Chapter Five: Design by Committee and an Epidemic

The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol

by Bob Arnebeck

Table of Contents

Chapter Five: Design by Committee and an Epidemic

46. Jefferson in 1791

At the end of a February 1, 1793, letter to Commissioner Daniel Carroll, Secretary of State Jefferson remembered "Poor Hallet, whose merit and distresses interest every one for his tranquility and pecuniary relief." Up to that point in the letter, Jefferson had effectively buried Hallet's dreams with expressions of joy over Thornton's design which "has so captivated the eyes and judgment of all as to leave no doubt you will prefer it when it shall be exhibited to you; as no doubt exists here of it’s preference over all which have been produced, and among it’s admirers no one is more decided than him whose decision is most important. It is simple, noble, beautiful, excellently distributed, and moderate in size."1

That said, Jefferson assured Carroll that the commissioners could have their say. Indeed, "the interval of apparent doubt" afforded an opportunity to soothe Hallet's mind. In their reply, Commissioners Carroll and Stuart hoped Hallet "may be usefully employed notwithstanding." He had been responding to the commissioners' critiques of his designs since July. Poor Hallet: when he heard that the president gave Thornton more time to finish his design, his reaction was to furiously work on yet another design. In a letter to Jefferson, he warned "these very feelings [of respect for the commissioners] impose on me perhaps the duty to observe that if the views of economy with which I have maintained are necessary for the success of the establishment, we have greatly deviated from them in the choice we have just made." Jefferson notified the president that Hallet was drawing a new plan and sent Hallet's one page "succinct description" of it, which concluded "all the rooms, without exception, are lighted and aired directly, because they have all windows in outer walls." Despite casting that shadow on Thornton's plan, the president and Jefferson did not react to Hallet's reaction to Thornton's design, yet.(2) 

47. Hallet's March 1793 elevation

The irony of Jefferson's approach to soothing the mind of the trained architect who had been adjusting his design under orders coming from the commissioners was that the gentleman amateur who made the design beating his was never stroked, if you will, for his achievement beyond being given his $500 prize. There is no evidence that Jefferson or the president ever gushed over his design to Thornton's face. Nor did they write to Thornton and repeat to him what they had written to Carroll and the commissioners.

What delighted the powers in Philadelphia was not that they finally had an architect for the job. They finally had a design that worked for the president. It also looked more or less like the pile worthy of the ancients that L'Enfant projected and Hallet drew. As for the gentleman who drew the winning design, he had his reward and beyond further particularization of his ideas nothing was expected of him.

Once back in Philadelphia, Thornton did his homework. He had left his elevation in Georgetown and now drew three ground plans with rooms and other features labeled with letters. He elaborated his ideas on a separate page. What he sent to the board is no longer extant but a draft of what he sent is in his papers at the Library of Congress. Its enthusiasm and naivete give the impression that he was resuming conversations he had in Georgetown. As he tried to nail down the particulars of his design, many ideas still floated in the air. Straight away, he distinguished his work from the "architects":

A. The great repository under the floor of the dome. The walls are made very thick to support an arcade with imposts instead of double columns, if it may be deemed hereafter to make a dome of stone, however, the architects may be consulted on this subject as well as on the requisite thickness of the other foundation and basement walls, but the Commissioners will, I am confident, conclude it proper to make very strong walls for the support of so massive a building.

B. Room under the antichamber of the Representants. [The French term for legislators.]

C. _____________ vestibule of the Senate Chamber.

D. ________ under the Executive Apartment.

E.E.E.E. Offices of clerks or committee rooms. These are under the grand conference room. If it should be thought proper to land company from carriages under cover, at this side of the building, the divisions may be made according to the yellow lines without regarding the red ones, except the blocks a, a, a, a, intended to support the columns upon which the gallery of the grand Conference Room rests; the blocks b,b,b,b, may be substituted by arches or strong iron work....

Leaving some long blanks, Thornton seemed to be thinking as he went along. After describing stairs F. F. and H. H. he goes back to "the room D" which "would be very convenient for servants, being next to the west coachway and the stairs G., G., out to them be prepared accordingly; but if the east carriageway be thought sufficient being the most convenient the room D will answer for a committee room for the evening, or any other purpose the legislature may think proper...."

Thornton was exact about some essentials: "I. I. I. Platform fifteen inches high for company to alight on from carriages (East Front), K.K.  stairs, nine feet wide, the steps fourteen inches wide and six high...." He equivocated about other essentials: "M.M.M. Water-closets, or other conveniences that may have communicating flues to the roof of the building to vent." He noted that the drawing was done to scale, "one-tenth of an inch to one foot English." 

