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Table of Contents: Case of the Ingenious A

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"Dr. T-" Examined and the Case of the "Ingenious A" "Saturday, Feby 1st a fine day. The ground covered with the deepest snow we have ever seen here (in 5 yrs.) - river frozen over. Dr. T- engaged in drawing at his plan for a House to build one day or another on Sq. 171."     Or Why William Thornton Didn't Design the Octagon House and Isn't the "First Architect of the Capitol"    By Bob Arnebeck author of Through a Fiery Trial: Building Washington 1790-1800 and Slave Labor in Capitol: Building Washington's Iconic Federal Landmarks Introduction:  How Glenn Brown, an architect of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, helped his own career by making William Thornton the most famous American architect of the 18th century.  Chapter One:   A Tale of Two Properties (1755 to 1786) Lancaster, Tortola and a Scientific Education - The roots of Thornton's wealth, his Quaker education, medical degree and mentors  Chapter Two:   Going ...
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Chapter Twelve: On the heights of Mount Chimborazo

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  The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol by Bob Arnebeck Table of Contents Chapter Twelve: On the heights of Mount Chimborazo Capitol in 1800 In a brief memoir about her husband written just after his death in 1828, Mrs. Thornton regretted his embracing "a greater variety of sciences" because it prevented him from attaining what he truly wanted. She credited him for genius in many fields - "philosophy, politics, Finance, astronomy, medicine, Botany, Poetry, painting, religion, agriculture, in short all subjects by turns occupied his active and indefatigable mind." She concluded that "had his genius been confined to fewer subjects, had he concentrated his study in some particular science, he would have attained Celebrity."(1) Evidently, Thornton thought his ideas in all those fields deserved to be celebrated which suggests his problem was not lack of concentration but a propensity to make belie...
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Chapter 11: Rivaling Tayloe

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The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol by Bob Arnebeck Table of contents Chapter 11: Rivaling Tayloe Mrs. Thornton by Stuart 1804 How to immortalize the General with a monument had been debated since 1783, and Thornton's opinion counted for little. After all he had not served during the Revolution and his association with the General occurred during the least glorious phase of the Great One's life, his second term. But Thornton thought he had the rhetorical skills to impose his ideas especially after he read that the House of Representatives resolved that the General's tomb should be in the Capitol. He wrote to the author of the resolves, General John Marshall, whom he had never met: I doubted not they would deposit the body in the place that was long since contemplated for its reception, I accordingly requested it might be enclosed in lead. It was done, and I cannot easily express the pleasure I feel at this melanchol...
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