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It is commonly considered to have been a windmill built in the mid 17th century. However, the tower has received attention due to speculation that it is actually several centuries older and represents evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.
The Norse theory is regarded today as speculative and unsupported by archaeological or documentary evidence.
Originally posted by ravenshadow13
Other groups have been known to use Runes. Pagans, Druids, Masons maybe, New Age religions, and all the "Light" or "White" "Brotherhood" type groups, there are a few of those. I think Satanists may occasionally use them, as well. Plus it could be Runic poetry inscribed, if the person who built the tower was creative/witty like that.
Building a windmill of stone would have been economically illogical, especially in a tenuous new colony still much concerned with protecting itself from hostile Indians.
In settled Europe, there are large numbers of stone tower mills, the earliest recorded being at Dover in 1294-5 (demolished in the 1780s). The closest in appearance is the Chesterton Mill, known to have been built as a windmill in 1632.
The construction of the Tower would be beyond the capabilities of the colonists. The Newport Tower required about a million pounds of stone to be built, all of it carried uphill from the waters edge. A skilled stone mason would have been needed and it is unlikely one was available in this tiny new colony.
Construction of similar towers had been going on in England for three hundred years. There is no evidence, one way or the other, as to stonemasons being present in Newport at the time, although the houses are likely to have had stone fireplace and chimneys which someone must have been able to build.
Pre-Colonial maps by Gerardus Mercator and others are claimed to mark the tower's location.
As with Verrazzano’s vague report, none of these maps are at a scale to provide conclusive evidence that Naragansett Bay is the location, nor do they show sufficient detail to imply, except to a viewer who wishes to be convinced of it, that the structures shown are intended to represent the Newport Tower.
Some believe that the five runic markers read 'HNKRS' representing the old Norse word for stool, meaning the seat of a bishop's church
Four years after Mean's book came out two professors, P. Luvfold and M. Bjorndal, found what appeared to be a Swedish-Norwegian runic inscription on the west side of the tower, 14 feet above the ground. The inscription included a date: 1010. While this would seem to support the Norse theory, the number of years involved since the proposal of the theory in 1837 to the discovery of the rune makes it impossible to discount that the markings were part of a hoax perpetrated during the intervening century.
Though there is logic behind this thinking, one can find numerous examples throughout Europe of fireplaces installed in mills. The type of fireplace installed in most of these windmills is also similar to the fireplace in the Newport Tower because the flu exits through the side wall, rather than the roof. Since the tops of most windmills were designed to turn so the blades could face the wind, running the flu straight up through the roof was not practical.
10) Did Benedict Arnold have anything to do with the construction of the tower?
Most historians accept that the tower is the remains of an old stone windmill built in colonial times by Benedict Arnold, grandfather of the Revolutionary War patriot/traitor with the same name. Arnold was governor of Rhode Island at the time and owned the land where the tower is located. Arnold mentions the structure in his will composed in 1677 referring to it as "my stone built Wind Mill." Later records show it was used as a lookout tower by the Americans and an armory by the British during the Revolution
Originally posted by ravenshadow13
I think that we can break the mystery into a number of different questions.
1) Who built the tower and when was it built?
2) Why is there a fireplace?
3) Is there numerological significance to the dimensions of the tower?
4) Was it used as a mill, or built to resemble one?
5) What was the original purpose of the tower?
6) Why is it constructed in an oval shape?
7) What to the runic marking say?
8) Who put the runic markings there, and when?
9) Were the runic markings part of a hoax?
10) Did Benedict Arnold have anything to do with the construction of the tower?
11) Did the Nordic?
12) Did someone else?
There are a number of problems with this "rune" that is supposed to spell out IHC. During my inspection of the rock, I could find no trace of the supposed C. Furthermore, the I and H can only be read by selectively accepting and ignoring the markings on the rock.
Like other forms of rock art, there is no accurate way to date when these markings were carved into the stone. Certainly the first inscription existed by 1946, but there's no way to rule out a recent hoax. This all assumes that the markings are genuine inscriptions; a fact I'm not completely convinced of.
The most recent theory proposed to explain the Newport Tower's origins comes from the book "1421 – The Year China Discovered America." As the title suggests, the author Gavin Menzies theorizes that the tower was built by early Chinese explorers during the 15th century to serve as a lighthouse.
This startling revelation is based on a comparison of the Rhode Island tower to a similar structure used as a lighthouse in the port of Zaiton in Southern China. The towers do look alike; each built atop eight columns and once covered in smooth plaster. Other design elements such as the windows and fireplace are also similar.