Chapter Eight: Thornton Lectures the President and Walls Fall Down
Table of Contents page 117 index
Chapter Eight: Thornton Lectures the President and Walls Fall Down
On February 23, 1795, Thornton set out for Philadelphia. He realized that there was a good chance that he would meet the president. If not about the loan or National University, there was the issue with ex-commissioner Johnson. Indeed, after he checked in, the secretary of state sent a note to the president that "he will perceive from the information, brought up by Dr Thornton, that something is wrong in this business." He was referring to the dispute with Johnson and didn't mention the loan or university.(1)
Thornton wanted to talk with the president about the Capitol design as it pertained to the foundation and the basement. The former had to be raised or the ground behind it lowered. The basement would serve as the first story of the building. In his April 1793, amplification of his design, Thornton described it as 20 feet high. He described the floor above it as "The Grand Story." There seemed to some doubt, first expressed by Williamson, that there was going to be a basement. Saving the basement was critical for Thornton. Not having one would clearly be a repudiation of Thornton's design.
Benjamin Latrobe and Adolph Cluss would criticize Thornton's elevation for being pictorial and not architectural. What made it pictorial was the contrast provided by having a rusticated basement, which is to say, faced with roughly cut stone, below a smooth noble facade exhibiting the Classic orders with fluted columns and pilasters. In their opinion what consequences an exterior had on the interior was beyond Thornton's comprehension.
However, Thornton's uncertainty about what Hallet had planned made the basement a difficult topic to bring up to the president. Thornton wrote a short report, two paragraphs, urging the president to reaffirm the need for one. His report on the foundation was much longer and also revealed his high regard for outward appearances with no regard for how it changed the building's interior.
In April 1793, the president had refused to move the future Capitol higher up on the hill to the east, even with Thornton endorsing the idea. The problem remained. To save the building from giving the impression that it was falling down the hill, lowering the top of the hill was the obvious solution. Carroll and Scott, as well as the old Board, assumed that brick makers would dig most of the clay to mold and bake into bricks for the interior walls of the Capitol. Thus the problem would be solved without added cost.
page 118 Thornton hit on the idea of raising the foundation another ten feet which he calculated would save money because less dirt would have to be removed. He did not think it wise to count on brick makers removing the dirt. A raised foundation would also make the West Front of the building more noble. When Thornton told his colleagues that he laid their dispute about the foundation before the president, his colleagues graciously humored Thornton by assuring him "whatever may be done in that business we shall with pleasure acquiesce in, but we own that in our sentiments are in nothing changed on the subject since you left us...."(2)
His colleagues' easy going dismissal of Thornton's worries about the foundation didn't ease their worries about Thornton's mission. In the first letter Thornton wrote back to his colleagues from Philadelphia, he confessed that he was ill. On March 4, Scott immediately wrote back to buck up his colleague. Even though Scott had been against getting a loan, he coached Thornton on what kind of loan to negotiate and urged him to "write to me by every post." Scott confessed that he was "vexed" that Thornton was unwell at such a "critical time."(3)
That month, Thornton wrote only two more letters to his colleagues. In the first, posted March 13, he gently suggested it was up to himself and "the Executive" to determine the terms of the loan. By that time, he had already met with the secretary of state, attorney general and the president. But despite what future historians Brown, Ridout and Harris would suggest, his two letters, the other sent on the 25th, did not seem to come from one who led his colleagues or was up to the task at hand.
Thornton wrote the March 13 letter just after he met with the president but his letter was mostly about his meeting with the attorney general. Thornton let Thomas Law, the Nabob who became a major land owner in the city thanks to his purchase of lots from James Greenleaf, to accompany him to the meeting. In his letter to Greenleaf about the meeting, Law described the loan as having 6% interest and to be disbursed over six years.(4)
In his report on the meeting, Thornton went on at greater length and seemed to over think the interest rate. He explained that in England, 5% was the highest permissible interest, in Maryland 6%. For reasons he didn't explain, he observed that "therefore it may be necessary to conclude the loan in New Jersey (or New York) where 7 percentum are allowed: or the one per centum may be denominated agency and be paid out of the first advance, allowing interest on the first premium if paid out of the first installment." He did report to his colleagues that the secretary of state wanted the money as soon as possible and thought "that the interest... is no object."
Then Thornton fussed with the attorney general over getting a power of attorney notarized so an agent in London could negotiate a loan: would a mayor, which Thornton favored, be better than a county judge which the attorney general thought would do? His colleagues wrote back immediately. They tried to take control of the situation by getting documents notarized. They also warned Thornton to avoid language that would make the commissioners personally liable for the loan. They also warned him not to mortgage all the remaining lots leaving them none to sell. They referred him to a letter they just sent to the secretary of state for "details of the affairs of the city."
That letter also clearly outlined their worries about what Thornton was doing: “We presume from the Doctors letter to us, that it is intended to pledge the whole remaining property of the City to secure the repayment of the principal and interest of these Loans. Before this negotiation is finally closed we wish the President to be informed that we much fear that a page 119 mortgage of the whole remaining property of the City may lead to difficulties of a serious nature.”(5)
Thornton should have realized that the loan was much ado about nothing. His old friend Richard Wells had become head cashier of the Bank of North America, which meant he virtually ran the bank, and he explained to Thornton that money was in short supply in Philadelphia which was then the financial capital of North America. The loan proposal was sent off to London with little expectation of success. A year later, another commissioner would navigate a process that did get a loan. Nonetheless, historians have hailed Thornton's Philadelphia trip as a singular accomplishment. That said, Thornton was never again sent to Philadelphia on the board's business.(6)
In his letters to his colleagues, he didn't mention the long letter he gave to the president. However, by the time he saw the president, Thornton had gleaned that he was a very busy man. He decided not to bring up the basement, or ideas he had about leveling streets and lots or landscaping. His letter focused on the foundation.
