Chapter Three (1777-1792): "give beauty & granduer to the pile"

Table of Contents 

Chapter Three (1777-1792): "give beauty & granduer to the pile"

26. A 1757 map of Maryland before the Plan

"Eclat" became a choice word in the correspondence of the "Founders" shortly after the alliance with France in 1776. The young Marquis de Lafayette who led the French expeditionary army embodied eclat. For General Washington that French word meant more than style and brilliance. It also meant the thunder-striking solution to a problem. For six months during the spring and summer of 1791, the president applauded the eclat of L'Enfant's brilliant planning. Then followed a fall and winter of problems and L'Enfant left the project in March 1792. His fall allowed for Thornton's rise. However, in one of his last letters, sent to Thornton in December 1799, the General alluded to the federal city's festering problems and added, "Yet, I trust will, ultimately, escape the Ordeal with eclat." That was tantamount to dismissing the previous eight years, six of them with Thornton as a commissioner, as part of the problem.(1)

However, the General, as he was universally called, was the problem that young men driven by a lust for fame faced. After all, no man in that era could rival the General's fame. Thornton understood that better than L'Enfant and became and remained a friend until the General's death in 1799. But L'Enfant was one of the few that got under the General's skin by shaping his perceptions and expectations and then walking out. His fall allowed for Thornton's rise, but the way he fell raised the General's suspicions of all who came after him.(2)

The young Frenchman managed to rise without being a marquis or any other shade of nobility. He was the son of Pierre Nicholas Lenfant, a government painter specializing in battle scenes and a teacher at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The son studied at the school and was trained to be a painter. Nonetheless, he let himself be recruited as a military engineer and was accepted as such in America even by his French colleagues, who then began to teach him how to be one.(3)

He made an impression as an engineer. In 1792, when his knowledge of "water-works" was challenged, Alexander Hamilton, who had known him for over a decade, retorted: "He is by Trade what is called in France a civil Engineer that is an Artist acquainted with Mechanics generally; particularly in reference to Architecture Aqueducts Canals &c &c including necessarily a knowlege of Hydraulicks. This is the mans profession, & from my knowlege of him I rely that he will undertake nothing which he is not able to execute solidly and well."(4)

  

Lieutenant L'Enfant also made an impression as a soldier at the Battle of Savannah, exhibiting memorable bravery before being wounded and taken prisoner. Major L'Enfant captured General Washington's attention when in July 1782, he made a temporary ballroom to celebrate the birth of the Dauphin, which was the title given to the heir to the French throne. Beside the French minister's rented house on Philadelphia's Chestnut Street, L'Enfant built a 40 by 60 frame building open all around with "painted pillars" supporting a ceiling decorated “with several pieces of neat paintings emblematical of the design of the entertainment.” The garden beside the building “was cut into beautiful walks, and divided with cedar and pine branches into artificial groves.” 

 

In 1783, he designed the diploma and medal for Society of Cincinnati, the fraternal order of American and French officers who served in the war just ending. The General sent him to France and he saw that the King on down rose to the occasion. As a rule, French officers were not allowed to wear foreign medals. Louis XVI bowed to L'Enfant. Benjamin Franklin, then in Paris, thought the eagle depicted in the medal looked like a turkey, but only wrote to his wife about that. L'Enfant returned to America. A flaw found in the medal raised suspicions but the General and his former generals and colonels defended L'Enfant's honor.(5)

 

Not until Washington came to New York City to be inaugurated did he see L'Enfant's work as an architect. He had a prospering career there. Members of the Cincinnati became leaders in the city's government and institutions. He altered Trinity Church so it could better coexist with a monument to Richard Montgomery, the first fallen hero of the war. After designing and building the temporary pavilions for the Federal Procession in 1788, he turned a nondescript building into Federal Hall to house the new Federal government. He completed the job in time and to general satisfaction. It has been left to architectural historians to explain its features because it was soon devoured by a massive customs house.(6)

30. Federal Hall

Until 1789, George Washington achieved his world wide fame without the backdrop of any architecture much out of the ordinary. He gave up his command of the army at the small Senate chamber in the Maryland State House in Annapolis. He presided over the Constitutional Convention at the serviceable main room of the Pennsylvania State House.

A man who would turn out to be one of the first arbiters of taste in the new country, the painter and playwright William Dunlap, who was then 23 years old, captured the living moment on April 30, 1789, when thanks to L'Enfant, Washington's greatness was framed by architecture. He took the oath of office on a balcony that led into the senate chamber and over looked the street. Dunlap thought the balcony was “made sacred” by the inauguration. Later, the president's secretary informed L'Enfant that Martha Washington wanted L'Enfant to give her a tour of Federal Hall.(7)

In 1789, congress began debating legislation to fulfill its Constitutional obligation to create a capital for the federal government. The debate over where to put the capital made no difference to L'Enfant. In September 1789, he wrote to the president asking for the chance to draw a plan for the new capital “on such a Scale as to leave room for that aggrandisement & embellishment which the increase of the wealth of the Nation will permit it to pursue at any period however remote....” He also asked for a career.

The Confederation congress had created the office of Surveyor of the United States. L'Enfant asked to be appointed Engineer of the United States. He pointed out that he was the only member of the army's old engineering corps still in the United States. He offered to design and build fortifications to protect the coast. Then he pointed out “that the sciences of Military and civil architecture are so connected as to render an Engineer Equally serviceable in time of peace as in war by the employment of his abilities in the internal improvemen⟨ts⟩ of the Country.” All to say, he could design the public buildings in the new capital. The president did not reply to letters begging for a job.(8)

In July, after a year of plotting and acrimonious debate, congress passed the Residence Act of 1790 that empowered the president to put the ten mile square federal district somewhere along an 110 miles stretch of the Potomac River. The plan of a city inside the district as well as the designs of the Capitol and other public buildings were entirely up to the president.(9) The State of Maryland put up $72,000 in seed money. Virginia promised to pitch in with $120,000. As long as he didn't ask congress to appropriate money, the president had complete control. He had to appoint three commissioners to procure the land but did not need the Senate's advice and consent. On January 22, 1791, the president announced the site of the federal district and appointed the three commissioners, Governor Johnson, Congressman Daniel Carroll of Rock Creek, another Marylander, and David Stuart, a politically savvy Virginia doctor married to Eleanor Calvert Custis, Martha Washington's widowed daughter-in-law. He decided on the site of the federal district before he appointed the commissioners. He decided on the site of the federal city before they had their first meeting. In February, the president sent Andrew Ellicott to survey and mark the boundaries of the new district. In March 1791, he sent L'Enfant to Georgetown to make a plan for the federal capital to be built just across Rock Creek and stretching to the Eastern Branch or Anacostia River to the east. That winter, congress had its first short session and in a matter of a few weeks the president went to check on L'Enfant's progress.(10)

Ironically, the biannual "short session" of congress condemned the city to a century of slower development. The Constitution set a two year term for representatives. It also required that congress convene on the first Monday of December, unless “by Law” congress changed the date. The last Confederation congress set March 4, 1789, as the date when the new congress would convene. So the two year term of office for the first congressmen ended on March 3, 1791. Congress did not pass a law otherwise so the First Congress convened for its last  of three sessions on December 6, 1790. That session lasted not quite three months. Then the Second Congress convened in late October 1791. The new members elected in 1790 finally took office and the re-elected members got back to work after seven and one half months vacation. Thus, for several months every odd year, the city's main attraction closed down and all congressmen and senators were back in their home states.

Inclement weather prevented the president from touring the site with L'Enfant, but he negotiated and signed the founding document of the city with a dozen gentlemen eager to sell their land for the new capital city at $66 an acre provided they would retain enough building lots assuring that they would make a fortune as the city grew. After his meeting with the proprietors, the General set off on a presidential tour of the Southern states. Upon returning he hoped to affirm L'Enfant's choices for the sites of the Capitol and President's house. Meanwhile, the three commissioners were still trying to organize their first meeting.

In April, Secretary of State Jefferson wrote to L'Enfant: "I am happy that the President has left the planning of the town in such good hands." He sent L'Enfant the plans of several European cities, encouraged him to draw a plan with "very liberal reservations" for the public and gave his ideas for the public buildings: “Whenever it is proposed to prepare plans for the Capitol, I should prefer the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity which have had the approbation of thousands of years; and for the President’s house I should prefer the celebrated fronts of Modern buildings which have already received the approbation of all good judges. Such are the Galerie du Louvre, the Gardes meubles, and two fronts of the Hotel de Salm. But of this it is yet time enough to consider.”(11)

On April 23, Daniel Carroll, one of the three commissioner the president appointed to oversee the project, cheered L'Enfant on and boasted to James Madison that before the president returned in late June “it is probable some plans of the City and the public buildings may be then exhibited."(12)

L'Enfant responded to such personal attention with a work of eclat, "The Plan of the City of Washington."  In a July 20 letter to a former military aide, Washington wrote: “ the business of laying out the city, the grounds for public buildings, walks & c is progressing under the inspection of Major L’Enfant with pleasing prospects."(13)

32. The Plan

Unfortunately for L'Enfant, to implement the plan General Washington wanted a chain of command. The three commissioners had only been working on getting title to the land taken for the city-to-be not covered by the March agreement with the proprietors. Just after L'Enfant came to Philadelphia in August with his plan for the city, the president sent Jefferson and Madison to Georgetown to confer with the commissioners. Ellicott was available but not invited to the meeting. He and L'Enfant were miffed that decisions were made at the meeting without their input.  Jefferson and the commissioners decided to have design contests for the public buildings. L'Enfant was stunned. The president vetoed the design contests, but told the commissioners to oversee L'Enfant's work. After having conferred about the future of their city with the president alone at Mount Vernon, L'Enfant bristled at getting an order from the commissioners. The summer of eclat was over. (14)

To make a long story short, that bristling became just one in a series of actions and in-actions on L'Enfant's part that the commissioners and president thought were perverse. L'Enfant refused to show a copy of his city plan during an October auction of lots. L'Enfant refused to hire brick makers and dig clay for bricks. L'Enfant tore down the house being built by Commissioner Carroll's nephew because it was in a future street. The president insisted that he work under the commissioners, and at the same time told the commissioners that he thought L'Enfant was irreplaceable. After all, neither the commissioners nor the president had any idea how to build a capital city.

There were other reasons that L'Enfant was hard to bear. He was not a family man and difficult to track down. He also stole the affections of the men who worked under him even turning them against the commissioners who were legally in charge. For example, Commissioner Stuart hired the son of General Roberdeau. The General was a neighbor in Alexandria, but as second in command under L'Enfant, Isaac Roberdeau countermanded orders from the commissioners.

What frustrated L'Enfant was that the commissioners only met once a month. The commissioner who lived nearby, Daniel Carroll, forwarded the interests of his relatives. L'Enfant complained to the president that the commissioners "oppose me merely to teize and torment." The commissioners and president compensated for their own inadequacies when it came to addressing the business at hand by agreeing that the veil of secrecy, intrigue and expense that L'Enfant cast over everything arose from his "artistic temperament."(15)

In January 1792, L'Enfant went to Philadelphia where, he told the commissioners, he could have access to books when he worked on his designs for the public buildings. But first he drew up a comprehensive work plan estimating the number of stone workers, carpenters and laborers that would be needed. He also estimated the amount of "rough stone" needed, as well as lime, and the cost of lumber. He didn't estimate the number of bricks but noted the need for 23 brick makers. He estimated the total cost, $4 million dollars, and proposed a plan for a loan of that amount. But he never showed the president or the commissioners his designs for the Capitol and President's house, if he indeed made them. He clearly had some semblance of them. His assistant Roberdeau returned to the city in June 1793. He reported to L'Enfant that the foundation for the plan for the President's house then being built "not being so deep as yours" kept the building out of full view of the Capitol. As for the Congress House "the Bow of the house is carried 75 feet lower down the hill than you intended." That suggests that L'Enfant had a design, at least in his mind, with a circular room forming the West front just as Hallet and Thornton would plan.(16)

In a long March 1792 letter to Commissioner Stuart, the president dressed down L'Enfant in the harshest terms. Looking forward to the design contests for the public buildings, he fretted about what damage L'Enfant might still do to the city. He told the commissioner not to expect any "aid" from L'Enfant, "rather I apprehend opposition and a reprobation of every one designed by any other, however perfect."(17) As it turned out, L'Enfant evidenced no curiosity about any designs submitted, approved or altered. 

 

Washington's fear of criticism helps explain why no design, not even Thornton's winning design, was made public. However, that he expressed such a fear of L'Enfant's criticism suggests that Washington could conceive of a perfect design beyond criticism. His naive view suggests that he had definite expectations of what the buildings should look like. L'Enfant helped inform those expectations. On August 19, 1791, he had written to the president: “the spots assigned for the Federal House & for the President palace in exibiting the most sumpteous aspect and claiming already the suffrage of a crowd of daily visitor both natives & foreigners will serve to give a grand Idea of the whole,..." He vividly implied the grandeur of both buildings.(18)

An observer who knew all the principals thought enough was known about L'Enfant's design ideas to give them some agency in the design process. In an 1818 letter to Charles Bulfinch, the architect who took over the project from Benjamin Latrobe, the artist John Trumbull described L'Enfant's role in the design: “Permit me to add, that the great circular room and dome, made a part of the earliest idea of the Capitol, projected by Major L'Enfant, drawn by Dr. Thornton, and adopted by General Washington." By 1818, the two wing of the Capitol had been built, burned by the British army, and restored. Bulfinch was about to design and oversee building the Rotunda where Trumbull's lifetime project, painting scenes of the Revolution, was to find its home.

Trumbull had toured the site with L'Enfant in May 1791. In 1818, Trumbull had graphic evidence of L'Enfant's "projection" of the Capitol. He cited the outline of the building on the engraving of the L'Enfant Plan as proof, no matter that it was about a half inch wide. Trumbull knew that L'Enfant had more than that in mind. In a 1795 letter to L'Enfant, he rued the differences between L'Enfant and the commissioners that led to L'Enfant leaving the project, and wished "that the noble plans you formed then might not be entirely defaced by want of professional knowledge in those to whom the buildings might be entrusted."(19)

27. A hint of L'Enfant's plan for the Capitol?

 

Given the turmoil that attended L'Enfant's leaving the project, neither Washington nor Jefferson were about to give him any credit for the design of the Capitol. Some historians hail Jefferson, who returned from a diplomatic post in France to be secretary of state, for inspiring the Neo-classical public buildings now celebrated throughout America. He did that in part in April 1791 when he suggest to L'Enfant that the Capitol should look like "one of the models of antiquity."(20) However, when he advised the commissioners on the wording of the advertisement announcing the design contests, he didn't mention ancient buildings or the Louvre.

Advertisement for design contests

For the Capitol, the prospectus provided the dimensions of three principal rooms and twelve committee rooms of "a Capitol." The "Senate-Room" and "Room for the Representatives" should have "a Lobby or Antechamber." The winner would get $500 or a medal "of that value" and a lot in the city. There would be a second prize of $250. The award would be "designated by impartial judges" given to "the most approved PLAN." 

The prospectus for the President's house only required that the center part of the building "give the appearance of a complete whole and be capable of admitting the additional parts in future, if they shall be wanting." In both contests, "drawings will be expected of the Ground-plan, Elevations of each Front, and Sections through the Building, in such Directions as may be necessary to explain the Internal Structure; and an Estimate of the cubic Feet of Brick-Work composing the whole Mass of the Walls." 

The contest for the Capitol had clearer requirements, offered a greater challenge and a greater prize. It attracted more entries. Plus, the prospectus for the President's house, seemed to require that the architect come to the city before submitting a design: "The site of the building, if the artist will attend to it, will of course influence the aspect and outline of his plan; and its destination will point out to him the number, size and distribution of the apartments." 

During the president's Southern tour, several of the leading men in Charleston, South Carolina, told the president that James Hoban, a recent emigrant from Ireland, "had made architecture his study, and was well qualified, not only for the planning or designing buildings, but to superintend the execution of them." His response to the design contest announcement was to go to Philadelphia, introduce himself to Washington and carry a letter of introduction from him to the commissioners. He studied the site for the President's house and consulted with the commissioners as he worked on a design. They told the President that they had a good impression of him. Without any ado, the president picked his design. The commissioners hired Hoban to build it. Then in July 1792, Washington walked over the site with Hoban and had him make the building even bigger.(21) 

Of the dozen or so Capitol designs submitted by July 15, the date they were due, only two were taken seriously. Both were drawn by men who likely knew what L'Enfant had in mind for the building: two wings and a larger center building. George Turner had been born in England, remained well connected there, but had fought for the winning side during the revolution making his mark in the Southern theatre just as L'Enfant had done. He had also been secretary of the Society of Cincinnati and had been zealous in defending L'Enfant's honor when questions were raised about his profiting off the medal he designed. The president had also made him a judge in the Northwest Territory but he was slow to move west. Turner was likely in Philadelphia in 1791.(22)

The other favored submission was from a man who not only knew L'Enfant but also knew Jefferson's ideas about what the Capitol. Etienne Hallet had recently arrived from Paris and even though he could hardly speak English, changed his first name to Stephen. He was a trained architect and a good draftsman. L'Enfant used him to copy the plan of the city so that it could be engraved. Jefferson also learned of Hallet's talents and gave him some work to do for the State Department. As L'Enfant's troubles mounted, Jefferson had Hallet draw a design for the Capitol, and asked him to do more than translate "one of the models of antiquity which have had the approbation of thousands of years" into an icon for the new republic. While in Paris where, unlike Thornton, he made a point of studying famous buildings, he was especially struck by a modern variation on an ancient theme that democratized the dome. La Halle au Bles or the Wheat Exchange was a warehouse for evaluating and marketing the wheat harvest. It was a high dome mounted on a wall of arches surrounding an oval floor.  Where the French had shocks of wheat, Jefferson saw the American congress.

For those accustomed to the Classical way of designing buildings, the most notable faux pas of the North Wing completed in 1800 was that its principal room, the Senate chamber, was on the ground story which judging by the outside of the building was the basement story. In 1803, Benjamin Latrobe asked Thornton how that came to be and in a report to President Jefferson paraphrased Thornton's explanation: 

...he informed me that his first idea was that of a grand single story raised upon a basement sufficiently elevated to contain conveniently all the offices attached to the legislative bodies.... Reasons afterwards occurred by which he was induced to lower the altitude and diminish the diameters of his columns; and in order that the general height of the building might not thereby be diminished, the Basement story was raised to one third of the whole height. As the diminished altitude of the principal story was no longer fitted to the high proportions of the Halls of the legislature, they were, without altering the features of the original ground plot, let down to the level of the basement story.(14)

At the time, Jefferson did not reply to Latrobe's very long report except by working with him to complete the South Wing. He vexed Latrobe by insisting on trying to adhere to Thornton's ideas. In 1811, with his work done, Latrobe frankly blamed Jefferson, then retired and at Monticello, for much of the current criticism of his work and methods. Jefferson replied promptly and excused his vexing Latrobe: 

another principle of conduct with me was to admit no innovations on the established plans, but on the strongest grounds. when therefore I thought first of placing the floor of the Representatives Chamber on the level of the basement of the building, and of throwing into it’s height the cavity of [a] dome, in the manner of the Halle aux bles at Paris, I deemed it due to Dr Thornton, author of the plan of the Capitol, to consult him on the change. he not only consented, but appeared heartily to approve of the alteration....(15)

In 1791, well before Thornton was on the scene, Hallet likely forgot his lessons in architecture and accommodated Jefferson's idea. Thanks to his skill as a draftsman, Hallet had several takes on building, and they are extant. One clearly flatters Jefferson's idea to integrate with Halle au Bles with the Capitol. Hallet drew a large protuberance on top of each wing to accommodate the cavernous legislative interior that Jefferson craved.

By the summer of 1792, Jefferson was not the only one thinking of a dome. A very rich New England speculator was in Georgetown preaching the Dome. Samuel Blodget had already purchased lots and land in the city, tried to arrange a $500,000 loan for the commissioners and reminded the president of a discussion they had had during the war about the need for a National University. After he looked at the tree covered Capitol Hill, he convinced everyone he talked to that the Capitol must have a dome to dominate the two wings of the building. He sent his sketch to Jefferson with a request that he view the drawing "at 3 yards distance in a good light before you determine on the effect it may produce." However, the design contest asked for more than a dome and Blodget didn't submit a design.(24)

The contest closed, after viewing the entries, the president favored Turner's. He asked for his entry to be returned. It was and is no longer extant. Only the president's written reaction to it gives some idea of what it looked like: "The Pilastrade too, in my Judgement, ought (if the plan is adopted) to be carried around the simicircular projections at the ends." He also thought Turner's design needed a dome:  "The Dome, which is suggested as an addition to the center of the edifice, would, in my opinion, give beauty & granduer to the pile; and might be useful for the reception of a Clock—Bell, &ca."

In talking with Jefferson, if not L'Enfant, the president probably anticipated that pilasters protruding from the outer walls would be the most recognizable feature of a building modeled on what the Romans had built. Obviously, he liked how Turner used them. He also liked Turner's bows projecting from the north and south ends of building and thought an extended pilastrade would unite them with the large bow projected from an oval room which formed the center piece of the west front. That was the principal feature of the very small Capitol that L'Enfan drew on his Plan. The president also had a way with words and his abbreviating pilastrade with pile is a nice double entendre. He saw the need for Blodget's dome and that he expected it to on the center of the building is significant.

Thanks to his skill as a draftsman, Hallet had several takes on building, and they are extant. One clearly flatters Jefferson's idea to integrate with Halle au Bles with the Capitol. Hallet drew a large protuberance on top of each wing to accommodate the cavernous legislative interior that Jefferson craved. Scholars think that not what the president was looking at in July 1793, but in his letter to the commissioners, he did fault Hallet's roof with "I must confess does not hit my taste." The president made clear that he preferred Turner's design, but he thought one element of Hallet's design would benefit Turner's: "Could such a plan as Judge Turner’s be surrounded with Columns, and a colonade like that which was presented to you by Monsr Hallet ...without departing from the principles of Architecture—and would not be too expensive for our means, it would, in my judgement, be a noble & desireable Structure."

The president seemed to want ancient columns planted like trees. He made clear that Turner's design had a better appearance, but the way the French draftsman depicted columns must have impressed him. In December, Turner would sketch half of Hallet's elevation on the back of the parchment upon which Thornton had drawn a design. That sketched showed Hallet's bold columns two stories though confined to the central entrance to the building. The president noted only two parts of the interior: "There is the same defect, however, in this plan as there is in all the plans which have been presented to you—namely—the want of an Executive apartment: wch ought, if possible, to be obtained." The design contest prospectus made no mention of that. He also thought Turner's wings might be too high:  "whether it is necessary to have the elevation of the upper Storey 41 feet is questionable; unless it be to preserve exactness in the proportion of the several parts of the building." Then he wondered if it might make more space for committee rooms, and then questioned whether dividing space into smaller rooms might cause lighting problems. Finally, he worried that he might be wrong: "But, I would have it understood in this instance, and always, when I am hazarding a sentiment on these buildings, that I profess to have no knowledge in Architecture, and think we should (to avoid criticisms) be governed by the established Rules which are laid down by the professors of this Art."(25) Not surprisingly, it took him another six months to decide on a design.

There is no evidence that they discussed the matter face to face, but the commissioners got what the president was driving it. Judge Thornton could not add Hallet's columns to his design, but Hallet could recast his design and give it Turner's look. The commissioners summoned Hallet to Georgetown. He left his pregnant wife in Philadelphia and the commissioners put him to work making another design. 

