The following history of this windmill is from Colonial Williamsburg's history section of their Website:
A useful man was Williamsburg's William Robertson. Appointed clerk of the colony's Council in 1698, a director of the fledgling capital in 1705, and a city alderman in 1722, he also operated a most serviceable windmill.
Reconstructed on its original site, Robertson's tall, lattice-vaned, linen-sailed machine today commands Colonial Williamsburg's Windmill, Cooper, and Rural Trades site. Near it, barrel makers and sawyers work, and farmers tend rows of 18th-century staple crops like corn, tobacco, and wheat.
Visitors see how a colonial barrel was made, wheat was ground, tobacco was packed, a shingle was split, and a board was sawed or riven.
The windmill was the domain of the miller and his assistant. Robertson's was a post mill, a design that appeared in Europe in the Middle Ages. Its superstructure balanced on a huge, single timber--or post--to be turned into the wind by a man at the tailpole.
When the breeze spun the windmill's blades, a shaft and gear arrangement turned a millstone to grind corn into meal or wheat into flour. A bolting or sifting apparatus on the first floor fed the product into bags.
Traditionally, the miller collected a toll of one-sixth the weight, but there was room to bargain. For whatever it may say about Robertson's profits, he sold his windmill and four city lots to Mayor John Holloway in 1723 for a modest £80.
The windmill is currently not open to the public, but can be seen from the road in Colonial Williamsburg. It is located near the Randolph House.