He did not submit the required "Estimate of the cubic Feet of Brick-Work composing the whole Mass of the Walls." Obviously, Thornton realized that only an architect could answer such practical questions. Yet, he intruded into very practical matters. For example, he wrote “I request you will inform me when you propose to lay the foundation of the east arcade, as I would rather it should occupy a space of eighty-six feet, which would add a little to the width of the arches, but I am afraid of adding much, because it would too much increase the intercolumniations, which are now in the lightest stile that so large a building will admit.” 

Thornton did not believe that knowledge had to be gained or derived from experience. His comprehension of words from books was enough to allow him to make decisions. There is no evidence that what he wrote corresponded to the reality faced by those who read what he wrote. After the commissioners received his explanations, no one ask for any clarification, and when work on the foundation began, no one thought of informing Thornton of anything. They knew he wasn't an architect. It would take posterity to make him one.

Given what he wrote, it seems that Thornton didn't know of the worries about costs that the president expressed to the commissioners back in March. He had told them to deal with the ornamentation "gradually." Instead, in the description of the principal floor, Thornton discussed the major sculptures he planned for the Capitol: an equestrian statue of General Washington, Atlas holding the world, and "on the pediment of the East Front I have placed a Farnese Hercules (who has obtained the fruit of his labour) alluding to the happiness which America enjoys..." The fruits of his labor did not include clothes to cover his naked body.

48. The Farnese Hercules
He was less discriminating with New World touches. To support balconies "on the one side a buffaloe and Indian; on the other an elk or moose, or a moose deer and an Indian...." He did offer options on materials and lighting arrangements but not in order to economize. If marble was needed, the commissioners should not get it in America. Only Italian marble will do and even with shipping it might prove cheaper. Thornton would gladly arrange for getting Italian marble. That is the first evidence that he had ever made a study of marble, American or Italian, or that he had a grasp of shipping costs. Thornton had never been to Italy.3

Meanwhile, Hallet was studying what Thornton had left in Georgetown and, in time, what he sent down from Philadelphia. Hallet had been hired to come to America because he was able to estimate the cost of houses already built or about to be built. His employer was the Philadelphia agent of the Holland Land Company who looked for good investments for European clients. Hallet also knew how to make and read elevations and floor plans. With plans in hand, he could visualize whether the building could be lighted and heated and whether every part of it was easily accessible. Hoban was almost his peer in doing that. He claimed to have worked on Leinster House in Dublin. Hallet was familiar with the Louvre and French neo-classical buildings. Hoban had built the first story of the President's house. Or more technically, Collen Williamson, a Scottish master mason hired by the commissioners, built it.(6)

The commissioners asked for an estimate how much Thornton' design would cost to build. Instead, Hallet drew yet another design and claimed that it corrected Thornton's glaring errors so that the building could be built, as well as be more convenient and cheaper to build. Hoban and Williamson agreed that Hallet's changes were necessary. In a June 18 letter to L'Enfant, Roberdeau put it this way: the Capitol "is upon a Plan agreed on all hands that can never be built."(7)

Hallet warned the commissioners, and then both the president and Jefferson when they passed through Georgetown, that Thornton's design was far too expensive and, as designed, parts of it could not be built. As the president put it in a letter to Jefferson, Hoban "seemed" to agree. Recalling Blodget's knowledge of architecture, the commissioners asked him to evaluate Thornton's design. He agreed with Hallet and Hoban.

In the late 19th century as he tried to make Thornton the greatest American architect of the late 18th century, Glenn Brown agreed with Thornton's own assessment of Hallet's, Hoban's and Williamson's motives. They were envious of Thornton's genius, and they conspired to destroy confidence in his design. Brown fingered Hallet as the ring leader: "We can easily imagine the avidity with which Thornton's principal competitor studied the drawings...." Brown claimed that Hallet "endeavored to engraft upon the work his own ideas." However, Adolph Cluss put it this way: Hallet saw that "when [Thornton's] ground-plans were corrected according to sound principles of construction, they looked... remarkably like Hallet’s..." (8)

On June 30, 1793, Washington asked Jefferson to arrange a meeting with Thornton, his critics, and any "scientific character" in Philadelphia who might contribute advice. The president lamented: “It is unlucky that this investigation of Doctor Thornton’s plan, and estimate of the cost had not preceded the adoption of it;... I had no knowledge in the rules or principles of architecture—and was equally unable to count the cost."(11) Meanwhile, the president had been getting updates proving that plans do go awry. In the late summer of the 1792, a Baltimore builder, Leonard Harbaugh, brought a crane to the city and got a contract from the commissioners to design and build a stone bridge over Rock Creek. By the late spring of 1793, the so called Federal Bridge was about to fall into the creek.(9)