As for actual the meeting, at least in regards to the foundation, it was anticlimatic: "From what I have heard the Secretary of State say with regard to the President's idea of raising the foundation of the Capitol I imagine he thinks favorably of it, but desired my opinion, which I gave yesterday...." The president, not Thornton, brought up the problem with the foundation. In his March 25 letter to his colleagues, Thornton added "I had given the President your ideas on the Capitol, but am of opinion he will leave the determination till he sees you;..."(10)
His colleagues idea about the foundation was to save money by letting brick makers level the hill. Thornton trumped that: the the president "thinks it of great importance to give the Capitol as much grandeur as possible and not to consider present considerations as much as future ones." That elicited a warning from his colleagues: "we are of opinion any changes in the present plan of the Capitol would be attended with consequences very fatal to the affairs of the city."(7)
Only by highlighting the letter Thornton sent to the president can one forward the idea that Thornton scored a triumph over Hallet and opened the way to restore his original design. There are no drawings extant illustrating the process. But Thornton was hampered by not having Hallet's drawings. So, in his letter he takes the president to task: "It is to be lamented that the Capitol was placed so far to the west of the Hill." Then, he redeems the president's mistake. "It is however better a little to the west than on the very summit; because, independent of the View, the Ground in filling up will take the Form of the Building, and give to it when finished an uncommonly dignified appearance. To effect this the Earth should slope away regularly, and when Steps are made round the semicircular part, from the Terrace, to the Park below, the whole will exhibit the magnificence of a Roman Temple."
Then he took a gratuitous swipe at Hallet: "Unfortunately also the Foundation, especially on the East, or back part, was laid unnecessarily deep, which not only sank much money, but wasted time. This would scarcely have happened if either the breadth of the walls had been considered, or the necessity of raising them to the proper height."
Thornton turned his back on the debate between having a portico or courtyard. That was the "back part" of the building. Plus, what Hallet did had nothing to do with the dome. His deep foundation in the back simply the made vaulting foundation in the front more expensive. Thornton made the West Front the go to entrance with the steep hill below turning into monumental stairs and more stairs until one reached the Grand Story above the basement.
The president, if he read the later, got another surprise. Thornton could, after all, estimate the cost of some aspects of building. The commissioners had asked both Hallet and Williamson to estimate the cost of raising the foundation one foot.
Thornton came up with his own figure, and observed: "Mr Hallet’s I think rather under the Truth, and Mr Williamson’s rather more than what the work can be done for by our present Arrangements. It is thought the work may now be executed for £1.2S.6D. the Perch; I will however allow £1.3.1 i.e. £740 for a whole round of one Foot high, or for the ten feet £7,400." He reduced the problem to a formula: "By this Statement the Expense is in an inverse Ratio to the increased height of the foundation." He gave the exact expense down to the last penny for the raising foundation by 10, 9, 6, or 3 feet, or keeping the current level. Then he made the whole table of figures somewhat moot by saying that his calculations were based on the assumption the earth would be removed from all of the Capitol Square and all the roads leading to it for "a considerable distance." The government would not have the will or means to do that for another 50 years.
In the letter, there was no fuss and bother about Hallet's foundation marring the future of the building. The marplot at the moment was his cost conscious colleagues who wanted brick makers to level the ground. Thornton shared his vision of how the work could be carried on and result in a glorious Capitol: "when we consider that this is a work for the Accommodation of future Ages, and the Capitol of a great and increasing people, it would be a matter of universal Condemnation: were we to sacrifice so noble a monument of Splendor, for the sake of so trivial and time-serving a Consideration." Yet, he had a mind for economizing and explained to the president that while the foundation was being laid stone cutters could be at work: "for the foundation can be finished in one part while the Stone-cutters make preparations, and the Superstructure can proceed while those persons who were first engaged might continue the Foundation in other parts, and keep always in advance of the Stone-cutters." That said, "those Divisions of the Building not immediately requisite to the accommodation of Congress, they may be left in such a State as to be compleated hereafter."(8)
page 121 C. M. Harris gives agency to the report on the
Capitol basement that Thornton didn't give to the president. He argues that "WT
raised the second [report] (and likely others) in meetings with
President Washington." There is no evidence he did that in the March meeting or subsequent meetings.
In
his undelivered report on the basement, Thornton did raise the issue of
his design. But as an opening salvo in his project to undo "wilful
errors," it was a bit confusing: "I must beg leave to remark that very
great
liberties have been taken in laying out the foundation of the Capitol,
and unnecessary deviations made from the plan you were pleased to
approve." Then in the next sentence, he rewrote history by reminding
Washington that "the impracticability of that plan was urged, to give
place to one which is not less so, but more expensive." Of course, the
president accepted changes to Thornton's plan because everyone agreed
that Hallet's revision made it less expensive.
In his next paragraph, he addressed the basement: "In the meantime permit me to urge, with great submission, the propriety of a basement story. It has been hinted that this part of the building was to be left out. I cannot tell what was contemplated by those who immediately superintended the building...." Thornton did not know what Hallet was planning which put a crimp in his campaign to undo the "wilful errors" of trained architects.
Then
in his report on the basement, he returned to the foundation: "I could
have wished that some parts had not been laid, but as it is done it
shall be my particular study to accommodate the original to the present
foundation, leaving out all difficulties or parts which the most common
artificer cannot execute." Assuming that the draft of his report
represented his thinking on the matter, then, in March 1795, he did not
alert the president to any threat to the repository, grand vestibule and
dome.
