Newport Tower - Templars in America?
Is a stone structure at Rhode Island evidence the knights crossed the Atlantic?
The idea that the Knights Templar got to America is tantalising. But is it true? One piece of evidence often cited is the so-called Newport Tower. It's an intriguing structure that some think is a medieval tower while others counter, it's a 17th century windmill. Both can't be right!
Newport Tower - built by the Knights Templar?
It's claimed by some that Newport Tower on Rhode Island is a Templar construction. Others say that it's just a seventeenth century (or later) mill that gives the impression of being a ruined castle. There's even similar mills in England.
If it was Templar, this would be a pre-Christopher Columbus structure built by Europeans. Aside from the fact that would upset a lot of people for being overly Eurocentric - it would also distress a lot of serious Templar historians who reject completely the idea that the Templars ever got anywhere near America.
What is the case for the Newport Tower?
The pro-Templars argue that the tower is older because it turns up on a sixteenth century map drawn up by the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano. He was apparently sent on a mission by the French king Francis I who had watched Spain and Portugal hog the New World for a while and was now determined to tear a chunk off for himself.
The intrepid Italian was commissioned to explore the north American coastline and if possible, find a way through to the wide ocean that lay beyond, the Pacific.
Nobody had any idea how wide and vast north America was at this stage. Verrazano stalked the coast from the Carolinas upwards mooring at what would eventually become New York and mistaking the Hudson estuary for a lake. Well, give him a break - Florida was believed to be an island by Spanish explorers early on - easy mistake.
Does "Norman villa" = Newport Tower?
He sailed on to Narragansett Bay near Long Island and met some of the native Americans. This is where people get very excited because on his map there is a place described as "Norman Villa".  Aha! So, there was a Norman villa there - say the supporters of the Templar theory. And the Newport Tower is on his map.
LEARN MORE: How to find your Knight Templar ancestors
Newport Tower - 12th century medieval?
Then there is the argument that the tower resembles northern European medieval structures in Scotland and Scandinavia. The Orphir Round church on Orkney is cited. But it also bears a striking resemblance to some 17th century windmills in England.
In 1848. a local antiquarian in Newport analysed the mortar in the Newport Tower with similarly aged buildings in the area and the material looked very similar. He concluded the tower was only 300 years old and not the 700 or 800 years it would need to be if it was contemporary with the Knights Templar.
What is your view?
If memory serve me (anymore), methinks the Knights often would indicate their presence in buildings and structures with carvings or etchings on the walls. It would be grand to hear of an authenticated Templar cross, or other medieval symbology - and I would really enjoy evidence that the Knights did make it to America - but I don't recall this being recorded for Newport Tower. As far as the tower on older maps, it would not be a stretch to consider that the Newport Tower was built on top of a previous but less stout indigenous structure of say, wood. I don't recall any supervised excavation(s) near or under the tower from the past.
Zena Halpern's book , The Templar Mission, describes the expedition of a Templar Knight as recorded in a log of an American journey. It raises many questions. I hope that 9ne day , thr Knight's log is authenticated. I predict much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!