Jefferson sent Hallet's written critique of Thornton's plan to Thornton, which consisted of “five Manuscript Volumes in folio,” 20 pages, which have been lost. Hoban made a short list of problems which included bearing the ceiling, intercolumnations, entrances, staircases, "darkness and irregularity," but he did not go into detail. Jefferson shared the list with the president but not with Thornton. Jefferson also sent the president's letter to Thornton and invited him to respond in anyway he chose.(12)

Thornton could have welcomed the meeting, begged pardon for his lack of schooling in architecture and bowed to the necessity of accepting many changes to his plan. Perhaps because of Hallet's clumsy command of the English language, Thornton couldn't resist attacking him in writing. When architecture was reduced to words, Thornton was in his element. In a 2000 word reply to Jefferson, Thornton assumed the attitude of one who held the high ground. He admitted to a few mistakes, most easy to correct, but not having a copy of his own design, he was unable to respond in greater detail. He couldn't resist mocking Hallet for making so much of the placement of the columns to support the dome. They could simply be moved to the right spot.

He put the Capitol in context. He referred to the Ancients, to the Escorial in Spain, and the Louvre in Paris. 

 

49. The Escurial, a monastery and regal residence to which the Capitol could not compare

The Capitol was “of small magnitude when compared to many private Edifices of Individuals in other parts of the World." 

50. Louvre. 19th century print

He doubted Hallet's qualifications to criticize the essence of his design. He set out to prove that he knew more about architecture than the French architect.


The want of unity between the Ornaments and the Order, forms another objection in Mr. Hallet’s report. I trust he will permit me in this instance to prefer the authorities of the best books.... The Intercolumniation of the portico is objected. The Ancients had five proportions, (viz) the Picnostyle containing 1½ Diameter; the Sistyle 2 Diameters; the Eustyle 2¼ Dia:; the Diastyle 3 Diam:; and the Aræostyle 4 Diameters. The Eustyle is reasoned the most elegant in general, but deviations are allowed according to circumstances....(13)

Jefferson and Washington knew that too much was at stake. They could not trust a know-it-all who by his own admission did not know it all. Jefferson arranged the meeting the president suggested. To be fair to Thornton, Hallet and Hoban had to come to Philadelphia and meet not only with Thornton but with two Philadelphia builders chosen by Thornton. They all met, the President attending as long as he could.(14) Since Jefferson had echoed the president's praise of Thornton's design, the meeting was not stacked against Thornton. Much would depend on Thomas Carstairs, a highly regarded local builder. Carstairs came in second in the Library Company design contest and might hold a grudge against Thornton who won the contest. However, what better way to gain the favor of Jefferson and the president than by flattering their choice of Thornton's design? Carstairs also likely knew Hallet as a builder and architect who had competed with him for work in Philadelphia. Thornton also brought Col. William Williams to the meeting. He had built the library. In Brown's history of the Capitol, dark forces were at work: "Hallet, Blodget, Williamson, and Carstairs, all competitors, seemed to have combined and, being on the spot, urged the rejection of Thornton's plan." Blodget and Williamson were not at the meeting.

At the meeting, Carstairs saw the problems with Thornton's design, and Col. Williams appeared to agree. All agreed that Hallet's changes made Thornton's design better and cheaper. Then the day after the meeting, Williams called on Jefferson and explained that after conferring with Thornton, he thought all objections “could be removed but the want of light and air in some cases.” Jefferson was very skeptical, telling the president that Williams' “method of spanning the intercolonnations with secret arches of brick, and supporting the floors by an interlocked framing appeared to me totally inadequate;... and a conjectural expression how head-room might be gained in the Stairways shewed he had not studied them.”

In a July 17 letter to the president, Jefferson reported what the meeting decided:

These objections were proposed and discussed on a view of the plans: the most material were the following.

1. The intercolonnations of the western and central peristyles are too wide for the support of their architraves of Stone: so are those of the doors on the wings.

2. The colonnade passing through the middle of the Conference room has an ill effect to the eye, and will obstruct the view of the members: and if taken away, the ceiling is too wide to support itself.

3. The floor of the central peristyle is too wide to support itself.

4. The stairways on each side of the Conference room want head-room.

5. The windows are in some important instances masked by the Galleries.

6. Many parts of the building want light and air in a degree which renders them unfit for their purposes. This is remarkably the case with some of the most important apartments, to wit, the chambers of the Executive and the Senate, the anti-chambers of the Senate and Representatives, the Stair-ways &c. Other objections were made which were surmountable, but those preceding were thought not so, without an alteration of the plan.