As he put it in the report, the board had decided to prioritize the two wings where the legislature would sit: "At a future period they may be connected, exhibiting when finished a regular whole, and uniting simplicity with grandeur. The middle part of the building will claim our attention only when the others are in such forwardness that it will be impossible to disappoint the expectations of Congress."(9)
The evidence suggests that in March, Thornton was not taking charge of the Capitol and his destiny. Instead, he was a rather confused young man as he confronted the indifference to his opinions about the building he fancied that he had designed.
What also may have confused Thornton was rather public evidence that few thought of page 122 him as the designer of the Capitol. When he got to Philadelphia, he was confronted with an article published in three parts on February 11, 12, and 13, in a pro-administration Philadelphia newspaper. The author gave all credit to Hallet. Since the "Essay on the City of Washington" was also published in French, one scholar suggests that Hallet wrote it.(11) However, Greenleaf had several French employees including a Mr. Henry who he paid to project ideas about the world capital soon to be built.
The essay championed Hallet's Capitol and especially its court yard.
The capitol which is constructed on the plan drawn by Mr. Hallet, will be one of the most spacious of modern edifices.... The architecture is masculine and bold. The details are elegant and the ornaments well adjusted.... The court of this building is spacious and regular, it enlightens the interior and facilitates the communications; it will be embellished with a colonnade of the Doric order; in the center will be placed the altar of liberty, around which the United States will be represented under the figure of young women which will be closely joined together.
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| 75. Essay extolling Hallet's design |
In the fall of 1796, the Washington Gazette printed the essay in four issues, two in September and then in November and December. No one in 1795 or 1796 reacted in writing to the celebration of Hallet's Capitol. To posterity, Hallet tried to mar the ideas of Thornton and unjustly claim credit for the work of a genius. Contemporaries could discuss the Capitol design without mentioning Thornton.(12)
On the whole, as to the results of his trip to Philadelphia, Thornton had reason to be optimistic. What Thornton didn't say to president, i.e. all the verbiage in his four reports, couldn't make a bad impression on the president. What little he did say seemed to be agreeable to the president. On March 30, the president invited Thornton for tea "this Evening 7 o'clock in a family way."(13) If Thornton ever described his tea with the president, the description has been lost.
page 123 It is possible that the president invited Thornton to tea simply to let the commissioner know he had an eye on him. In his March 25 letter to his colleagues, Thornton said he planned to leave Philadelphia shortly and the president gave him a letter to deliver to the board. Yet, Thornton lingered in the city.
Thornton attended to personal matters. According to a note in Thornton's papers, on March 30, he bought a horse. About this time, Thornton put a down payment on a 572 1/2 acre farm six miles from Georgetown just across the boundary line with Maryland.(14) Thornton didn't return to Georgetown until April 9. By the way, the president's letter about payment for lots he bought in Square 21 was finally delivered.
Evidently, Thornton's month and a half in Philadelphia rekindled his appreciation of a metropolis. He attended the American Philosophical Society meeting on March 6, 1795. At that meeting members discussed a report on the prospectus for a contest for the best essay on a system of liberal education. Thornton must have been nourished by such an atmosphere.(15)
In September 1795, Dr. Caspar Wistar, who was also at the meeting, sent Thornton a letter of introduction for a physician aiming to practice in Washington. Wistar congratulated Thornton for his eminence and being useful, then gave a hint as to the tenor of Thornton's conversation in Philadelphia: "You are not contented with marble monuments to your name, but you will have it transmitted by the choice breed of Thornton horses, the Thornton pigs, Thornton goat, etc., etc, etc."(16)
Thornton went to Philadelphia with undoing "wilful errors" in his mind, but he returned home ready to sow a life broader than the Capitol. In May, Thornton had his farm fields plowed and planted likely by slaves who came with the farm. What better way to flatter his patron, George Washington, than by imitating him, in a small way.(17)
When the president finally came to town, Thornton triumphed over his colleagues. On April 27, the president looked at the site of the Capitol and decided to raise the foundation by 6 feet.(18) Plus, while Thornton made no progress toward correcting "wilful errors," he did get rid of Hallet.
The board finally gave Hallet a hearing. They only briefly communicated the results to the president. They "indulged him... with a full hearing in the presence of such of his friends as he wished." Little is known about the hearing save that Hallet did not get his job back and board got at least some of his plans, sections and drawings. When he was in the docket, so to speak, evidently no one got him to confess that he secretly tried to thwart the president's plans.(19)
Given
that, what did the president make of Hallet's dismissal? In the spring
of 1795, as the president rode his horse through Georgetown on his way
to Philadelphia, Hallet's son put a letter from his mother into the
president's hand. Mary Gomain Hallet begged for money but also described
the situation at the Capitol in June 1794: "you cannot but remember
that my husband’s plan has been preferred to all others, that the
foundations were laid after that plan and under his direction.... I
could indeed plead that his plan having been adopted, nobody can as well
as he understand, its ensemble and Distributions; nobody may have the
Same reasons for a careful watch over the execution even of the minutest
parts.... I might represent that he must have a perfect knowledge of
architecture, who could alone point out the deficiency of the rewarded
plan, and Shew how much it was exceptionable in the true principles of
architecture...."
In his reply, Washington began "It is painful to me to receive the complaint of Mr. Hallet through you. It is more so, because I see no propriety in my interfering in the differences between the commissioners and him." Apropos Hallet's dismissal, he added: "Why Mr. Hallet left the business in which he was
employed by them [the commissioners]; - or why he was discontinued, is
better known, perhaps to you, than it is to me." The president sent her letter and his
reply to the commissioners and if they approved, asked them to
send it to her, which they did.(23)
If the president had asked Thornton to restore his design, the prolonged drama with Hallet would have been pointless, or become pointless once the president fully relied on Thornton. However, he never did. That said, the president's May 1795 letter to Mrs. Hallet, that the commissioners read, could be considered by Thornton as the moral equivalent to the false picture he described in his July 1806 to Secretary of State Madison which purports to describe how the old board fired Hallet. But then again, Mrs. Hallet gave a succinct and bold description of her husband's accomplishments, which the board also read, and there is no evidence that Thornton then explained to the president or his colleagues how wrong she was.
