of Hall Street and the east end of Bridge Street to County Road.
In the 1760s, Sarah Ormsby built a house facing on County Road (Main Street), and then by 1778 Shubael Burr (owner of Burr’s Tavern in Warren) built a house on land north of hers and eventually acquired all of the land west of County Road. By 1817 the windmill is gone, and Samuel Burr’s son, Shubael acquired the lot where the house is now. Anna Cole is listed as living there in 1810, followed by Isaac Cole in 1820. In 1841, the house was moved across Hall Street to its present location at the southwest corner of Hall and Bridge Street. Click here for a 2011video presentation about the house and area by Doug Hinman of the Warren Preservation Society. For a complete description of the Windmill House in 2014, see the listing on Zillow.
(Above) An early map of Bristol shows the area of the Boundfield Farm that John Saffin purchased in 1681 from William Bradford, Jr. and the four original proprietors of Bristol following King Philip’s War.
(Above) An 1895 map of Warren shows the location of the Windmill House at the corner of Bridge and Hall Streets just north of Beach Street and west of Main Street. Another wind mill of unknown origin is shown in the lower left corner of the map where Oyster Point is today.
(Above) An AI depiction of what the windmill and windmill house on Boundfield Farm may have looked like in the 18th century. A number of windmills were erected in the area in order to mill flour. They were often moved to different locations.
Windmills on Aquidneck Island include the Boyd Brothers’ windmill (above) and the Sherman Mill (below) in Portsmouth. Many other mills were constructed on Cape Cod.
