
A recent chapter in an obscure edited volume from a university publisher in Istanbul, Turkey, written by Patrick Shekleton, is being promoted by him as peer-reviewed proof that the Old Stone Mill tower in Touro Park of Newport, Rhode Island is a 12th century baptistery.
The edited volume itself is a book titled, “Osmanl? ?mparatorlu?unda Co?rafya ve Kartografya.” This translates to, “Geography and Cartography in the Ottoman Empire,” which is the subject of the volume overall.
Mapping It All Out
The largest portion of Shekleton’s 83-page chapter is spent attempting to convince the reader his conclusion that a historic windmill tower in Newport, RI is a 12th-century baptistery largely through the use of pre-Columbian maps.
Through these, he rationalizes a variety of blob-squatch bits of pigment and misapplied cartographic works of Maximus Planudes, Piri Reis, and a handful of other early maps from as early as the 12th and 13th centuries to align them with Newport’s windmill tower.
The main two maps he highlights are mostly the work of Maximus Planudes, specifically the reconstructed Ptolemaic maps, Seragliensis 57 and Vaticanus Urbinas Graecus 82, both of which clearly show the coastlines of Spain and the British Isles along with those of the Mediterranean region. Shekleton seems to believe that a tiny, circular bit of pigment–perhaps intended as a landform; perhaps a random splotch of pigment–is the earliest cartographic representation of the Newport Tower where it shows the Insula de Brazile.
It’s important to note that a great many early maps showed the island of Brazile (also Brasil, Bracile, Hy-Brasil, Hy Brasil, Hy Breasil, Hy Breasail, Hy Breasal, Hy Brazil, I-Brasil and probably a few others). It was a mythical island, generally west of Ireland, but on some maps it was rendered as large as a continent. On most, it was rather tiny. In Irish folklore, it was a ghost-island, surrounded in a fog-bank and it would disappear whenever ships got too close.
On the Piri Reis map, it gets even worse. In what appears to be full-blown apophenia, Shekleton sees an image of the “blessed mother” along a North American coastline. The significant point here is that Piri Reis’s 1513 map, while stunningly accurate in places like Africa and even South America, begins to have serious problems depicting the “New World” in the northern hemisphere.
He sees this toast-like image of the blessed mother as an icon representing the alleged baptistery in Rhode Island, but the section of the Piri Reis map Shekleton focuses on is remarkably close to what most cartographers have considered to be Cuba. Correct or not, the main point is the projection of this 16th century map is often inconsistent from one part of the map to another.
Which is true for all of these early maps. And a good reason why any conclusions based on them should be with some question. Shekelton, while clearly passionate about his work, has not demonstrated sufficiently that the cartographic observations he’s made are even valid. Though he would perhaps respond to this by saying his cartographic findings were reviewed by expert peers and, therefore, legitimate. But as we’ve seen many times in recent years, peer review can be flawed.
Shekleton’s Additional Evidence
Aside from the weak map evidence, Shekleton does attempt to show other ways a stone mill tower can be a much older baptistery.
Prester John
One of these is the alleged letter of Prester John to Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos in 1165, which described rich, Asian lands filled with abundant resources like precious gems and gold. The irony is, Prester John was pure mythology and was never a genuine person.
German scholar Friedrich Zarncke published the first Latin version of the Prester John texts in 1876, which includes that letter to the Byzantine emperor, which nearly every scholar on the topic believes is a forgery, possibly as propaganda designed to diminish Papal authority.
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
Another alleged early traveler who’s writing is highly suspect. Much of Manderville’s work can be directly traced to other early writers like Friar Odoric, the La Flor des Estoires d’Orient of Haiton, Giavanni da Pian del Carpine, Vincent de Beauvais, and even Marco Polo.
Mandeville’s work includes many impossible claims, not the least of which was his identity. It’s almost certain that there was no knight in England with the name “John Mandeville.” In fact, there’s no evidence that anyone of that name ever existed. The anonymous author claims to have traveled the world for 35 years, but his errors suggest otherwise. For instance, he describes churches and temples that would have been in ruins by the time of writing about them.