Jefferson found something wrong with Hallet's revision which he claimed everyone at the meeting also noticed. Hallet's portico on the East front was set back forming a court yard between the North and South wings of the building. If not brought ahead, as in Thornton's plan, everyone thought it at least had to be brought forward and made even with the wings.(15)

What were they talking about? The first three objections dealt with columns flanking passageways, peristyles, or serving in an uplifting pattern as a colonnade. Since Hallet, halved the cost of the building, his solution to objection one was likely fewer columns. The conference room came under scrutiny in objections two and four. In his March 1793 design, Hallet simplified Thornton's floor plan which had a large oval vestibule leading to a smaller oval conference room projecting out from the West front of the building. Hallet had the conference room with its inside "an exact sphere in imitation of the Pantheon," on the second floor above the vestibule. His cost cutting July plan likely did the same.

As for objections five and six, which addressed want of "light and air," Jefferson seemed dumbfounded by Thornton's ineptitude. Even Col. William Williams had no cure for that. However, Hallet pushed the East front portico back leaving a court yard to give more light to the wings. In that process, Thornton's charming and chaste pediment, despite a naked Hercules on top, was eliminated. Hallet naively thought a clearer view of the dome a la the Pantheon would satisfy.

Fortunately for Thornton, saving face proved as important to the meeting as coming up with a workable design. Jefferson assured the president that the results of the meeting justified Thornton's getting the award for the best design. Their enthusiasm for his design had not been misplaced, and the alteration "made by Mr Hallet in the plan drawn by him has preserved the most valuable ideas of the original and rendered them susceptible of execution; so that it is considered as Dr Thornton’s plan reduced into practicable form. The persons consulted agreed that in this reformed plan the objections before stated were entirely remedied; and that it is on the whole a work of great merit."

In a July 25 letter to the commissioners, the president enclosed Jefferson's letter, gave his own version of the meeting and his decision about the plan to be used. He noted that both builders brought by Thornton thought Hallet's objections valid. Carstairs "who appeared to have studied the matter with most attention, pronounced them irremidiable without an alteration in some parts of the plan...." But the president also opined that the plan decided upon preserved “the original ideas of Doctor Thornton." He put it this way: "The plan produced by Mr Hallett, altho’ preserving the original ideas of Doctor Thornton, and such as might upon the whole, be considered as his plan, was free from these objections." It was the plan the two builders "as practical Architects, would chuse to execute." Hallet's plan had an added advantage: "Besides which, you will see, that, in the opinion of those Gentlemen, the plan executed according to Mr Hallett’s ideas would not cost more than one half of what it would if executed according to Doctr Thornton’s."

Then the president made his decision: "After these opinions, there could remain no hesitation how to decide; and Mr Hoben was accordingly informed that the foundation would be begun upon the plan as exhibited by Mr Hallett, leaving the recess in the East front open for further consideration. If this meets your ideas the work of that building will progress as fast as circumstances will permit."

He then addressed the East front and one can't help get the impression that rather than Thornton, who had presented a design that could not be built, the president didn't trust Hallet.

It seems to be the wish that the Portico of the East front, which was in Doctor Thornton’s original plan, should be preserved in this of Mr Hallett’s. The recess which Mr Hallett proposes in that front, strikes every one who has viewed the plan unpleasantly, as the space between the wings or projections is too contracted to give it the noble appearance of the buildings of which it is an imitation; and it has been intimated that the reason of his proposing the recess instead of a portico, is to make it in one essential feature different from Doctr Thornton’s plan. But whether the Portico or the recess should be finally concluded upon will make no difference in the commencement of the foundation of the building, except in that particular part—and Mr Hallet is directed to make such sketches of the Portico, before the work will be affected by it, as will shew the advantage or disadvantage thereof. The ostensible objection of Mr Hallet to the adoption of Doctor Thornton’s East front is principally the deprivation of light, and air, in a degree, to the apartments designed for the Senate and Representatives.

Washington's dislike of Hallet boded well for Thornton. But in August, the President sent the commissioners the cost estimates Carstairs made for the stone work on what the President called “Mr. Halletts plan."(16) 

Led by Glenn Brown, historians of the Capitol agree that Hallet's objections and revisions did not negate the primacy of Thornton's ideas, and therefore the doctor, not the architect, was The First Architect of the Capitol. That Hallet had been taking orders from the commissioners as he revised his designs makes no difference. Nor does the evidence that Thornton had prior knowledge of Hallet's design make a difference. But the president clearly did not rely on Thornton as work on the Capitol began. When it came time to decide on the portico, he expected Hallet "to make such sketches of the Portico, before the work will be affected by it." He did not expect Thornton, whose idea it was, to sketch the portico, even though, as the design contest winner, he was obliged to apply drawings when needed. The president understood that Thornton wasn't an architect.

