It has received attention due to speculation that it is actually several centuries older and would thus represent evidence of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.

The Newport Tower is located in Touro Park at the top of Mill Street, surrounded by a historical residential neighborhood on the hill above the waterfront tourist district.

[4][5] A representation of the tower is featured prominently on the seal and unit patch of the former US Navy vessel USS Newport.

The tower is located at the upper end of the plot behind the now-demolished mansion built by Benedict Arnold, the first colonial governor of Rhode Island, who moved from Pawtuxet to Newport in 1651.

Still, others have contested that locals remembered the tower was previously a functioning corn mill, and that since it had a ground-level fireplace, it couldn't have been built as a windmill.

There is a mistaken notion that Arnold was born in Leamington, Warwickshire, only a short distance from Chesterton; the family lived near Limington in Somerset, about 100 miles (160 km) away.

The investigation was directed by Hugh Henken of Harvard University, with the field work headed by William S. Godfrey.

From Godfrey's thesis: "It is strongly suggested by the records that he purchased some of his Newport property, specifically the section on which he later built his house and the Stone Mill, the year before he moved.

Winthrop of Connecticut says, "Benedict Arnold having now bought house and land at Newport, proposing thither to remove.

"[18] Godfrey posited the hypothesis that "the tower was built as a comfortable retreat and lookout for a very rich and very autocratic old man.

[21][22] Subsequent research has determined that Chesterton was, in fact, built as a windmill in 1632–33, as the original building accounts have been traced since Wailes' death in 1986, including payments for sailcloths.

[27] In 1837, Danish archaeologist Carl Christian Rafn proposed a Viking origin for the tower in his book Antiquitates Americanæ, partly based on his research of the inscriptions on the Dighton Rock near the mouth of the Taunton River.

This hypothesis is predicated on the uncertainty of the southward extent of the early Norse explorations of North America, particularly in regard to the actual location of Vinland.

[33] Author Gavin Menzies argues in his pseudohistorical book 1421: The Year China Discovered America that the tower was built by a colony of Chinese sailors and concubines from the junks of Zheng He's voyages either as a lighthouse or as an observatory to determine the longitude of the colony, based on Penhallow's findings.

[35] During the early 20th century, Edmund B. Delabarre associated the Dighton Rock with the lost Portuguese navigators Miguel Corte-Real and his brother Gaspar.

This Portuguese hypothesis has been supported more recently by Manuel Luciano DaSilva, who suggests that one of the Corte-Real brothers built the Newport Tower as a watchtower.

[36] [37] British writer Andrew Sinclair has put forth the hypothesis that the Newport Tower was built by medieval Scottish Templars led by Scottish earl Henry Sinclair as part of an alleged voyage to New England about a hundred years before Columbus,[38] but such a voyage has been vigorously disputed.