Chapter Six Walls Fall Down
The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol
Chapter Six: Walls Fall Down
While Thornton left Hallet stewing in his little stone house next to the Capitol, he could not avoid Hallet's pretensions once he got to Philadelphia. In mid-February, 1795, the New York Minerva, immediately followed by the Boston Orrey and Philadelphia's Gazette of the United States, printed a three part "Essay on the City of Washington." Since it was also printed in French, one scholar suggests that Hallet wrote it. However, Greenleaf had several French employees including a "Mr. Henry" who he paid to project ideas about the world capital soon to be built. Another Greenleaf brother-in-law, Noah Webster, was publisher of the Minerva. The essay primarily celebrated the economic and cultural importance of the city, and it also 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.(1)
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| 75. Essay extolling Hallet's design |
But there it was for everyone to read. When Thornton met with the secretary of state on the 27th, he was not greeted as the architect of the Capitol. He simply carried an important letter from Commissioner Scott. After reading it, Randolph notified the president that "immediately after breakfast," he would bring the letter which bore "upon the subject of Mr Johnson’s letter, respecting his water-lot. If the President has not answered it, he will perceive from the information, brought up by Dr Thornton, that something is wrong in this business." Randolph didn't mention the loan, the university or the Capitol's foundation, or invite Thornton to brief the president.(2)
Thornton wrote to Scott and confessed that he was ill. Scott immediately wrote back that he was "vexed" that Thornton was unwell at such a "critical time." He took pressure off Thornton vis-a-vis the diminutive Johnson. The commissioners would easily win "a law suit to be instituted [by] the Tom Thumb Hero of Frederick standing in Greenleaf's shoes." But he stressed Thornton about the loan. He coached Thornton on what kind of loan to negotiate and urged him to "write to me by every post."(3)
Thornton rallied. He didn't write to his colleagues until after he had met with the attorney general and president. In that March 13 letter, he announced that it was up to himself and "the Executive" to determine the amount and terms of the loan. However, he worried that since 6% was the highest permissible interest in Maryland, "therefore it may be necessary to conclude the loan in New Jersey (or New York) where 7 percentum are allowed..." He added that the secretary of state wanted the money as soon as possible and thought "that the interest... is no object." Thornton took Thomas Law to the meeting with the AG. Law reported to Greenleaf, simply, that the loan application would be for $400,000 at 6%.
As for the meeting with the president, Thornton’s letter continued:
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, observing that you had some objections, which however principally regarded expense of money and time. I thought it proper to leave it till an interview with you would bring forward any other objections that you might have to offer to the President. He thinks it of great importance to give to the Capitol as much grandeur as possible and not to consider present considerations as much as future ones. I know we are unanimously of his opinion provided we can accommodate our present circumstances to our ideas. To effect this we must leave nothing undone with respect to the loan."
The confusion and innuendos in the letter put his colleagues in a panic. They immediately wrote to Randolph explaining their position on the foundation and begging him to monitor Thornton. They enclosed a letter to be handed to Thornton. They warned him to avoid language that would make the commissioners personally liable for the loan. They referred him to their letter to the secretary of state in which they asked that the president "be informed that we much fear that a mortgage of the whole remaining property of the City may lead to difficulties of a serious nature.” As for the Capitol, they warned Thornton that "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."
In his March 13 letter to them, Thornton didn’t mention a 1,267 word letter that he handed to the president on March 12 which purportedly described his “sentiments relative to the propriety of raising the foundation of the Capitol….” The letter shared the fruits arising from his checking Blois’ “elevations” of the ground surrounding that Capitol’s foundation. Since that was but one of several reports that Thornton drafted before coming to Philadelphia, in the Papers of William Thornton, C. M. Harris gives agency to all of them: "WT raised the second ["the basement"] (and likely others) in meetings with President Washington." Harris seems to think that the letter formed the agenda of their March 12 meeting, and that the president was receptive to his ideas and asked for more. Thus, on March 12 or shortly thereafter, Thornton shared his sentiments about the basement. Brief as it was, his report on the basement did in effect ask for a mandate to restore his original design.(6)
However, what was notable about his letter is that he tried to shift the focus on the Capitol from the East Front to the West Front, which had scarcely been mentioned in his April 1793 description of his plans or his July 1793 defense of them. In the March letter, the only attack on Hallet was that he laid the foundation "unnecessarily deep, which not only sank much money, but wasted time." Thornton’s cure was to raise the foundation ten feet higher. Then, the only digging needed would be to shape the hill below the West Front portico: “...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." He forgot about Hallet’s court yard marring his East Front portico. He called the East Front the "back" of the building.