He also has no personal knowledge of the Arabic language, in spite of supposedly serving as the Sultan of Egypt. His use of Arabic, Greek, and Hebrew are all from known written sources. His ability to use and understand an astrolabe is dubious as well, given some errors and outright fabrications along with the lack of star navigation data recorded in chapters other than the one he writes about the astrolabe.
John Mandeville was a pseudonym, and while there may have been some elements that were true, much of the text was borrowed from other existing sources. But, even if Prester John and John Mandeville were both actual travelers, they both wrote of travel to Asia as their furthest point. Neither of them mention the New World or any of the wonders specific to it.
The Cellere Codex of Giovanni da Verrazzano
This is one of the larger criticisms I have of Shekleton’s work. And I think it’s indicative of his overall methodology, which is that he began with a conclusion, shopped for data that were supportive, then sees in those data that which he wants.
Moreover, this is a good example from his monograph that shows what the level the peer-review is actually at. Not only does he cite himself (at least 35 times!) when he claims the Giovanni da Verrazzano codex supports his claim of a baptistery, he forces the reader to go to that citation in order to understand the logic.
In addition, he makes some errors that one might have thought at least one peer-reviewer would have caught. First, he misspells “Verrazzano” as “Verrazano” consistently in his narrative. Minor to be sure. But he also mis-translates Verrazzano’s words. In his letter to King Francis I of France, Giovanni da Verrazzano (or more likely his secretary) writes in cursive Italian:
We discovered a triangular-shaped island, ten leagues from the mainland, similar in size to the island of Rhodes [ likely Block Island ]; it was full of hills, covered in trees, and highly populated to judge by the fires we saw burning continually along the shore. We baptized it in the name of your illustrious mother, but did not anchor there because the weather was unfavorable (Wroth 1970, 137).
The original text transliteration is:
Discoprimmo una isola in forma triangulare, lontana dal continente leghe dieci, di grandeza simile a la insula di Rhodo piena di colli, coperta d’albori molto popolata per e continovy fuachi per tutto al lito intorno vedemmo facevano. Baptzemmola in nome de la Vostra clarissima genitrice. [Aloysia] No surgendo a quella per la oppositione del tempo. Pervenimmo a una altra terra distante de la insula leghe XV, dov trovamo unobellissimo porto et prima che in quello entrassimo vedemmo circa di XX barchette di gente che venivano con varii gridi et maravigle intorno a la nave (Wroth 1970, 127).
Shekleton’s self-citation is to a graphic that highlights the words I’ve underlined below. In particular, he translates “baptezemmola” to be “baptistery “ and “millstone.” He re-interprets “de la Vrá” to be “de lavra,” mixing Italian and Greek for no apparent reason. The words “de la” are used elsewhere in the Cellere Codex and it consistently means “of the.”
The word “Vra” in this passage is translated by Susan Tarrow to mean the same as “Vostra” (“Your”), but my first thought was that it was “Vera” making the passage read “We baptized it in the name of the one True Illustrious Mother…” but my Italian is very weak and I’m sure Tarrow’s work is based on much better experience.
Regardless, Verrazzano convincingly stated that they did not go ashore at this location because of the weather. Instead, he chose to do a drive-by baptism in the name of the King’s illustrious mother, Aloysia, a French-German version of Louise. And this is probably the context Tarrow used to translate “Vra” to “Vostra.” The word “Aloysia” is written as an edit above and between “genitrice” and “no” with an “insert” mark directly below and between these two words. He was, of course, still at Block Island, some 25 miles from the location that would one day be the site of a stone windmill tower Shekleton believes to be a baptistery.
Verrazzano writes of “baptizing” many locations during their travels: Arcadia, because of the beauty of the trees; Costa di Lorenna, after the Cardinal; Santa Margarita, after the King’s sister; and, of course, Aloysia, after the King’s mother. An island he could only describe poorly due to the brief encounter in bad weather, exaggerating and inflating the island’s size and distance.