On September 18, 1793, a month and a half after the president wrote the letter adopting Hallet’s revision of Thornton’s design, he tapped in the ceremonial cornerstone of the Capitol. The attached plaque listed Hallet and Hoban as its architects. Thornton did not attend the ceremony and there is no evidence that he was invited.(17)

In his letter to Jefferson defending his design, Thornton had rued "I could have been more particular if the plans had been in my possession...." Presumably, Thornton's design was brought by Hallet to the July conference and there is no mention of the plan being given back to Thornton. He was not given another chance to change his design. The conference must have been a devastating experience and it's not certain that Thornton heard or read the consoling endorsement of "the ideas of Doctor Thornton." Trumbull would tell Thornton that he heard that his plan had "been generally adopted." Trumbull added that he was pleased at that "as I should have been mortified to have known that so noble a plan was passed by."(18)

In March when Hallet saw his plan eclipsed by Thornton's, his reaction was to draw two more plans. The first was his immediate reaction to Thornton's plan. The second corrected Thornton's mistakes so the tripartite building with several oval rooms could be built and built more cheaply. Hallet had been drawing similar designs for three years. In July, the president approved his last design in a way that superseded his approval in April of Thornton's design. There were two caveats. Hallet should redraw his front portico to be more like Thornton's, and the design as a whole should still be considered as Thornton's design. Nonetheless, the commissioners grudgingly realized that Hallet and his family could not continue to live off his $250 second prize from the design contest. At their November meeting, they decided to pay Hallet 400 Maryland Pounds or about $650 a year. Hoban was making $1,500.(19)

After he faced a setback in July, Thornton did not draw another design for the Capitol until 1795, a year after his appointment as one of the commissioners.

51. This etching on an 1818 map of city is now judged to be Thornton's original design. However, since Hallet had ridiculed Thornton's "semi circular projections at the ends" of the building, presumably they were in Thornton's original plan and eliminated by Hallet in his revision of it. On the other hand, since the 1818 engraving has the portico Hallet eliminated, it is obviously an engraving of a Thornton design,with the naked Hercules at the peak of the pediment.(20)

Other than Trumbull's, there is no written reaction to Thornton's sudden rise and stumble. That summer the Capitol wasn't the talk of the town, nor did it likely trouble those who followed the affairs of the federal city. The Capitol design contest was eclipsed by the speculations and schemes of James Greenleaf, a young man who seemed to be richer than Blodget. 


54. James Greenleaf by Gilbert Stuart

The 10th of 13 children raised by the sheriff of Boston and his wife, Greenleaf moved to New York City when he was 23 years old and became the junior partner to James Watson, a politically well connected merchant. Greenleaf immediately sailed to Holland in 1788 and advised Dutch bankers on how to speculate on America's debts. In August 1789, he wrote to his brother-in-law Noah Webster: "Should congress place the public debt on a respectable footing, the gains of W & G must be very big." Congress did and Dutch banks were grateful. Greenleaf bought out his partner Watson and, with the help of Dutch banks, established a credit of $1.3 million. According to Blodget, he met Greenleaf in London in 1790 and he told him of the federal city's potential in the world of finance.

In the world economy, Holland banks maintained a dominant position especially with regard to investments in America. London banks had an industrial revolution to finance and the Indies with the East becoming more profitable than the West. Many Dutch investors became rich thanks to Treasury secretary Hamilton's plan to fund the national debt. Greenleaf and others assumed that investors would want to secure their new found wealth and eventually get even richer by investing in American real estate. To give himself more credibility, Greenleaf returned to America to secure an appointment as the US consul in Amsterdam.(21)

Not everyone was getting in to see the president in the summer of 1793, even though congress was not in session. The administration was facing its first international crisis. The new French ambassador was sending off privateers manned by Americans to attack British shipping. That threatened to drag the nation into the just declared war between France and Britain. Also, so-called Democratic Societies formed in major American cities and demonstrated in support of France. That represented the first overt opposition to the policies of the Washington administration. The president faced the crisis with a divided cabinet. While all wanted to maintain neutrality, Hamilton preferred doing it in a way to punish France. Jefferson preferred doing it in a way that maintained the friendship, born during the American Revolution, between France and America

