Bet You Didn’t Know …

While water mills are more common in Maryland, windmills worked best in this area of Dorchester County since there is no flowing water because the land is flat.
There’s been a windmill at this location since before the Revolutionary War.
Windmills were the number one cause of accidental death in Dorchester County in the 19th century.
Dorchester County had at least 20 windmills in the late 19th century.
Windmills are always given a male name; this one is the “George L,” named after Sen. Radcliffe.
The mill is designed so that one person can operate it and rotate the entire windmill building to face into the wind.
George L. Radcliffe, as a ten-year-old, was able to move the two 750-pound stones to a barn when the original mill collapsed. We can only guess a mule was involved.
Jim Richardson built the current windmill with no blueprints; no one in this country knew how to build one at the time.
The original and current mills were both constructed from lumber harvested in the nearby Spocott woods.
The windmill and village property will be completely underwater in 50 years.
The current mill has already “outlived” its predecessor by 20 years.
The mill has to be perfectly balanced, or the vibration would tear it apart.

Sen. George L. Radcliffe’s parents believed their son would not live to age 21; George lived 97 healthy, productive years.
George was the only boy in his high school class.
One of George’s PhD mentors was Woodrow Wilson.
George began as a history teacher.
George’s book, Governor Thomas H. Hicks of Maryland and the Civil War (1901), is still a primary research source on Maryland in the Civil War.
George completed three years of law school in one year.
George was once Franklin Roosevelt’s “boss.”
Franklin Roosevelt stayed at nearby Spocott on several occasions.
George sponsored the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which built up the country’s commercial shipping fleet before World War II. Without that fleet, the war might have ended differently.
George never learned to drive a car as they came along well into his life … but he lived to see us land on the Moon.
Sen. George L. Radcliffe is partly responsible for the first structure erected to honor Harriet Tubman.
For a biography of Sen. George L. Radcliffe, see Call Me Cousin George, available at georgeradcliffe.com.

The same family line has lived in Spocott since 1663. The original house still exists.

No one knows for sure how Spocott got its name. It might be a misspelling of “Specott,” a family name in England.
The original Spocott family member, Stephen Gary, paid nothing for the property. It was a gift from Lord Baltimore for helping fight to return Charles II to the English throne.
In the late 19th century, Spocott was a completely self-sufficient community.
The climate has changed. George L. Radcliffe’s brother, Tom, used to ice skate across the Bay from Spocott to Annapolis once each winter.

John Anthony LeCompte Radcliffe lost money building the Castle Haven Schoolhouse for Dorchester County.
The Blacks who helped build the Castle Haven Schoolhouse could not send their children there.
One teacher taught all grades, one to eight.
Jim Richardson, the windmill builder, attended this school.
It was deemed inappropriate for a woman teaching at this school to be married or date.
George L. Radcliffe only attended this school one day. He was home-schooled because he was deemed “sickly.”
This area did not have electricity or indoor plumbing until the late 1940s, and the schoolhouse never had running water or plumbing.
Toilet paper was not locally available when the original windmill and schoolhouse existed. Corn cobs, anyone?
Dorchester County still had several one-room schoolhouses in the 1970s.

The house was originally the Spocott tenant house, used by John’s brothers, Nehemiah and William, before the Civil War, when they were helping build ships at the Spocott Shipyard.
Adaline and Columbus raised seven children in this one-bedroom house.
Adaline Wheatley never learned to read or write but advised politicians and community leaders.
Columbus Wheatley, always the joker, regaled all with stories of the Civil War Battle of Boston. It never happened.

William Byus LeCompte lived at Spocott and had an office on this property in the early 19th century.

Any doctor’s office at that time was a rarity since most physicians worked out of their homes.
The Muse Family, for whom the Doctor’s Office is partly named, had 10 consecutive generations of physicians. A record?
Surgery was primitive at this time, with alcohol and opium likely the only substances available for general anesthesia.
The most common surgical tool at this time was a bone saw.