Architectural
Shekleton also lists some architectural features he believes to support his conclusion. However, as evidence, these points are spurious. For instance, he notes that the circular design is consistent with 12th century church designs, particularly in Scandinavia, which are also circular. This is hardly evidence since the circular form is likewise consistent to 17th century windmill designs.
The diameter of the tower is roughly 7 meters, though the structure isn’t a perfect circle. Holland (1951) tells us that the overall diameter is 7.5 m while the mean diameter is 6.6 m. The east-west diameter measurement, for instance, is different from the north-south measurement, making the circular tower more of an ellipse, though it’s barely noticeable.
Shekleton states the diameter is 22 ulna, a measurement based on the Belgic foot. In much the same way the foot derives from the Greek pode (or “foot”), the ulna (Latin for “arm”) is essentially the same idea as the cubit: the length of the forearm from the elbow to the extended finger tips. In fact, it was often also called the “ell” as in “elbow.”
What is actually known about these early measurements is quite ephemeral. Much of the work was actually done by Flinders Petrie in the late 1800s as he investigated pre-Roman coastal settlements in Ireland and England.
Still, it hardly matters since there is no indication that the construction method and architectural plan of the Newport Tower was intended to be precise. The discrepancy in diameter measurements alone shows this.
Shekleton mentions some other architectural features like plaster, alignments, and such. I don’t really see these as problematic since plaster was so common and one can create all sorts of post-hoc alignments given enough points. Demonstrating intentionality is where the problem always arises for anomaly seekers who pay too much attention to coincidental alignments.
What is the Newport Tower? Really
Benedict Arnold’s Windmill
All the best evidence points to a 17th century Colonial origin for the stone tower that sits today in Touro park of Newport, Rhode Island.
A 1677 land deed and the last will and testament of Governor Benedict Arnold mentions it as a “stone mill.” A deed for a Jewish cemetery dated to February 28, 1677 describes the tower as “ye Stone Mill.” In addition, the governor’s will, also dated to 1677, refers to the tower as “my Stone Built Wind-miln.”
Benedict Arnold, the first governor of Rhode Island and grandfather to the famous Revolutionary War traitor of the same name, also mentions the tower in the 1677 record of death for his granddaughter, Damaris Golding. In that document, he wrote that she died “and lyeth interred under a tom be in my land between my dwelling house and stone wind mill.”
Arnold’s son-in-law, Edward Pelham, also mentions the tower in his own will in 1740. At some point between 1770 and 1775, the mill shows up in a painting by Rhode Island resident Gilbert Stuart, who depicted it as being used as a hayloft.
Precedent of Style
One could argue that the governor repurposed an existing structure to suit his own needs. However, that would ignore a very stark precedent in memory of a teenage Benedict Arnold who remembers, as a lad in England, the Chesterton, Warwickshire mill designed by Inigo Jones and constructed by Sir Edward Peyto.
F. H. Shelton wrote, in 1919:
With the destruction of a previous wood windmill of 1665, blown down in a great storm, it became [Governor Arnold’s] duty to provide another one for the use of the little colony. And there is small doubt, indeed, that in doing that he undertook to provide a mill that should be as nearly as possible a copy of the old mill at Chesterton, near Leamington—the best mill of which he knew. And so, without the measurements as to the general arrangement, size and design, from memory only, he there built, with the most limited facilities, a virtual replica of the Leamington-Peyto-Jones mill. In order to secure greater permanence and protection against Indian attacks the mill was built of stone instead of wood.
For, while of course the fine stone work and carving and detail are missing, in this colonial condition, the general dimensions, the design and the interior arrangements are in substance the same throughout. It needs only the comparison of the plans of the two—side by side—to be satisfied as to that. Governor Arnold’s birthplace and connection afford the reason of the similarity, and his will even speaks of “my stone built windmill.” This old structure, still standing—as to its walls—in Truro Park, Newport, R. I., is perhaps America’s greatest colonial relic, and with its prototype of Chesterton constitutes the most unique pair of windmills, having the greatest historic interest, of any attaching to our country’s windmill history (Shelton 1919, 197-198).