The commissioners, by the way, didn't play sides. They were desperate for skilled workers. The president heard that Germans were eager to come. The Georgetown merchants born in Scotland offered to get Scots. Hallet told the commissioners that Bordeaux was the place. The commissioners wrote to the American consul there and asked him to forward a message to the mayor soliciting workers to join in “our ambition to express in some degree the stile of our architecture, the sublime sentiments of Liberty which are common to Frenchmen and Americans."(22)

The president found time to appoint Greenleaf consul and then the 29 year old called on the president. He was well prepped and told the president exactly what he wanted to hear. Greenleaf explained that he wanted to buy and develop many lots in the City of Washington. He was also interested in land elsewhere and had heard that the president wished to sell his Western lands. Finally, like the president, he thought the Potomac Company that planned to build locks around the falls of the river essential to the nation's prosperity. He had a model made showing how boats could be carried over rapids in baskets.

On August 20, 1793, the president signed a glowing letter of introduction to the commissioners: "This gentleman, I understand, has it in contemplation to make certain proposals to you for building a number of houses in the Federal City, provided he can have lots upon such terms and consideration as may correspond with his interest in the undertaking while it tends, at the same time, to promote the great object of the City,... He has been represented to me as a Gentleman of large property and having the command of much money in this Country and Europe...." Then he mentioned that Greenleaf had a Dutch wife and concluded, "if you find it consistent with your duty to the public to attach Mr. Greenleaf to the Federal City, he will be a valuable acquisition."(23)

Within a week of that happy letter, enough deaths along the Philadelphia waterfront prompted the better sort to flee. Dr. Benjamin Rush identified the scourge as yellow fever.

 

55. Area first infected by yellow fever in 1793; painting by Birch, 1800

Thanks to the widespread perception that man's medicines were impotent when faced with an epidemic, doctors did not lose face if they too fled an epidemic. Thornton did not practice medicine, but in his letter to the Council of the Virgin Islands touting his qualifications to lead a republic of free blacks in Sierra Leone, he had mentioned his experience with tropical diseases as one of his qualifications. It would seem that epidemic yellow fever would be a godsend for Thornton, the chance to at least offer advice about, if not practice, what he considered his medical specialty.

On the other hand, if he wanted a dignified way avoid the epidemic, he could have joined the president and others at the cornerstone laying ceremony for the Capitol. Instead, Thornton avoided the city and first stayed at his farm on Ridge Pike. On September 11, while at the farm, he wrote a letter to Dr. Rush expressing his interest in replacing Dr. James Hutchinson as the professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania medical school. Hutchinson had died of the fever on September 6.

Thornton wound up in Wilmington. An October 9 letter reported that he, his wife, Mrs. Brodeau and 18 of her scholars were at Dr. Wharton's near Wilmington. Wharton, a divine not a physician, was described as recovering from a severe illness.(24) Thornton stayed in Wilmington at least through November. On the 29th, he applied to be the president's secretary since his current secretary, Tobias Lear, had "taken his departure to England, on private business." He didn't mention his Capitol design, regretted not knowing the president better and offered James Madison as a reference. The president promptly replied: "I am persuaded it would have been ably filled with your abilities—" but he had already hired one of his wife's Dandridge relatives.(28)  Meanwhile, he did not hear back from Rush about the professor's chair. 

Evidently, he and his ladies returned to Philadelphia briefly. Then, according to notes his wife wrote on a pocket almanac for 1793, on December 9 the Thorntons "set off for the Federal City" and on December 20 they returned. On December 11, Thornton wrote a letter on the epidemic to Lettsom from "Washington," but didn't mention why he was there. The source for all of Thornton's letters to Lettsom was a three volume retrospective of that doctor's life and influence. The editor edited the letters for relevance to medicine. 

At the time, rather than his usual pursuit of schemes, Thornton wanted a job. His application for Lear's job suggests that he did have an ear to the ground about developments in the federal city. Lear left for England because he was being bankrolled by Greenleaf to make contacts so he could become a merchant in the federal city. Indeed, Greenleaf was in the federal city in December. But no one mentioned seeing Thornton in the federal city. During the ten days he was there, letters passed between the commissioners and president.

