Chapter Five: Design by Committee and an Epidemic
Table of Contents page 74 index
Chapter Five: Design by Committee and an Epidemic
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| 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. Poor Hallet: when he heard that the president gave Thornton more time to finish his design, Hallet's 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." There is no evidence of any reaction to his letter or (page 75) his new design.(2)
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 the 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....
page 76 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."
The prospectus of the design contest required "an Estimate of the cubic Feet of Brick-Work composing the whole Mass of the Walls." Ironically, L’Enfant, the supposed temperamental artist, may have persuaded the commissioners that one could calculate such numbers. For example, in his January 1792 estimate of materials needed, L’Enfant projected using "24000 perch Rough Stone for bridges and buildings at 60 cents."
Obviously, Thornton realized that only an architect could answer such practical questions. Yet, anyone dealing with building on a practical level was likely taken aback by his also intruding 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 he 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..."
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| 48. The Farnese Hercules |
Meanwhile, Thornton had a frustrating year in Philadelphia. He probably had borrowed money from his mother-in-law to support himself in Georgetown. On April 24, he wrote to his step father that he had no money and was forced to live off a "dowager.” He blamed him for not dividing the Tortola plantation and asked for an immediate loan of 1500 Pounds Sterling, about $6,000. He did not mention his good luck in the design contest which won him $500. He did explain why he needed the money. He was negotiating to buy a farm along the Susquehanna River in Maryland where he might be able to catch enough shad to profitably sell in Tortola.4
He rather quickly decided not to practice medicine. He later said the fees did not reward the amount of time and effort expended. Soon after returning from Georgetown, Thornton bought or rented a farm just outside of Philadelphia, not the Susquehanna farm. Whether he finally had his asses imported from Tortola is not known. However, he did not rusticate. He got letters from Fitch who was in France to gain monopoly rights there for the steamboat. He sent out copies of his award winning publication Cadmus, including to the president which elicited a reply only from the president's secretary. After feeling sorry for Poor Hallet, Jefferson had some regard for Thornton. He asked him to design a ceremonial mace for the Virginia assembly. Thornton showed his talent for drawing nature, and rather than a crown, fashioned a rattlesnake on that symbol of power. Then came bad news.5
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 page 78 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.
The commissioners handed Thornton's elevation and floor plans to Hallet and asked him to estimate how much it would cost to build. Instead, once he had all of Thornton's drawings in hand, 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 his 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."
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.
However, supporting
Thornton and thus flattering the president's decision which Jefferson
had endorsed might keep one man at work and well paid for 30 years.
But there was danger in building a faulty design. That plans do go
awry was made clear on the other side of town. 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.(5A)
Also, as Adolph Cluss, one of Washington's great 19th century architects put it, Hallet saw that there was something very familiar about most of Thornton's "pile." To simply say it could not be built or would be too expensive might give the impression that Hallet's very similar designs were also unworkable. So, Hallet made what the commissioners gave him workable so he could keep his job. Remember his rather distressed wife.
Hallet warned the commissioners, and then both Washington 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.
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.”6
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.7 Jefferson shared the list with the president but page 79 not with Thornton.8 Jefferson also sent the president's letter to Thornton and invited him to respond in anyway he chose.
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.
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| 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."
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| 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....9
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 page 80 President attending as long as he could.10 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.
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.”11
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.
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 page 81 work of great merit."
Finally, to make having awarded Thornton the prize seem even more understandable, 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.
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 Washington 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." Indeed, "the foundation would be begun upon the plan as exhibited by Mr Hallett."12
page 82 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 Washington 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 Washington 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.
In the late 19th century Glenn Brown and other architects rising as leaders in the American Institute of Architects celebrated the primacy of the architect over the engineer. They elevated art and genius over the traditions of the master-builder. Brown pushed Thornton ahead of his time. Although Hallet and Hoban were at the cornerstone laying ceremony, they were beside the point. They were no more important than the mason who laid he stone.(12A)
Ironically, Hallet became the villain of the Brown's history of the Capitol, but he as well as Thornton suffered the fate of mere designers in the 18th century. As the president's July letter outlined, Hallet would continue making designs while Hoban supervised construction and made more money. 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.(12B)
If Thornton wrote a letter in 1793 or 1794 that tried to gauge what happened to his design and his personal prospects after the July meeting, it has not been found. He did save the draft of a 1797 letter to his old master Dr. Fell that bragged on his accomplishments, but did not mention any setbacks. Not only did his original design go missing so did his objections to Hallet's changes to his design. That allows architectural historians to narrate history through images rather than words. Brown and others base their case confirming Thornton's genius on a small engraving on the bottom right hand corner of an 1818 map that they think is a reconstruction of Thornton's original elevation.(12C)
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| 51. An 1818 map supposed to be but not likely Thornton's 1793 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. In his defense of his plan, Thornton had taunted Hallet by reminding him "that the lofty colonade of the Louvre is composed of double pillars." Hallet's revision must have eliminated them, and settled for a less lofty colonnade likely on the West front. Since the 1818 engraving has the portico Hallet tried to eliminate, it is obviously an engraving of a Thornton design, but it is not his winning design. After the president made Thornton a commissioner, he claimed he undid Hallet's changes and restored his original design. He didn't, but he did redraw his elevation of the East front based on the North Wing as built. He drew the South Wing to mirror the North and added a likely more modest recapitulation of his portico and dome with Hercules at the peak of the pediment.