Is it possible that on April 27, when the president agreed with Thornton that the foundation had to be raised, that the commissioner walked the president through all the problems Hallet caused? Instead of the timid complaint in a letter Thornton did not send, did the president get a full oral report? There is no evidence that Thornton was that bold. Indeed, the commissioners didn't inform the president of their final investigation of Hallet until May 15, ten days after he wrote his letter to Mrs. Hallet. At that time, the foundation was being laid under Hoban's direction. In their letter to the president, the commissioners merely said "We are happy in having it in our power to inform you that the Capitol progresses rapidly...."
Only Scott and Thornton signed that letter, and they had good reason not to vex the president. In late April, Thornton’s troubles with the president began. Scott had flagged Johnson's purchase of Greenleaf's lots along Rock Creek as illegal, but Thornton was not a passive bystander. Scott urged Thornton to get the opinion of the attorney general which "might have a happy effect of quieting the craving appetite of the little man." Johnson was small in stature.
Since Scott was a lawyer, Johnson blamed him and attacked his faulty conception of the law. Thornton merely enraged Johnson. He who had used the “ideas of Dr. Thornton” in order to fire Hallet, took aim at page 124 Thornton. Alluding to the head bumping design of Thornton's Capitol's interior, Johnson jibed in a letter that Thornton had a “head to clear of the lumber which crowds it to make room for what is correct.”
In April, Johnson sued and on April 20 Thornton and Scott sent a packet of documents and Johnson's offensive letters to the president. In their long cover letter, they accused Johnson of "partiality, knavery and utter ignorance." The president wrote back that he left the packet unopened.(20)
In May, on his way back from Mount Vernon to Philadelphia, Washington lingered in Georgetown and tried to mediate the dispute and found both Johnson and Thornton stubborn. In a letter to Commissioner Carroll, he described his conversation with Thornton: "He, any more than Mr Johnson, seemed to think this [mediation] could not be accomplished, as the Commissioners (or whether he confined it more particularly to Mr Scott and himself, I am not certain) were clearly of opinion, and had been so advised by professional men, that the lots upon Rock Creek would, undoubtedly, be considered as water lots under Greenleafs contract; and being so considered and of greater value, it followed as a consequence, that they, as trustees of public property in the City, could not yield to a claim which would establish a principle injurious to that property. He added that they had taken pains to investigate this right, and was possessed of a statement thereof which he or they (I am not sure which) wished me to look at."(21)
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| 76. At issue: the truncated square west of Square 4 |
The president had his own sources of information about the dispute. According to Tobias Lear, no one in Georgetown thought the lots in question were water lots.(22) Adding to the president's woes was the vexing chore of appointing another commissioner to replace Daniel Carroll.
Johnson warned the president that his choice was crucial. The other former commissioner, David Stuart, told the president that the two new commissioners were "in error" and he had to appoint "a Law character of considerable eminence." He suggested Alexander White and the president appointed the 57 year old former two term Virginia congressman who had a farm in Woodville near Winchester, and longed to end his days as a federal judge.(23)
In explaining to White what he expected of him as a commissioner, the president shared how disappointed he was with Thornton and Scott:
In
short, the only difference I could perceive between the proceedings of
the old, and the new commissioners result⟨ed⟩ from the following
comparison. The old met not oftener than once a month, except on
particular occasions; the new meet once or twice a week. In the
interval, the old resided at their houses in the country; the new reside
at their houses in George Town. The old... were obliged ⟨to⟩ trust to
overseers, and superintendants to look to the execution; the new have
gone more into the execution of it by contracts, and piece work, but
rely equally, I fear, on others to see to the performance. These changes
(tho’ for the better) by no means apply a radical cure to the evils
that were complained of, nor will they justify the difference of
compensation....(24)
We conceive it peculiarly indecent in you, having been in public Life, to offer Insults to us as Servants of the public; more especially, as decent Language was returned by us to all the disgraceful Epithets of your former Letters. We are willing to attribute the whole of your Conduct to a derangement of Mind, which we lament: and therefore consider you rather as an Object of pity than of Resentment. We return your last Letter, and refuse all further Communication, ’till a Return of Reason point out the propriety of using at least the Language of a Gentleman.
On June 15, in a long letter to the president, Johnson detailed their concealing evidence germane to the impending case. After boasting of his "Disposition for Peace," Johnson asked for "an Investigation of their Conduct and mine." The president understood that to mean that Johnson wanted an official public inquiry, and it took him three weeks to reply. In the meanwhile, the walls came tumbling down.(25)
All of that year's work to date which entailed raising 300 feet of foundation walls for both the North and South wings fell down. (26) Work would resume only on the North Wing. Both houses of congress would have to meet there in 1800.
The president did not lecture Thornton and Scott. He left that to Secretary of State Randolph who put it this way: "The President will by no means suppose, nor does he mean in the most distant manner to insinuate, that due attention was not paid by the Commissioners to the running up of the walls of the Capitol, but it may happen in some other instance that a similar fatality might take place which would be prevented by the watchful inspection of the Commissioners...."(27)
Thornton and Scott wrote to Randolph placing all the blame on a dispute between the contractors and their workers. The walls also had been under Hoban's inspection, and "one or the other of the board has frequently visited them." They also complained of how irksome it was to have anything to do with the men doing and supervising the work: "Those not acquainted with the motley set we found here and who from necessity have too many of them been continued in public employment can form no adequate idea of the irksome scenes we are too often compelled to engage in. The friend of Sir Ludovic Grant is one of the many to whom we allude." Both commissioners shared those sentiments, but Thornton likely wrote the letter which described a bothersome a man who claimed to know Sir Ludovick Grant. That was Collen Williamson who boasted of having designed and built stone castles in Scotland. The board had fired him on April 27, but he didn't leave the city and protested his dismissal until he died in 1802.(28)
Despite the strain the collapse of the walls caused between the board and the administration everyone conspired to minimize reports of the damage. The board conducted an page 126 investigation only to assign blame so that the culprit would pay damages. For years they carried on their account book that contractor Cornelius McDermott Roe owed $1264 for damages to the North Wing and $1470 for damages to the South Wing.
