Cornelis Corneliszoon van Uitgeest

18th-century allegorical print commemorating C.C. van Uitgeest's invention of the saw mill. Cornelis Corneliszoon van Uitgeest or Krelis Lootjes was a Dutch windmill owner from Uitgeest who invented the wind-powered sawmill, which made the conversion of log timber into planks 30 times faster than before.

Biography Little is known of his early life. Cornelis Cornelisz was born in the village of Uitgeest and later married Trijn Pieters, the daughter of the flour miller who owned "De Krijger" on the Meldijk there. They met during his first major hydraulic project, which was to create the Beemster, a polder that was pumped dry during the period 1609 through 1612.

He was granted a patent on his crankshaft in December, 1593 and was granted an additional patent for improvements in December, 1597 that was documented in the Resolutiën van de Staten van Holland on December, 1597. In his request, he called himself a farmer who needed to support a wife and children. He later became known for his patent of a small dredger mill on a raft that was successful until the introduction of the steam engine. Stevin's later patents were all based on mill technology, and he described his requests with mathematical explanations. He was granted nine patents in 1589, including one for the "molengang", which enabled the use of a stepped series of water mills to be used for creating polders.