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| 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 wound up marrying a Dutch banker's daughter. He had pleased Dutch investors by facilitating their purchase of bonds that restructured the US national debt. With bonds he held with his partner, who he soon bought out, he established a credit of $1.3 million. According to Blodget, he met page 85 Greenleaf in London in 1790 and he told Greenleaf 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.14
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.”15
page 86 That summer, 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 interest in land elsewhere and had heard that Washington wished to sell his Western lands. Finally, like Washington, 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 up and down 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."16
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.
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| 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, Thornton 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 page 87 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.17 Thornton stayed in Wilmington at least through mid-December. Meanwhile, he did not hear back from Rush about the professor's chair. Since a professor made money by the tickets he sold to his lectures, and since Thornton was universally popular, he would have made enough money to add to his Tortola income to make a very comfortable living. While income from the medical school was not guaranteed, that position conferred status commensurate with Thornton's education.
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."18
That Thornton laid low during after the epidemic is curious. In newspapers, observations and exhortations ranged from a paragraph to letters that filled a column or two. The latter were often written by M.D.s. On December 11, Thornton did begin his letter on the epidemic, addressed to Lettsom, but neither the sender or recipient evidently thought it worthy of publication. 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 enclosed a pamphlet written by a Philadelphia book seller narrating the events that led to the death of some 4,000 people. Thornton described the instant best seller 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.”24
He did not particularize because he probably didn't have the fever. 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.25
It's also hard to fathom why Thornton, if he had indeed left the city and cured himself of the fever in a week, did not mention that to Rush. It is also hard to make sense of his letter to Lettsom. He wrote that he wound up in a room where he could see “many dying in rooms page 88 opposite.” The city established a hospital for the poor outside of the city just east of Thornton's farm but patients were collected in the city and more or less certified as poor and helpless. The committee in charge of the hospital listed patients, both those who died and survived. Thornton was not listed. None of the several doctors or gentlemen who got the fever wound up as a patient there.
Perhaps the price of considering oneself a genius was not being content that your contribution during an epidemic was moving 20 women away from the disease. He did mention to Lettsom that his wife's aunt had remained in the city a week too long and died.
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.26 At about the same time, he wrote to President Washington to apply for a job as the president's secretary. He told the president that he had heard that his 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 had already hired one of his wife's Dandridge relatives.19
Thornton's 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. When still the president's secretary, Lear had composed the letter of introduction Greenleaf took to Georgetown.
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, they 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."20
Along with 6000 city lots, the partners began buying Western land at a pace that would page 89 lead to owning 6 million acres, including a few hundred around Frederick, Maryland, bought by Greenleaf from commissioner Thomas Johnson. Ethically, it could have been worse. The commissioner offered more acreage that Greenleaf didn't buy.21 Morris joined Greenleaf in expressing interest in buying all of George Washington's Western holdings but the president wanted too high a price.22
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. And all the while, the speculators would be building houses. 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 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.(23)
He returned to Philadelphia by December 28. He attended a meeting of the Philosophical Society. At its meeting on January 3, he counted votes cast for officers but wasn't one of the dozen notables elected to various posts. He did not have any dissertations to present other than a copy of page 90 Cadmus. He kept in touch with Fitch who was promoting his steamboat in Europe. That genius had sent a new invention to Thornton, the Columbian Navigator. Thornton promised to promote it.
One gauge of Thornton's moods are his letters to Lettsom. That winter in his next letter to him, he 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.(27)
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, 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.28
Go to Chapter Six
Footnotes for Chapter Five:
2
Hallet to Jefferson, 15 March 1793, Google translation.
3
Papers of William Thornton, WT to Commrs. April 1793: L'Enfant to GW 17 January 1792 Enclosure
4 WT to Thomason, 24 April 1793, 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
5A Arnebeck, Through a Fiery Trial, p. 164
12 GW to Commrs., 29 August 1793.
12A. 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.
12B. Commrs. records, proceedings 18 -21 November1793.
12C. 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's arrival in city in 1797 see Ehrenberg, Ralph, "Nicholas King: First Surveyor of City of Washington 1803-1812"
12D. Trumbull to WT 9 March 1795, Papers of William Thornton
13 for cornerstone plaque; Commrs' proceedings, 18 -21 November1793.
14 WT to Fell 5 October 1797, Harris, p. 419; Clark, Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City
15 Commrs. to Fenwick 5 Januaary 1793.
17 WT to Rush, 11 September 1793; Harris, p. 275
20 Pratt v. Law, No. 659, , US Supreme Court, 9 Cranch 456 pp. 779ff
21 Johnson to Greenleaf 25 September 1793, Greenleaf Papers
22 Clark, Greenleaf and Law, pp. : GW to Morris, 26 May 1794 ; on GW's negotiations to sell his Western lands.
22A. Commrs. to GW, 23 March 1794; Arnebeck, Through a Fiery Trial, pp. 150-2, 207-9
23
Blodget to Commrs. 5 December 1793; for pages from Arnebeck's Fiery Trial on Blodget's lottery.
24 WT to Lettsom, 11 December 1793, Pettigrew volume 3, 224-6. 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.
25 WT to Fitch, 21 March 1794, Harris p. 277
26 Harris p. 280; 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
27 Amer. Phil. Soc. Minutes; WT to Fitch 21 February 1794; Pettigrew 2 pp 544-45, 21 February 1794
28 Harris, pp. 279-80.
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