No one investigated the board's role in the collapse. Roe had a piece work contract that the board boasted would save money and speed up the work. Two weeks before the collapse, Scott and Thornton assured Randolph that "the public buildings are progressing with a good deal of Spirit."(29) But there had been problems. On April 22, 1795, Roe had written to the board asking for the architect to give directions. While Roe was a contractor who hired his own masons, he did rely on the commissioners to supply him with slave laborers to move the stone. He had also complained in April and May of not having enough stone thus leaving the slaves with no work. (30)
No one seems to have written a description of what remained of the foundations until Latrobe did in his April 1803 report to President Jefferson on the state of the building: "Having understood that the foundation walls of the South wing... had not been faithfully executed," he had the walls "opened in several places and at different levels." He found stones "loosely thrown between between two external casings without mortar." All that had to be taken down. "Below which I am well informed that the work has been faithfully performed."(31) The work that had been faithfully performed was done before Thornton became a commissioner. The rest was done after he became a commissioner and paid a salary expressly to see that work was done properly.
The who, what, why, and how of the collapse, though ignored by most historians, entertained a generation of locals. Alluding to the worthless currency printed during the Revolutionary War, the ruined walls were blamed on the "continental trowel." GATH wrote in his 1873 history of the city: "The contractor for the foundation was displaced by another mason, who used what is called the continental trowel which was 'wheelbarrows filled promiscuously with stones and mortar and emptied on the walls. When the foundation was completed or nearly so, the whole was condemned and the second contractor or continental trowelist was dismissed'"(32) So much for Thornton's claim in the unsent portion of the draft of his March 12 letter to the president that "it shall be my particular study to accommodate the original to the present foundation, leaving out all difficulties or parts which the most common artificer cannot execute."
In the extant letters written at the time that discussed the debacle, there was no reference as to what design informed the masons. Judging by what Latrobe wrote in 1803, in the summer of 1795 foundation stone was laid on top of the stone laid under Hallet's direction in 1794. The commissioners' July 13 letter to Randolph noted that Hoban and George Blagden, who had replaced Williamson as the principal stone mason, inspected the damage and assessed how to carry on the work. There is no mention of Thornton taking particular interest in those problems. He did not offer advice to the president who did not solicit his advice. But then again, everyone went out of their way to minimize the setback.
The collapse of the Capitol walls checked but did not stop progress. At around the same time, there was another momentous event. Greenleaf failed and he would never recover. In Greenleaf's view, Scott and Thornton had a hand in that, too. However, the president no longer page 127 had any faith in the speculators, and fully backed the commissioners. Adding to the general fury directed at Greenleaf was his failing to apply the money gained from his sale to Law to cover his obligations to the commissioners. Then, Greenleaf made another large sale to another Nabob, William Duncanson.
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| 77. Thomas Law in 1796 |
In the spring of 1795, Law got his first good look at the New Jerusalem. Greenleaf walked him around the Point pointing out what had been built and where they both could build in the future. Law fell in love with New Jersey Avenue SE which ran from a good place for a wharf on the Eastern Branch up to the Capitol. Greenleaf viewed his building as important in itself and not as just a way to finance construction of the public buildings. He had a point. That spring the stone of the future Capitol barely rose above the ground. Several of his three story brick houses were about to be finished and ground was about to be broken for more.
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| 78. Six buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue NW |
page 128 Simmons was to prepare the ground for six houses on South Capitol Street where it crossed N Street. That would partially satisfy a contract Greenleaf made with the proprietor Daniel Carroll. With a bridge over St. James Creek, which by the plan was to become a canal, N Street led to the best place to build wharves on the Eastern Branch where goods would be off loaded onto canal boats in the yet to be built canal or into yet to be built warehouses.(33)
As prospects of money from Holland diminished, Greenleaf decided to tighten the belt on his Washington operations. He stopped the stream of money to Lovering and Clark until there was an accounting of what had already been spent. Greenleaf's French accountant was not nice about it. Clark submitted a statement showing that the speculators owed him $33,000. The accountant calculated that Clark owed Greenleaf $30,000. That discrepancy soon unhinged Clark's mind and his wife Isabella came to his defense with a four page letter to Greenleaf. She scoffed that the accountant was “a french Mutilated Aristocrat, a french Poltroon, Miscreant Ruffian,” who instituted a reign of terror. Mrs. Clark insisted that her husband had sacrificed his all for Greenleaf. She blamed Greenleaf's "Myrmydons ...for murdering my Husbands Intellect by Minutia."(35)
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| 79. Clark's four buildings which he had left unfinished |
Thanks to stones jamming the mechanism, the newly invented brick-making machines Greenleaf bought did not make enough bricks, even though he had four. The builders bought bricks that were made the old fashioned way from Daniel Carroll of Duddington. Original proprietors of the land had no building requirement, so they made money selling building materials, especially bricks, to speculators who had to build. The contractors thought Greenleaf, who had promised an unlimited supply of bricks, should pay the $1,500 bill. He didn't. Carroll was not amused. He wrote to Greenleaf: "I wish you to consider that my bricks are in your houses...." Then he sued the builders.(37)
Both Lovering and Clark had settled their families in the city in temporary wooden houses. Clark's wooden house would gain some notoriety. In 1798 it would become the jail on the Point to harbor debtors who couldn't post bail as they faced suits arising from Greenleaf's failure.
