A. Montgomery Ward, the founder of Montgomery Ward and Company, was born at Chatham, New Jersey, in 1844.  As a young man he moved with his family to Michigan, where he was apprenticed to learn a trade.  During his adolescence, Ward worked in a stave factory for 24 cents a day and then as a laborer in a brickyard for 30 cents a day.

Ward later became a clerk in a country store for $5 a week plus board.  Within three years becoming the manager of the store with a munificent salary of $100 monthly.

In 1872, Ward joined with George  R. Thorne in establishing a new business venture named Montgomery Ward and Company.  Their plan was to sell general merchandise by catalogue only.  The ambitious goal for Ward and Thorne was to offer every kind of product not perishable for which there was a general demand in any part of the country.

Incorporated in 1889, the firm grew to prominence in the last decade of the 19th Century, offering for sale a remarkably wide range of merchandise form jewelry to harness, from shirt collars to windmills.  By the turn of the century, Montgomery Ward and Company operated ten huge warehouses around the country, owned numerous factories, and had a mail order house in Chicago which employed 3,000 people.  By 1906, the firm sent of 1 1/2 million catalogs annually and was using over 10 railway carloads of paper monthly.

Among the many products for farmers and ranchers which the firm sold were windmills.  For half a century the company bought windmills from bona fide windmill manufacturer who contracted to produce the mills for the mail order firm to its specifications and bearing the Ward's name.  The earliest known mills distributed by Montgomery Ward and Company were two styles sold as early as 1894.  These two mills were solid wheel wooden mills in 10' and 12' sizes and an open back geared steel mill in 8', 10' and 12' sizes.  The wooden mill was known merely as "The Montgomery Ward & Co. Wind Mill,"  while the metal pattern was called "Montgomery Ward & Co.'s All Steel Mill."  The wooden mill bore on its vane sheet a handsomely painted flying dove with a garland of leaves.

These two mills were actually the "Wolcott Solid Wheel" wooden mill and the "Union"  steel mill both produced by the Union Windmill and Manufacturing Company of Albion, Michigan.  In 1894, the 8' steel mill was available either painted or galvanized, while the 10' and 12' mills were sold painting only.  The spring/summer 1895 catalogue noted of the steel variant, "it is made of the best material and hand painted."  The wooden mills sold at $24.00 and $30.00 for the 10' and 12' sizes, while the steel mills sold for $33.75, $35.00, and $43.75 for the 8', 10', and 12' respectively.  The galvanized 8' mill sold for  $1.25 more than the painted style.

About the turn of the century, Montgomery Ward and Company turned to another manufacturer for its windmills, the S. Freeman and Sons Manufacturing Company of Racine, Wisconsin.  As early as the 1890's this company had been producing open geared steel windmills.  Throughout the early years of the 20th Century, it made its open geared "Freeman Steel" windmills for numerous large and small mail order houses as well as selling them under its own name.   At least as early as 1904, Montgomery Ward and Company was selling the open geared "Freeman Steel" windmills as its "Clipper" steel mills in 6' and 8' sizes.  Available, along with the mills were steel towers, tanks, pumping cylinders, and similar auxiliary goods.  In the 1904 Kansas City branch house catalogue, Wards boasted, "Our Clipper mill is a faithful and reliable servant, upon which you can depend for satisfactory work everyday of the year, requiring no feeding, no fuel, no labor, and very little attention...our Clipper mills can be found in nearly every farm section in the US , and the constantly increasing sales number thousands every year, placing one of the largest and oldest factories at our command."  By 1906 the range of S. Freemen and Sons Clipper mills had expanded to  include a 6' size, and the mills remained the Wards distributed windmill for several years.

It is interesting to note that about 1900-1902, Sears Roebuck and Company, the principal mail order competitor for Wards, also sold the open back geared "Freeman Steel" windmill made by the S. Freeman and Sons Manufacturing Company, marketing them first as their "Acme Steel" and then later as their "Kenwood Steel."  Thus for a short time the two largest mail order catalogue houses in the country were both selling the same open geared windmills made by S.  Freeman and Sons.

About 1905, S. Freeman and Sons introduced an improved "Freeman Steel"  windmill and Montgomery Ward and Company began purchasing these mills from the maker for sales through its mail order catalogues.  sold by Wards as its "Improved Clipper", these mills still may be seen in substantial numbers round the country.  These single geared open back geared steel mills were sold in six different sizes form 6' to 16' at least as early as 1915, ranging at the time prices from $13.95 to $104.00.  All these mills are readily identified in the filed form their distinctive, somewhat awkward looking profiles.  The Racine made "Improved Clipper" mills were sold through the pages of the Wards catalogues into the early 1930's.

By 1929 Wards had introduced its first oil bath style steel windmills, the "Wards Air King."  This mill sold in 8' and 10' sizes, was actually the "Easy" oil bath style mill made by the Easy Manufacturing Company of Lincoln, Nebraska.  In 1934, the Easy firm merged with the Cushman Motor Works of Lincoln, known best today as the maker of the Cushman motor scooters.  Cushman continued producing the mills under contract for Montgomery Ward and Company at least as recently as 1938, and providing repair parts until 1944.

The 1939 Wards catalogue shows a new mill, not seen before. This mill, the 6 1/2 ', 8', 10', and 12' "Windmaster" was sold a short time in 1934.  Manufactured by the Milfound Company of Waupun, Wisconsin.  Fitted with Hyatt Roller Bearings and double gears many of these mills are still in service today. So far as known this mill was sold as the "Windmaster" for only a few months.

Somewhat confusing the identification of the Wards mills are budget priced mills sold by the firm from the mid 1930's to 1940.  During the Great Depression, these less expensive mills were the only mills the strapped farmers and ranchers could afford.  The lower priced "New Deal Mills" appeared at least as early as 1936, when as oil bath style "6' Windmill" appeared for $28.50.  The 6' size of the budget windmill remained available through 1940, with a 10' appearing in 1939.

The last Wards windmill to come on the market was the short lived "Wards Air Chief" sold only in 1944.  This mill made under contract to Wards by the Woodmanse Manufacturing Company of Freeport, Illinois, actually was assembled from parts of windmills produced earlier by the Stover Manufacturing and Engine Company.  The Woodmanse firm only a short time before had purchased the windmill business of the former Stover firm, and apparently used its old stockpiled parts to put together the "Air Chief" mills at a time when wartime rationing prevented the purchase of raw materials for windmill manufacture.

During wartime sales in 1944, the Wards catalogue noted for its customers: "Windmills are rationed.  Secure a Purchase Certificate from your County Farm Committee before ordering.  This certificate must accompany your order."

Seen across the landscape of rural America, the windmills sold by Montgomery Ward and Company constitute a significant part of our wind power legacy.  Whenever they are located by collectors and institutions, they should receive the care and attention that they deserve as prime examples of the "mail order windmills."