Proponents of the pre-17th century origin of the structure quickly note that Benedict Arnold was born in Ilchester in Somerset, not Leamington in Warwickshire. The “Leamington” confusion probably came from the fact that he went to school in Limington, very near Ilchester. They might also note the original Chesterton structure may have been an observatory since Sir Edward Peyto was an astrologer. I’ve read that Philip Ainsworth Means writes all of this, in The Newport Tower (1942), and also suggests that the Chesterton structure wasn’t converted to a windmill until well-after Arnold’s family left for the new world.


Still, the similarities seem beyond coincidence when they’re viewed side by side. What might explain this?
It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that Arnold traveled with his father to Leicester or Lincoln at some point before immigrating to the colony at age 19. Both Ilchester and Leamington are along the Fosse Way, a Roman road built in the 1st – 2nd centuries. Another very real possibility is that another colonist at Rhode Island did see the windmill at Chesterton and modeled the Newport construction after it.
Not One of a Kind
In fact, it may have been such a good idea architecturally, that multiple versions of this sturdy windmill style were constructed in the Rhode Island colony.
In the summer of 1938, just before the devastating hurricane that wiped out many structures and severely damaged communities all along the coast of Rhode Island, H. H. Harris captured an aerial photograph of the “Bleak House,” a manor that once stood on the coast at the intersection of Winans and Ocean Avenues in Newport.
Seen in the upper-left corner of that photograph is what was known locally as “the Old Stone Mill water tower” which was on the old Governor John Collins Farm (ca. 1786-1790) near Castle Hill and Ocean Avenues. The farm was purchased by Seth Bateman in 1848 and developed into a luxury hotel. To meet the hotel’s plumbing needs, Bateman installed a water system inside the tower, which was a “perfect replica” of the Touro Park version.

Photo by HH Harris.
The hotel was known as the Bateman House and went through several owners until it was destroyed in a fire in 1959. What was left of the hotel’s buildings were bulldozed following the fire, including the stone mill tower. All that’s left of it seems to be at least one aerial photograph.
The existence of this Newport Tower twin raises some questions: how many were there originally? Was this a style used for other windmills in the region? And if we were to assume the pre-17th century “baptistery” explanation, why would there be more than one? Other questions will probably come to mind if we think about it long enough.
The Hard Archaeological Evidence
At least two major archaeological investigations took place at Touro Park around the structure. One by William Godfrey in 1948-1949 and another in 2006-2008 by private CRM firm Gray & Pape. The latter investigation was headed by archaeologists Ray Pasquariello and the late Joyce Clements.
Both investigations revealed much the same thing: cultural strata date only as far back as the 17th century colony.
In addition to these excavations, the structure’s mortar was radiocarbon dated in 1993 by a Danish research team (Hale et al 2003). They drilled into the mortar between stones, reaching a depth that would ensure the samples were not part of some later repointing efforts. Repointing is a process of restoring old mortar with new. Often the deteriorating mortar is removed then replaced with fresh, repairing stone masonry or brickwork.
In the 1993 sampling, the drill depth went past any probable repointing and into the original mortar. The samples, too small for conventional C14 dating, were analyzed with AMS (accelerated mass spectrometry) in order to determine the age of the mortar sample.
That age was about 1680.
Conclusions
It is interesting to note that Philip Ainsworth Means, in his Newport Tower, predicted in 1942 that future excavations and proper scientific research of the Newport Tower would yield the following chances:
- 50 percent that nothing will be found
- 35 percent that evidence will be 12th-15 Century Norse origin
- 10 percent that evidence will point to 17th Century Colonial origin
- 5 percent that evidence will point to European construction between 1492 and 1580
As it turns out, Means was probably not good at picking ponies. The overwhelming evidence points to a Colonial origin in the 17th Century.
There is no good evidence to suggest a date any earlier.
My words will probably not change a single mind of anyone who concludes the stone structure in Touro Park of Newport, RI is a 12th Century Norse construction. This is what they want to believe.