Paying workers and the commissioners for lots he contracted to buy was not Greenleaf's only problem. He had to pay for his share of 6 million acres of Western land. He was also the major purchaser of so-called Yazoo lands closer to the Mississippi River and in turn involved several of his New England friends and relatives in that speculation. The money he got from Law and Duncanson was used to try to save them.Yet the saving grace of this debacle that spread from the federal city throughout much of unsettled reaches of the republic were his buildings on Greenleaf's Point. To hide his inability to continue building, Greenleaf looked to Law to build. The commissioners' threats to sue for payment of what he owed scarcely troubled Greenleaf. But he did need one favor.
Greenleaf sold lots for $360 that he had contracted to buy for $80, but he could not pay the $80 per lot as per his page 130 contract with the commissioners. He had no deeds for the lots he sold. Since Law wanted deeds before he built, Greenleaf asked the commissioners to accommodate the new man in the city who would build many houses.
The board, formed only by Scott and Thornton, with Law attending, put off a decision until the man the president appointed to replace Commissioner Carroll joined the board.
Fortunately for Scott and Thornton, Alexander White had an antipathy to the financial wiles of speculators. Just as the new commissioner joined the board, Greenleaf blamed Scott and Thornton for wanting to thwart Law because he wanted to build on New Jersey Avenue SE while the board wanted Pennsylvania Avenue NW developed first. Randolph passed on the charge to Scott and Thornton who thanked him "for your polite and friendly conduct in this business which gives us an opportunity of immediately dragging this Malignant Slanderer to light if he will dare come forward with a charge which he must be conscious is grossly false."(38) White sided with his colleagues.
On July 10, 1795, Greenleaf "sold" his share of the investment in the city to his partners Morris and Nicholson, and "bought" their shares in the North American Land Company. The partners had formed the latter with all their Western land as its capital and offered stock in the company. "Sold" and "bought" are in quotes because no money changed hands. For the rest of Nicholson's short life, he and Greenleaf battled in the newspapers over who cheated who in the accounting of the transaction.(39)
What calculus went into the president's answer to Johnson's June 15 letter is unknown. Did he add Scott's and Thornton's mishandling of the dispute with Johnson to the collapse of the Capitol foundation and balance that with their vigorous crusade to force Greenleaf to pay? Or did he recoil at the idea of a public investigation into a project upon which the future unity of the nation depended? Anyway, he told Johnson that unless they were impeached or they failed in their "several duties," he wanted no investigation of Scott and Thornton.(40)
If the president was thinking hard of Thornton's performance to date, he soon got a letter endorsing Thornton in the most glowing terms. It came from Lettsom who was writing to find someone interested in planting "turkey rhubarb" in America.
Lettsom also offered to Washington his "sincere Thanks for the kindness shewn to a relation and Countryman of mine, whose virtues will do thy patronage no discredit. Dr Thornton to whom I allude, has a heart—an openness, a candour, and an ingenuous disposition; that, I think, are more amiably combined in his character, than in any I ever knew; and I trust, the more he is known to thee, the more thou wilt observe it."(41)
The contretemps over the falling foundation walls and Johnson's purchase of supposed water lots should cast doubts on Glenn Brown's idea that the advent of Commissioner Thornton made the board work smoothly. Lettsom's letter points out Thornton's only saving grace: he amiably combined openness, candor and an ingenuous disposition. The president could have applied those adjectives to his performance thus far as a commissioner. Thanks to his naivety, i.e. ingenuous disposition, Thornton did not have to be taken that seriously. It was also nice to have his enthusiasm on board. Of course, any know-it-all could be insufferable at times. His new colleague likely assessed that Scott was more problematic and despite his being an emigrant, with a tropical source for his wealth, Thornton was not unfamiliar.
Alexander White was the son of a Scottish physician trained at the University of Edinburgh who also served in the Royal Navy. His brother continued the family medical tradition and inherited the family farm. Alexander went to London to study law and began practicing in Virginia in 1765. He had served in the first and second congress and then lost to a pro-Jefferson challenger. He remained friends with Jefferson and Madison with whom he worked to effect the Compromise of 1790 which put the federal capital on the Potomac. In regards to reputation and experience, he put Scott and Thornton in the shade.
As did almost everyone, he liked Thornton but there is evidence that like many others, he didn't take him seriously. He didn't even defer to Thornton in matters of architecture. When a question arose about whether to add a room to the Capitol, White informed the president that he talked with Hoban. In that same letter, White also reiterated his understanding of how the commissioners should regard the plan for the Capitol. They were "to execute the Plans of the President and not to alter them..." That said, White thought the room should be added and told the president that Hoban did too. Although the board sent Thornton to Mount Vernon to confer with the president, he was probably not the instigator of that change to the North Wing of the Capitol. He never claimed credit or boasted of how he schooled his colleagues.
White
characterized the change as "throw[ing] the building into a more
regular proportion upon the general principles of the Plan agreed to by
the President than the strict execution of the Plan itself—and render
further alterations unnecessary—that it will be a very great saving on
the whole execution of the work, altho’ the expense of the present Wing
may be somewhat augmented, but in consequence of that additional expense
one hansome room will be added to it."(42) The design was changed and no one alluded to
correcting "wilful errors" or "the original ideas of Dr. Thornton." White must have thought that the problems entailed in building the Capitol were like those encountered in any other building project.