Perhaps, he was simply fearful of staying in Philadelphia. That Thornton laid low during and after the epidemic is curious. In newspapers, doctors much farther from the city than he shared their observations and opinions. Thornton may have hoped his letter to Lettsom would be published in London. It began well enough: "This has been a long night of silence and death...." Then it flagged as Thornton indulged his penchant to criticize while failing to be particular about his own experiences. He described an instant best seller written by Philadelphia bookseller as "ill written" and thought it under counted the dead by 2,000. He highlighted the city's awful "necessaries" as a cause of the epidemic. He deprecated the depleting remedies used by some doctors, not mentioning Rush by name, and then briefly described his own experience doctoring himself. He was “taken with every symptom of the fever and saw, from my sick bed, many dying in different rooms opposite, but I pursued a more moderate mode, and got well in about a week, though I was reduced, in one day, to a very low state, by the violence of the fever, vomiting and head-ache." 

The city established a hospital for the incapacitated and unattended poor outside of the city staffed by doctors who didn't let patients self medicate. None of the several doctors or many gentlemen who got the fever wound up as a patient there. Two months later, Thornton's story changed. He wrote to John Fitch “I had it but by going in the country and submitting only to my own rules I got better.” In his subsequent letters referring to yellow fever, he didn't mention getting sick at all.(26)

The epidemic did touch Thornton personally. His wife's aunt died: "My wife left her kind and only aunt, who stayed but one week in the city after we had left it. We have no relations here now, but her mother who is one of the best of women." Lettsom's reaction to the letter is not known. It didn't wind up in a London newspaper. Rush stayed in the city to treat patients and exhausted himself physically and emotionally. He emerged from a brief recuperation to explain his cures and elaborate a new theory of medicine. Lettsom thought that Rush's memoir of the epidemic was a "vast effort of genius and science."(25)

Thornton missed the epidemic and as memoirs came out exposing the moral dilemmas, tragic choices and desperate remedies, he kept out of the public controversies. The clergy and Quakers championed a call for moral reform, especially not re-opening the theaters. Despite combining a medical education with a Quaker upbringing, Thornton avoided the debate about whether the epidemic was a visitation by an angry God.

The city's free blacks objected to a published account of the epidemic that accused black nurses of gouging fees from patients. At the beginning of the epidemic, Rush cited an account by a British specialist in tropical disease suggesting blacks were immune. Despite once considering himself a shepherd of blacks and their future physician-in-residence in Africa, Thornton avoided that controversy. The epidemic had muted partisan politics in the city, but with the return of congress, that resumed. Thornton seemed to choose sides. He joined the pro-French, anti-Washington administration, Democratic Society of Philadelphia. (27)

In late February, he wrote to Lettsom again and didn't seem excited about anything. In the first part of his letter he complimented Lettsom on the progress of his son toward an M.D. in Leyden. Then Thornton lamented:

....he will be ripe before I begin to take root. He will be urged by thy incessantly working soul to become active like thee. I languish here amongst merchants, and talents here are in a measure useless. I must work in politics, and exert myself in a way suited, not to myself, but to those about me. I am ashamed of my idleness; I have done nothing; I promise Heaven to do much. If a man wills to do, he does.(32)

Although he challenged himself "to work in politics," there is no evidence that he showed any interest in congress which was then meeting in Philadelphia. Instead in June, as congress was wrapping up its long session, Thornton wrote a letter to the Citizen President of France. His friend Brissot had been sent to the guillotine. Despite that, Thornton extolled the Revolution, recognized the necessity of blood flowing, prayed that France would defeat the forces opposed to it and then conquer the world. He enclosed what he called “HINTS for devices of war” including two that he invented, harpoons with spring barbs for grappling and grenades of basalt. How to heat iron balls in an oven before being shot was secret but not his original idea. If summoned, he would come to France to help build those decisive weapons. Finally, he enclosed a copy of Cadmus and invited France to reform the world's languages. He didn't offer to design France's new public buildings.(33)

While there is no evidence that he listened to it, there was a current of news and gossip about changes in the federal city. Since Blodget losing his job was one change, Thornton probably was abreast of the changes. Because Blodget had "fertility of genius," a taste for architecture and a personal fortune much bigger than Thornton, he was ever Thornton's friend.

By the end of September, Greenleaf had begun negotiations to buy 3000 lots in the federal city. By the end of December two Philadelphia speculators, Robert Morris and John Nicholson, joined him and the three partners contracted to buy 6000 lots. Nicholson had also previously bought other lots which he planned to develop on his own. The speculators contracted to pay $70,000 a year which the commissioners calculated would support their operations so that the public buildings would be ready in 1800. To prove they were not merely speculating, the speculators agreed to build 20 houses a year for seven years. To prove they would not sell lots to other speculators, they also agreed that sales of lots they made before 1 January 1796 would require the buyer to build a house on "every third lot." The hope was that after three lack luster public auctions, payments from the speculators would establish a reliable cash flow fulfilling the premise of the whole project: sales of lots would fund the construction of the public buildings.(29)

