Ever wanted to own a windmill?

The family of the late David A. Harrison III may have a deal for you.

Flowerdew Hundred Plantation, the historical site along the James River in Prince George County that closed last year, has a working windmill that the family wants to see relocated.

"I would like to see some institution want it so that people can continue to learn from it," said Mary Keevil, one of Harrison's five children. "Ideally, I'd like to see it stay close. I'd like to see it stay in Virginia."

The family wants to hear from parties who might be interested in providing a new home for a windmill that weighs more than 40 tons and has sails spanning nearly 59 feet. To allow for optimum air flow, the windmill should be placed on at least 5 cleared acres.

That's currently not a problem. The windmill sits high on a bluff at Flowerdew, a 1,400-acre plantation along the banks of the James in eastern Prince George.

What is a problem is that the meticulously maintained windmill, a main focal point of visitors during the decades the plantation was open to the public, now sits silent, lonely and unproductive.

"Some of the best moments of our interpretive tours were spent in here with school groups and such," Karen Shriver, Flowerdew's curator of collections, said as she showed off the interior of a structure built in 1977 and'78 by British millwright Derek Ogden.

Harrison, a New York lawyer, investment banker and philanthropist, returned to his native Prince George and purchased the plantation in 1967. As he began converting Flowerdew into a museum and historical tourist attraction, he was lured by writings describing the plantation as the site of the first known windmill in the early English colonies.

Harrison could not find physical evidence of the windmill on the property, so he commissioned Ogden to build what amounted to a commemorative version.

The windmill has been regularly maintained and repaired over the years, including a restoration of its foundation in 2005, and remains in impressive physical condition and good working order.

Harrison finally found the site of the original windmill in 1995, seven years before he died.

His children continued to oversee the nonprofit foundation that operates the plantation as a museum and historic site until, faced with declining revenues, they closed it in October. They plan to convert the plantation back to a working farm; about 700 acres at Flowerdew are alternately planted with corn, soybeans and winter wheat.

But first, they want to make sure the windmill their father adored gets a fitting new home.

Keevil and one of her sisters, Anne Armstrong, joined Shriver for a tour of the windmill on a sunny day this week as eagles soared gracefully above the plantation.

"We have so many wonderful memories of this," Keevil said. "It just never occurred to any of us that we'd have to find something to do with a windmill."
Contact Joe Macenka at (804) 649-6804 or jmacenka@timesdispatch.com.