However, within his first few weeks on the board, White saw how Thornton was prone to go his own way. The merchant James Barry needed a ruling on where he could extend his wharf into the river. White and Scott advised the president to let a street be extended to the water with the understanding that a Water Street would someday run parallel to the river. They also advised letting warehouses on wharves have only one fireplace.
Thornton advised the president that completing Water Street paralleling the whole shore line was paramount. It was drawn into the plan. Most great ports had one. He pointed out places where made ground could be extended into the river to the extent of two or three city squares. He also pointed out that merchants often had their counting house in their warehouses with many rooms to accommodate clerks. They should be allowed more than one fireplace. The president agreed with White and Scott.(43)
The mind of a genius runs deep. Thornton noticed the emergence of mud flats in the Potomac southwest of the President's house, and beginning in September 5, 1795, he annually obtained warrants allowing him to register a claim to that emerging mud which was a meadow after the Civil War. However, he never filed a claim.(44)
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| 80. Kidwell's Meadows |
page 132 As a futurist, Thornton tended to see too far in the future. Building two buildings bigger than any others in the country in a city planned to be bigger than any city yet settled in the country called for ingenuity to make the next season’s work more efficient. There is no evidence that Thornton ever successfully rose to the occasion. He did try.
After firing the Scot Williamson and the Irishman McDermott Roe, the board banked on the Englishman Dobson to hire more stone workers. However, he was slow to do so, and needed an advance of money.
Thornton offered a solution: create a skilled workforce only loyal to the commissioners by using slaves. On July 18, 1795, he wrote a letter to his colleagues proposing that the board hire "50 intelligent negroes for six years." By "negroes" he meant slaves. "Two or three" skilled stone cutters would teach the slaves how to cut stone. Better yet the board could purchase the slaves and thus "no interference of the owners could then take place." Then the slaves would "have their liberty at the expiration of 5 or 6 years."(45)
The idea of training slaves to do skilled work was not a novel one. MacDermott Roe came to America as an indentured servant and George Washington bought his services. As well as do stone work at Mount Vernon, Roe contracted to train others, presumably plantation slaves, how to cut and set stone, but there is no evidence that he trained anyone.(45A)
His
colleagues, both slave owners, did not officially respond to his proposal . Thornton often wrote to the president about differences he had with his colleagues, but not in this case. At the same time, his colleagues did not worry that Thornton had radical ideas. They could see that he was
comfortable with slavery. On June 17, 1795, he had bought two slaves in
Georgetown who were "honest, sober and free from all bodily
complaint." Scott bought a slave in Georgetown at about the same
time, as did William Lovering.(46)
Thornton had also joined his colleagues in signing an order increasing the number of laborers, mostly hired slaves, to 100. In December 1794, Scott hired out two of his own slaves to work on the public buildings. Thornton eventually hired out one of his. page 133 On October 7, 1796, the board paid him $16.67 for three months work by one of his slaves.(46A)
There was an effort to increase the productivity of hired slaves, but there is no evidence that Thornton came up with the idea. Unable to get sawyers to prepare lumber for the President’s house, Hoban paid some of the board's hired slaves one shilling a day, about ten cents, that they could keep themselves. Hoban had earlier hired his own slaves as carpenters and apprentice carpenters but in that case their wages were paid to him.(47)
In the summer of 1795, the president made a lengthy stay at Mount Vernon, and dropped in on the commissioners in July and August. There is no evidence that he relied on Thornton in anyway. In a July 1795 meeting, which filled a day, the president commiserated with the board over the crisis caused by no payments from the speculators. Then he wrote to Secretary of State Randolph, outlined the problems, and asked him to confront Morris and Nicholson.(48)
Ten days later the president discussed building regulations with the commissioners. It is not certain who prompted a change in the building regulations, but the president seemed to be the moving force. At least he urged the commissioners to give the changes wide publicity. The president proclaimed the first regulations in 1791 and they were designed not only to protect against fires but also to keep the riffraff out. Only buildings of brick and stone could endure. All others were temporary and would be torn down in 1800. That rule was blamed for the inability to attract skilled workers who wanted to bring their family to the city.
It is possible that the president had full confidence in Thornton and Scott and was making their ideas his own. But judging from the president's druthers in mid August that is very unlikely. A scandal forced Randolph to resign. The president asked Thomas Johnson to be the new secretary of state. That portfolio included supervising the commissioners. Johnson declined the opportunity to make life miserable for Thornton and Scott.(49)
Perhaps, Thornton did say something that impressed the president. In November, he would write to the commissioners that "in my late visits" to the city he was informed that "a dome over the open or circular area or lobby" was not "part of the original design of the Capitol." The president's thinking that there would be no dome is hard to explain. The context for the comment will be explored in the next chapter, but a possible seed for the rumor may have been planted by a new elevation of the Capitol that Thornton drew in the summer of 1795.
In his 1900 history of the Capitol, Glenn Brown drew and published what the West Front of the Thornton's award winning design must have looked like. He labeled it "Drawing of William Thornton's intended design for the west front by Glenn Brown 1900." He also noted that it was "restored from original plans and east elevation."(49A)
 |
| 82. Don Hawkin's model of Thornton East and West Fronts combined |
"Unassuming" he was not. When he signed his employment contract, he "requested permission in the presence of the full board" to give them his opinion "respecting the state of the building, after having procured the designs and examined the work." Shortly after that, he dutifully came back with his opinion: "I find the building begun but do not find the necessary Plans to carry on a work of this importance, and I think there are defects that are not warrantable, in most of the branches that constitute the profession of an Architect, Stability - Economy - Convenience - Beauty...."(54)
He did allow that he would do his best "adapt" to the parts already done. Then he suggested "omitting the basement." By doing that the Senate and House chambers would be "on the principal part of the building" and not in the basement. Plus the portico would "not be useless" and "grandeur" would be increased. He then turned his attention to the foundation, and opined that "it was not in a state to be depended upon." Finally, all his changes would make the building cheaper to build and more logical. He showed a new elevation and floor plan to the board.
