MIDDLETOWN

Sunday was a good day to watch the wind blow.

Visitors came to Paradise Park to see the nearly 200-year-old Boyd’s Wind Grist Mill slowly whirl its eight canvas vanes. The Middletown Historical Society sponsored the event, one of the few times a year the mill spins.

More than a decade ago, the society commissioned the move of the mill from Portsmouth, where it had sat since 1810, to Middletown as a reflection of the community’s farming history. Aquidneck Island’s residents historically harnessed the wind to grind crops into corn meal and food for animals.

Boyd’s mill is the oldest running mill of its kind in the state and one of only three windmills in the area; others are in Jamestown and at Prescott Farm in Portsmouth. It was named for William Boyd, who leased the mill from its builder, John Peterson, when his own Bristol mill was ruined in a storm.

The mill stayed in operation until 1946, but then fell apart after decades out of service. The Boyd family eventually agreed to donate the mill to the Middletown Historical Society so long as it was removed from the property. Moving and restoring the mill cost more than $250,000 and took more than eight years.

—Meaghan Wims