A Shelter Island link to its past is coming alive A team assembling at Sylvester Manor’s Dominy windmill Feb. 13 to install the fourth sail. (Credit: Charity Robey)
On Saturday, Feb. 13, a team of 10 people led by a millwright from Saugerties, N.Y. maneuvered an enormous handmade wooden lattice high on a windy hill across a sheet of ice, to install the fourth and final sail on Sylvester Manor’s historic 1810 Dominy windmill.
Onlookers in hats and very sensible footwear took pictures and provided moral support. It was a modern-day barn-raising, a community bringing muscle and craftsmanship together to erect something tall and proud that works for all of us.