Along with 6000 city lots, the partners began writing checks backed by Greenleaf's credit in Holland to buy Western land at a pace that would lead to owning 6 million acres, including a few hundred around Frederick, Maryland, bought by Greenleaf from commissioner Thomas Johnson. Confident that the deal assured completion of the public buildings, Johnson intimated his intention to retire. Morris joined Greenleaf in expressing interest in buying all of George Washington's Western holdings but the president wanted too high a price.(30)

The speculators appetite for lots and land convinced everyone that the flow of money from them would not stop. On December 6, Blodget reported to the commissioners from Philadelphia that "Mr. Greenleaf I am informed intends to make great exertions in the spring in a new elegant stile of building." He hired James Simmons to supervise the architects who would build his many houses. Simmons had married the daughter of Jacob Bringhurst who built carriages for the likes of George Washington. The young man started his own shop and had pretensions as a designer of elegance. His brother William clerked in the Treasury department that had issued the bonds that formed the basis of Greenleaf's wealth. There is no evidence that Simmons or Greenleaf approached Thornton for any architectural advice. One of the men they hired would be supervising architect as the Octagon house was built and likely designed it.(31)


Go to Chapter Six


Footnotes for Chapter Five:

1 Jefferson to Carroll, 1 February 1793; reply 7 February 1793.

2 Hallet to Jefferson, 15 March 1793, Google translation;  Jefferson to GW 26 March 1793.

4 WT to Thomason, 24 April 1793, Papers of William Thornton, Harris, pp. 249-51.

5 Clark, p 159: WT to Jefferson, 8 June 1793, Founders online 269-71; Fitch to WT, 11 August 1793, Papers of William Thornton

6. Hallet's and Hoban's bona fides as architects were self-professed. On Williamson see Williamson to GW 11 July 1796

7. Commrs to GW, 23 June, 1793; Roberdeau to L'Enfant 18 June 1793, L'Enfant Papers.

8. Brown 1896 p. 68, Brown 1800, p. 60; Cluss 1876.

9. Arnebeck, Through a Fiery Trial, p. 164.

16.  GW to Commrs., 25 July & 29 August 1793.
 
17. Architect of the Capitol, "First Cornerstone."; McBride, Elyse Gundersen, "The Changing Role of the Architect in the American Construction Industry, 1870-1913." Contruction History Vol. 20 no. 1, (2013) p. 125, 131ff.
 
18. Trumbull to WT 9 March 1795, Papers of William Thornton.
 
19.  Commrs. records, proceedings 18 -21 November1793. 

20.  The map can be found online at the Library of Congress;  Harris, p. lxxix, identifies the engraving as a copy of the prize winning design; On Robert King see Ehrenberg, Ralph, "Nicholas King: First Surveyor of City of Washington 1803-1812"
  

21. Clark, Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City; Greenleaf to Webster 18 August 1789, Ford p. 205.

22. Commrs. to Fenwick 5 January 1793.

23. GW to Commrs. 20 August, 1793.

24. WT to Rush, 11 September 1793; Harris, p. 275.

25.  Lettsom, Recollections of Benjamin Rush, 1815, Google Books.

26. WT to Lettsom, 11 December 1793, Pettigrew 3, 224-6;  WT to Fitch, 21 March 1794, Harris p. 277. Thornton eventually grew accustomed to Rush's remedies. According to his wife's notebook, on New Year's Day 1812, he woke with an alarming palsy. The doctor bled him and dosed him with calomel and jalap, a mercurial medicine and herbal laxative, which along with bleeding, were the same depleting remedies Rush had used.

27. The best short history of the late 18th century yellow fever epidemics is my own: : A Short History.... My book on Rush and yellow is on-line at Benjamin Rush, Yellow Fever and the Birth of Modern Medicine

28. Harris p. 280; WT to GW, 29 November 1793 

29. Pratt v. Law, No. 659, , US Supreme Court, 9 Cranch  pp. 779ff.

30. Johnson to Greenleaf 25 September 1793, Greenleaf Papers; Clark, Greenleaf and Law, pp. : GW to Morris, 26 May 1794 ; on GW's negotiations to sell his Western lands.

31.  Blodget to Commrs. 5 December 1793; General Advertiser 16 March 1792 p. 1;

32. Amer. Phil. Soc. Minutes; WT to Fitch 21 February 1794;  Pettigrew volume 2, pp 544-45, 21 February 1794.

33. WT to the Citizen President of France, 12 June 1794, Papers of William Thornton     



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