But it might surprise them to know this is also what I want to believe! I would love to be able to say I think the Newport Tower is of the 12th Century. I think this would be a wonderful discovery if true. But that isn’t my conclusion. And anyone who lets evidence drive their conclusions and not the other way around, would have to agree. As an historic archaeologist, I don’t doubt this may be true.
I don’t however, agree that by concluding the structure is a 17th century colonial construction equates to dooming it. Quite the contrary. I not only believe this is a 17th century colonial wind mill, it’s one of the oldest stone-built Colonial structures in North America. This is an extremely cool honorific by itself and worth of preservation as any other structure.
Sure, there are some older structures in North America that are still standing:
- San Miguel Chapel and the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, NM (ca. 1610)
- The Henry Whitfield House, CT (ca. 1639)
- Jamestown Church, VA (ca. 1639)
- and several other European structures.
And that’s not mentioning the many pre-Contact structures by indigenous peoples that still exist:
- Mesa Verde, CO (ca. 1190 CE)
- Acoma Pueblo, NM (ca. 1000 – 1200 CE)
- Chaco Canyon, NM (~ 800 CE)
- … and more
In my opinion, the fact that the Chesterton windmill very likely informed the design and construction of at least two windmills on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean is a wonderful thing. The fact that they both remained standing into the 20th century and one into the 21st is amazing. The remaining mill tower is certainly worth preserving and interpreting.
I would encourage the Newport Historical Society to continue to gather and scour local historic documents to find additional mentions of windmills to learn if any of the other grist mill operations in that region used a stone tower construction. Perhaps the mystery of who patterned it after the Chesterton mill tower can be sorted out.
References and Further Reading
Holand, Hjalmar R. (1951). The Age of the Newport Tower. Archaeology, 4(3), 155-158.
Hale, John, Jan Heinemeier, Lynne Lancaster, Alf Lindroos, and Asa Ringbom (2003). Dating Ancient Mortar. American Scientist, 91, 130-137.
Means, Philip Ainsworth (1942). Newport Tower. New York: Henry Holt and Co.
Petrie, W.M. Flinders (1877). Inductive Metrology: The Recovery Of Ancient Measures From The Monuments. Hargrove Saunders, London.
Shelton, F. H. (1919). Windmills, Picturesque And Historic: The Motors Of The Past. Journal of The Franklin Institute, 187(2), 171-198.
Shekleton, Patrick B. (2025). “Maximus Planudes And Pi?ri? Rei?s: Unusual Approaches On North America And Its Baptistery.” In, Mahmut Ak, Ahmet Üstüner (Eds.), Osmanl? ?mparatorlu?unda Co?rafya ve Kartografya. Istanbul University Press, Istanbul, 203-286.
Regarding Prester John
De Rachewiltz, Igor (1996). “Prester John and Europe’s Discovery of East Asia.” East Asian History, 11, 59–74.
Hamilton, Bernard (1996) “Prester John and the Three Kings of Cologne.” In B. Hamilton and C.F. Beckingham (eds.), Prester John, the Mongols, and the Ten Lost Tribes. Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 171–186.
Henderson, Ernest F. (1903) Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages. London: George Bell and Sons, 357-358.
Leyser, Karl J. (1988). Frederick Barbarossa and the Hohenstaufen Polity. Viator 19, 153–76.
Wagner, Bettina (2000). Die Epistola Presbiteri Johannis Lateinisch und Deutsch: Überlieferung, Textgeschichte, Rezeption und Übertragungen im Mittelalter mit bisher unedierten Texten. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 244-53.
Regarding John Mandeville
Seymour, M. C. (2016). Sir John Mandeville. In M.C. Seymour (ed.), Authors of the Middle Ages Vol I, nos 1-4. New York: Routledge, 1-64.
Somehow I’ve never gotten around to seeing this though its only about an hour drive away (though an hour on I-95 is a decade in hell). I really, really want it to be a viking tower but I’ll settle for a colonial one if I have to. At least I’m still the discoverer of the Indian Pass Stone carving which probably dates back to the civil war.