Jefferson Windmill
Bourne, Massachusetts
This windmill was originally built as a home for actor-artist Joseph Jefferson. He built this in the late 1800's. This Dutch-style windmill never functioned as a windmill. Today it functions as a gift shop for the Bourne Historical Society. It is a beautiful building. This windmill sits at the entrance to the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum.
Brief History by Brenda Krekeler
"The building (trading post) seen today is a replica erected on the original foundation archeologically excavated in the 1920s. The site was located through references found in Governor William Bradford's history of Plimoth Plantation and the correspondence of Isaac De Rasiere, secretary to the Dutch governor of Manhattan.
It was in 1626 that leaders of Plimoth Plantation signed a contract with their English backers agreeing to assume the colony's debts in return for a monopoly on trade with the area's Native Americans; as the first such contract on record it earned for Aptucxet the title "Cradle of American Commerce."
The trading post was established where it is for several reasons. Before the construction of the Cape Cod Canal, two small rivers separated by a short portage served as a safe short cut from Cape Cod Bay to Buzzards Bay. While the Manomet River flowed into Buzzards Bay and thus gave access by water to Dutch New Amsterdam, the Scusset River fed Cape Cod Bay.
The Native American encampment closest to Plimoth Plantation was located at Herring Run, about three miles up the Manomet River from Aptucxet (about midway between the present Bourne and Sagamore Bridges)."
(Aptucxet Trading Post Museum, Box 3095, Bourne, MA 02532-0795) (The above quotation is from a public flyer distributed by the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum)
Windmill Gift Store & Aptucxet Museum
Click Here to see Jefferson Windmill at Google Maps
Hours: Click Here to contact the Bourne Historical Society for visiting hours for the windmill and the Aptucxet Museum.
Address: P.O. Box 3095, Bourne, MA 02532 Phone: 508-759-8167
Directions: From the intersection of Route 6A and Route 28, go south about 1/2 mile on Shore Road (also known as Trowbridge Road (you will go through Bourne). Turn right on Perry Avenue and left onto Aptucxet Road. The mill will be on your right.
Bibliography:
Beals, Fred. Windmill List. Society for the Preservation of Old Mills. Mishawaka IN 2002.
Burrows, Fredrika A. Windmills on Cape Cod and the Islands Tautonm MA: William S. Sullwold Publishing, Inc, 1978. 89-91
Aptucxet Trading Post Museum. Brochure. North Dartmouth MA: Trinity Press 1996
Borne Historical Society
The Jefferson Replica Windmill had a Gift Shop in 2003.
Since then the Bourne Historical Society has the Painted Ladies Art Gallery in the Windmill.
The hours of the Gallery are Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm
