William Thornton Re-examined by Bob Arnebeck

The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol by Bob Arnebeck   Table of Contents Sir Archy, an engraving of Tayloe's most famous horse In mid-March 1797, the General left Philadelphia. By the way, once out of office the former president was universally called the General. He made his slow way home to Mount Vernon receiving the heartfelt plaudits of his countrymen. After acknowledging the volley from Captain Hoban's artillery militia at the unifinished Capitol and as he rode over the largely empty and eroding terrain to the President's house, he likely had some sense of accomplishment. One grand daughter lived just on the other side of Rock Creek and other on Capitol Hill. He would have familiar beds to sleep in when he visited the city. Otherwise, he had done nothing with the lots he had bought and still had no time to do anything. As he would write to the secretary of war, at Mount Vernon he was surrounded b...

  The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol by Bob Arnebeck Table of Contents Chapter Nine: Thornton v. Hadfield 84. Hadfield's simplification of the 1793 Conference Plan What may have prompted Hadfield to redesign the Capitol was lack of anything else to do. By the time he arrived, the  commissioners had run out of money to pay workers and work stopped on the Capitol in late October. Thus, he could not supervise the work. He faced a winter of making plans in anticipation of the work to be done. However, as the commissioners explained to the president, "he states he cannot progress without being furnished with the drawings, he being incapable of making them from the plans and papers delivered."(1) Hadfield likely did not think he was ignoring Trumbull's advice to be respectful of the commissioners. Other than Thornton, no one privy to his criticism of the Capitol design considered it an attack on Thornton. What had...