In the ensuing battle, Thornton's biographers would find much ammunition to prove his genius as an architect. However, contemporaries did not even see it as a dispute between Hadfield and Thornton. They saw it as dispute between Hadfield and Hoban.
Go to Chapter Nine
Footnotes for Chapter 8:
1. Randolph to GW, 27 February 1795.
2. Carroll and Scott to Thornton, 20 March 1795
3. Scott to WT, 4 March 1795. The published Papers of William Thornton doesn't include any of the correspondence between Thornton and Scott.
4. Law to Greenleaf 21, March 1795.
5. WT to Commrs, 13 March 1795; Commrs. to WT 20 March 1795; footnote #2 in Carroll to GW, 10 May 1795.
6. William Allen, History of Capitol, p. 29; Commrs to Randolf , 20 March 1795; Wells to Randolph, 6 July 1795 in Commrs.' records. Following the lead of Glenn Brown, others conclude that Thornton raised a loan. See also GW to Com.mrs 30 October 1795.
7. Carroll and Scott to Thornton, 24 March 1795.
8. Op. Cit.
9. Harris, pp. 307-13
10. WT to Commrs. 25 March 1795.
11. Scott, Pamela, Washington History Mag., vol. 3 no. 1, "L'Enfant's Washington Described". In Through a Fiery Trial , I credited Thomas Law for sponsoring if not writing the essay.
12. Gazette of the United States, February 11, 12, 13; Federal Orrery, Feb 16, 1795; Washington Gazette September 23, 26, November 19, December 7, 1796. Read on-line at www.rarenewspapers
13. Allen Clark, "Doctor and Mrs. Thornton", p. 168.
14. Ibid., p. 167; WT to Lettsom, 26 November 1795, Pettigrew 2 pp. 549-55; For horse, see Thornton Papers reel 7.
16. Wistar to WT Sept. 16, 1795, Harris p. 326.
17. Gordon Brown, Incidental Architect, p. 21 "the country place came with at least several families of slaves;"
18. Commrs. Proceedings.
19. GW to Commrs 5 May 1795; Commrs to GW, 15 May 1795
20. Scott to Thornton. 13 March 1795, Thornton Papers LOC. Johnson to Commrs, 11, 13, 15 February, 4, 5, 6, 15 and 18, 1795; Commrs to Johnson 15 and 18 February 1795; Commrs to Randolph 21 February 1795; Commrs to GW 20 April 1795
21. GW to Carroll, 17 May 1795.
23. Johnson to GW 28 February 1795; Stuart to GW 22 February 1795,
25. Commrs. to Johnson, 10 June 1795; Johnson to GW, 15 June 1795; GW to Johnson, 5 July 1795
26. a report in RG42 lists 310 perches in North Wing, 290 perches for the conference room, 300 perches for cellar, and 607 perches in South Wing. Cost of damage 475/4/0 to North Wing, 532/11/0 to South Wing
27. Randolph to Commrs. 10 July 1795
28. Commrs to Randolph, 7 July 1795; Commrs to Randolph, 13 July 1795; for Williamson's unceasing protests see Williamson to Adams, 26 April & 9 June 1797; to GW 11 July 1796; to Jefferson 11 June 1801. Harris links Williamson dismal to Thornton's fantasy about GW's objection to Hallet's foundation in 1794. He supposes that Williamson had continued to follow Hallet's design. Thornton's fantasy and Harris's supposition have no supporting documentation.
29. Commrs to Randolph 10 June 1795
30. Roe contract and account of slave use in Commrs. Records; In 1804 Thornton hired Roe to be the manager at his farm, Mrs.Thornton's notebook Oct 14, 1804
31. Latrobe, Benjamin, The Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of, 3 April 1803
32. Townsend, p. 63.
33. Appleton to Cranch 16 December 1794: Prentiss to Nicholson 28 April 1798: List of Property and Houses of Morris and Greenleaf at the Point; Appleton to Henry, February 3 & 9, 1795.
34. Law to Greenleaf, 10 April 1808; Law to Lagarenne 1796, Papers of Thomas Law LOC
35. Isabella Clark to Greenleaf, Morris and Nicholson, November 28, 1795,
36. Deblois to Nicholson, 14 April 1794, 11 December 1795.
37. Greenleaf to McComb; Greenleaf to Carroll, June 8, 1795, Carroll Papers, LC; Carroll to Greenleaf June 9, 1795, HSP. Morris to Cranch, March 6, 1796,
38. Commrs to Randolph, 20 July 1795
39. On Greenleaf-Nicholson dispute see Arnebeck, Fiery Trial, pp. 397, 436
40. GW to Johnson, 5 July 1795
41. Lettsom to GW, 15 July 1795.
42. White to GW, 17 September 1795,
43. WT to GW 26 July 1795, , Harris pp. 321-3
44. United States v. Morris 174 U.S. 196 (1899) p. 2463.
45. WT to Commrs, 18 July 1795, Harris, pp. 320-21.
45A. Agreement with Roe 1 August 1786, GW papers
46. 17 June 1795 notebook entries, reel 7; for Scott and slave hire see "Christmas 1794"
46A. Samuel Davidson papers slave purchases, 6 & 16 February 1795; payments to slave master
47. Arnebeck, Slave Labor in the Capitol, p. 107
48. GW to Randolph 22 July 1795.
49. GW to Johnson 24 August 1795.
49A. Brown, U. S. Capitol, plate 32
50. GW to Morris 14 September 1795.
52. Harris, p. 582
53. Hadfield to Commrs, 27 October 1795
54. Hadfield to Commrs, 28 October 1795
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