 

34. Hallet's 1791 design

41. Samuel Blodget by John Trumbull 1784

In a letter to Jefferson, written in French, Hallet marvelled at the commissioners ordering expensive column to surround the building. He also assured Jefferson that what he was drawing had the same ideas as the design he made the year before at his request, and presumably with some of Jefferson's ideas. The problem, which Hallet sensed, was that the president didn't like Hallet. On September 21, the president was on his way to Mount Vernon and stopped in Georgetown to, among other things, look at Hallet's latest design. Hallet shared his trepidation in his letter to Jefferson: "The President asked me a lot of questions about my theoretical and practical studies and seemed to want proof of this...." Hallet hoped that Jefferson had a copy of  "the Royal Almanac, edition of 1786 and Following. You will find there the proof that I was received Architect Jure-Expert of the 1st Column in 1785." Then Hallet put a twist on his predicament which may have caused Jefferson to have doubts about Hallet. He interpreted his situation in France as being "stateless." Jefferson was a very close friend of the French Revolution.

 

Hallet told Jefferson that he expected his "new plan Will be accepted or rejected after being exposed to the judgment of the Public, which will undoubtedly be numerous here on October 8th because of the Land Sale which will take place at that time." As it turned out, Hallet's happy expectations did not come to pass despite seeming like a reasonable course of events: amend the plan to accommodate the wishes of the president and commissioners, unveil it to an interested public and build a consensus in its favor. But the powers-that-be who damned L'Enfant for not showing his plan for the city at the October 1791 auction of building lots, refused to show Hallet's plan for the Capitol at the October 1792 auction

As it turned out, Hallet's happy expectations did not come to pass despite seeming like a reasonable course of events: amend the plan to accommodate the wishes of the president and commissioners, unveil it to an interested public and build a consensus in its favor. But the powers-that-be who damned L'Enfant for not showing his plan for the city at the October 1791 auction of building lots, refused to show Hallet's plan for the Capitol at the October 1792 auction.(26)

Despite that the commissioners did not lose faith in Hallet. They as well as the president began thinking of Blodget as just the man to be the Superintendent of the City. Washington averred that L'Enfant was the only man he ever knew who he thought could do the job, but Blodget won the president's full support by promising to finance the development of Pennsylvania Avenue. Stuart seemed delighted with the president's endorsement of Blodget, and reminded him that with Hallet around, Blodget need not be an architect like L'Enfant: "Tho’ he [Blodget] may not be so thorough an Architect as some others, he has certainly turned his attention much to that subject, and may I think be justly allowed to have a very pretty taste for it. And more perhaps is not so very necessary, if Mr Hallet is employed in the same line for the execution of the Capitol, in which Hoben is for the President’s house; which I should suppose very proper—I believe he fully deserves the high opinion Mr Jefferson entertains of him."(27)

Meanwhile, on September 4, 1792, the commissioners received a letter from Tortola signed “Fellow Citizen.” In the letter dated July 12, 1792, that worthy reported that as soon as he had heard about the design competition, “I have been constantly engaged since endeavoring to accomplish what you propose.” A phrase that he used might of have struck home. He was keeping “strictly to the rules of architecture.” He said he didn't send the designs because he meant to “depart hence in a few days for America."(28)

 

Go to Chapter Four

Footnotes for Chapter Three

1.  GW to WT, 8 December 1799.

2. GW to Stuart, March 8, 1792.

3. "Pierre Lenfant" French Wikipedia; for "de L'Enfant" see L'Enfant to GW, 28 January 1783; Bowling, Kenneth, Peter Charles L'Enfant: Vision, Honor and Male Friendship in the Early American Republic...; on French military engineers see Duportail to GW 18 January 1778, and Walker, Paul, Engineers of Independence, pp353ff;

