Gladden Windmill a former Napoli treasure

Jan 26, 2024

NAPOLI — As the Cattaraugus County town of Napoli turns 200 years old, it's a good time to look back and recognize a unique structure that once stood on a farm along Pigeon Valley Road — the Gladden Windmill.

Built by George Gladden in 1890, the historic Gladden Windmill was a rare example of wind power technology in the United States and believed to be a variation of one patented by Bernard Koeppe in 1888.

In Koeppe's design, the shutters were flat and the vanes were V-shaped, but in Gladden's the opposite was true. The design greatly improved the efficiency of the unit. It was a cylindrical shape attached to a vertical shaft — instead of the conventional circular type — and attached to the end of a horizontal shaft. His attempt produced a significant piece of industrial architecture, a vertical windmill, uncommon in its design in the United States.

A quote from Gladden's son, Charles, described the vertical windmill as "a four-story, wood frame structure built on a stone foundation. The mill had three lower stories housing the machinery of the mill, while a fourth story contained the revolving wind wheel. The square portion of the structure below the wind wheel had a four-foot easterly extension which provided additional storage space. A rectangular, one-story porch extended from this addition. Both the porch and the wind wheel were covered by gable roofs. The exterior walls were partly covered with board siding and asphalt shingles."

AN ARTICLE in "Society for Industrial Archeology" said the Gladden Mill, or turbine, was originally equipped with machinery for elevating and grinding grain, an apple grater and cider press, wood lathe and shop for general repair work.

The windmill operated for nearly 40 years until 1930 when the thrust bearing at the bottom of the wheel shaft cracked and mill operations ceased. After the mill stopped operating, it was used for storage for the farm. It was believed to be the only one of its kind remaining in the country.

According to the book "Cattaraugus County Bicentennial History," Stephen Gladden came to Napoli from Onondaga County in 1827 and purchased his farm from the Holland Land Company.

After the Civil War, his son, George Gladden, bought several thousand young apple trees from a bankrupt nursery in Dansville. He traveled throughout the county selling the trees. Many of the apple orchards in the area began from his unique little business.

Through this profitable venture, Gladden gained enough capital to build and develop his farm. He built the expansive 14-room house on Pigeon Valley Road between 1874 and ’76, which was one of the first homes in the area to have central heating.

In an effort to avoid the long journey to the gristmill, he wondered whether a mill powered by wind would be feasible on his farm. In 1890, Gladden, his son Charles and Melzer Bushnell began building the unique windmill behind the house.

Gladden had initially seen the prototype for his windmill near Lincoln, Neb., in 1888 while visiting relatives, according to the National Park Service. He immediately acquired the rights to build the mill and purchased the necessary iron parts and gears. The basement for the structure was excavated and the foundation laid in the fall of 1890. The mill was completed a year later.

THE WINDMILL achieved a spot on the list in the National Register of Historical Places in 1973. The National Park Service team made a graphic and detailed record of the mill in 1975 and placed their report in the Historic American Engineering Record in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The property was owned by John Milks when the windmill was nominated for the National Register of Historic Places, according to the National Park Service. The National Register application said, "Gladden's vertical windmill, while no longer operational, is largely intact with the exception of the vanes which have been removed. It remains as a unique structure and as the ingenious answer to one farmer's search for convenience and increased productivity."

As the mill sat idle for many years, it began to fall into ruin. Due to the advanced deterioration of the structure and its imminent collapse, the then owners threatened to have the structure demolished.

The former Glover's Mill Energy Center, a conservation and alternative-energy information center headquartered in an 1833 gristmill in East Randolph, adopted preservation of the Gladden turbine in an effort to save it. The group hoped to buy the turbine and move it to safety. General Mills generously donated $1,000 to the campaign, but additional donations were urgently needed to help save the mill.

In very poor condition, with rotting timbers and leaning toward the farmhouse, the windmill had to be dismantled and moved to a proposed site in the town of Conewango where it was stored around 1978. Planned for future use, total reconstruction of the windmill has never happened.

(Contact reporter Deb Everts at [email protected].)

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