4. Hamilton to James Watson, 9 October 1792.

5.  on military career see L'Enfant to GW 18 February 1782; on ball Letters B. Rush, vot 1, 16 July 1782 to Ferguson, p. 277;on Cincinnati Knox to GW, 16 October 1783; on medals GW to Knox, 1 June 1786; GW to L'Enfant, 1 January 1787; L'Enfant to GW, 6 December 1786; his first letter to GW L'Enfant to GW, 4 September 1778;

6. On work in NYC see Driskel, Michael Paul. "By the Light of Providence "JSTOR, p. 720; Bowling, Kenneth L'Enfant..., pp. 8 & 9;

7. Dunlap, William,  History of the Rise of Arts and Design of the Arts of Design in America, vol. 1, 1834, p. 338; Humphries to L'Enfant 11 June 1789, in Morgan. J. D., "Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant," Journal of Columbia Historical Society, vol 2. p119. 

8. L'Enfant to GW, 11 Sept. 1789.

9. The law authorized the commissioners “to purchase or accept” land needed and “according to such Plans, as the President shall approve the said Commissioners, or any two of them shall prior to the first Monday in December in the year one thousand eight hundred, provide suitable buildings for the accommodation of Congress, and of the President, and for the public Offices of the government of the United States.” The law allowed Washington to accept “Plans,” not just a plan so it was assumed that meant he would decide on the plan for the city and plans for the public buildings.

10. Arnebeck, Fiery Trial, pp. 33ff. Also see Seat of Empire: the General and the Plan. 

11. Jefferson to L'Enfant, 10 April 1791;

12. Carroll to Madison, 23 April, 1791

13.  GW to Humphreys, 20 July 1791,

14. Jefferson to GW, 8 September 1791; Jefferson Memorandum: Queries for D.C. Commissioners 28 August 1791;  

15. Washington to Stuart, 20 Nov 1791; Stuart to Washington, 26 February 1792: In "To Tease and Torment" Two Presidents Confront Suspicions of Sodomy, I explore sexual dimensions of the troubles with L'Enfant. In Fiery Trial pp 62-110, I narrate L'Enfant's predicament. In "Give L'Enfant a Break", I do just that. I establish that he didn't employ slaves in Slave Labor in  the Capital; L'Enfant to Jefferson, 26 February 1792; L'Enfant to GW 17 January 1792 ;  

16. L'Enfant to GW 17 January 1792 Enclosure; Roberdeau to L'Enfant 18 June 1793 L'Enfant Papers LOC.

17. GW to Stuart, March 8, 1792.

18. L'Enfant to GW, 19 August 1791,

19. Trumbull to Bullfinch, 28 Jan 1818 p 271, Letters of John Trumbull; Trumbull to L'Enfant 9 March 1795.Donald Hawkins, "Origins of the Rotunda" USCHS Capitol Dome, Summer 2013 (pdf). 

20. 19. Wilson, Mabel O., Thomas Jefferson, Architect, "What He Saw..." by Lloyd DeWitt, p. 60 "Thus Jefferson changed the course of American architecture, just as he set out to do."  Churchill, James E., "Thomas Jefferson and Transposition of Ancient Design to the New World" 

21. GW to Commrs., 8 June 1792; Commrs. to GW, 19 July 1792; to trace Hoban's career in the city click here for excerpts from Through a Fiery Trial. 

22. "George Turner, (judge)" Wikipedia

23.  Hallet to Jefferson, 21 September 1792 ;  Mrs. Hallet to GW, 27 April 1795 

24. Blodget to Jefferson, 10 July 1792 ; also see Stuart to GW, 18 April 1792.

25. GW to Commrs., 23 July 1792 ;

26. Jefferson to Carroll, 13 October 1792; Hallet to Jefferson, 21 September 1792

27.  GW to Stuart, 30 November 1792 and reply 10 December 1792; more on Blodget as an architect see Hafertepe, Kenneth, "Banking Houses in the United States, 1781-1811, Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 35, no. 1 2000, pp. 9-14, 17-24 and the historic nomination documents for Blodget's Philadelphia house, Keeping Philadelphia Greenville Mansion.

28. Papers of William Thornton, Fellow Citizen to Commrs. 12 July 1792.