There is more evidence than just his March 12 letter that he wanted to change the Capitol design to justify raising its foundation. Curators at the Library of Congress date an elevation he drew of the West Front as early as 1795 or as late as 1800. Along with the semicircular staircase rising to the colonnaded terrace outside the Conference Room, it also has a high colonnade on top of the oval room holding up a dome. Its resemblance to a grand Roman temple was unmistakable. He may have also designed a church in 1795 that resembled his colonnaded Conference Room. There is an undated letter in Thornton’s papers in which he described his design which is no longer extant. The foundation had just been laid so that the church could not be built according to his design. He protested to the church’s board: “I drew the plan and elevation of the church with a circular steeple or belfrey. The principal reason was to enable you at leisure to erect a colonade round that part, which would cover the three entrances….” That almost describes his West Front. The Episcopal Church still stands on a hill on Potomac Avenue, with Thornton attributed as its designer despite there not being a circular belfry or colonnade covering the three entrances. Harris offers 1796 for the date of his design, but 1795 is more likely. In July 1796, he published his intent to move to the City of Washington. The president insisted that then the commissioners would keep better tabs on developments there. Designing a church in Georgetown would be a step backward.
No explanation of his West Front design written at the time is extant. Thornton also sketched his West Front. Harris suggests he drew the "alternative design" as economy measure. Glenn Brown drew a West Front to show what Thornton really meant. Architect and historian Don Hawkins made a model for the Library of Congress that shows both of Thornton’s fronts. Given that there is no extant account of the president reacting to the idea of a semi-circular staircase and colonnaded entrance to the Conference Room, Thornton probably didn’t use his letter as the agenda for their face-to-face meeting. There is no evidence that he drew his sketch and elevation at the president’s request.
If Thornton had limited his argument to that one point which was an architectural solution to the problem at hand, the president might have sent a reply giving his reaction. The high circular stairway justified a rusticated basement. The president was usually thankful for long informative letters but he didn’t thank Thornton for listing the exact cost down to the last penny for the raising foundation by 10, 9, 6, or 3 feet. Nor was he moved by knowing that "...the Expense is in an inverse Ratio to the increased height of the foundation." And evidently didn’t appreciate Thornton’s attack on his colleagues’ relying on brick makers to lower the hill: "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."
Thornton had a knack for writing letters that read like they must have had an impact, but there was rarely a reply or follow-up letter echoing any impact. In his reply to his colleague’s March 20 letter, he could only report that vis-a-vis the foundation "I do not know how he [the president] will act." That suggests that Thornton had no impact at all. He had not received any instructions from the president. He also had a knack promoting himself in ways not related to the the matter at hand. On March 20, when his colleagues fretted over his mismanaging the loan, Thornton had time to negotiate the purchase of a horse, a deal that he closed on March 20. On March 6, he attended a meeting of the Philosophical Society and likely joined the discussion on a prospectus for a contest for the best essay on a system of liberal education. Meanwhile, he seemed to lose his focus on the all important loan. Thornton assured his colleagues that their worries were groundless and gave them a cryptic hope:"our expectations must rest on London. I hope we shall not be disappointed." Six months later, they were disappointed. Nonetheless, historians have hailed Thornton's Philadelphia trip as a notable accomplishment. However, Thornton was never again sent or summoned to go to Philadelphia on the board's business. (5 & 4)
On March 30, the president invited Thornton for tea "this Evening 7 o'clock in a family way." If Thornton ever described his tea with the president, the description has been lost. 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. About this time, Thornton put a down payment on a 572 1/2 acre farm six miles from Georgetown. Later that year, another fellow of the American Philosophical Society congratulated him: "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." On March 6, he attended the monthly meeting of the society and likely joined the discussion on a prospectus for a contest for the best essay on a system of liberal education. Thornton didn't return to Georgetown until April 9. He may have been hoping to attend the society’s April 17 meeting. The letter from the president that he delivered to his colleagues and himself. On April 10, after reading the letter, Thornton bought more lots around the corner from the president’s. He had to buy them from Greenleaf, with a down payment of $1,354.10.(11)(14)When the president arrived in Georgetown on the 18th, he first dealt with the issue that had always been foremost in his worries. Johnson had sued the board. Before moving on to Mount Vernon, he tried to defuse the controversy and talked with Johnson and then Thornton. History has been enriched by those who have described their conversations with George Washington in detail. Thornton never did, but in his May 17 letter to Carroll, , who was no longer able to attend the board’s meetings, the president described his conversation with Thornton in a manner that suggests he was not in the mode to hear Thornton’s thoughts on the Capitol basement:
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.
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| 76. At issue: the truncated square west of Square 4 |
It bears noting that the president did not ask Thornton and Scott who they would like for a colleague. On April 20, the president wrote to Edward Carrington and begged him to replace Commissioner Carroll because there had to be "an energetic successor." That he was a lawyer was Carrington's least qualification. He had commanded artillery during the Revolution and much more. His work as a scout and quartermaster saved the Southern army. When whiskey taxes had to be collected in Virginia, U. S. Marshal Carrington did the job. He replied on April 24 and declined the job.(13)
On April 27, the president met again with the full board, which then decided “that the foundation walls of the wings shall be raised 6 feet beyond the original plan of the building.” What the board’s secretary wrote was obviously influenced by Thornton. No other member of the board had seen his original plan which had gone missing. What the board obviously meant was that the walls would be raised six feet above what had been built. In the fall of 1794, the board had made a contract with an Irish mason, who incidentally had once been an indentured servant at Mount Vernon, to hire masons to build the walls on a piece-work basis with the board supplying slave laborers to move the stone. On April 22, Cornelius McDermott Roe had written to the board asking for the architect to give directions as to “the just thickness of the walls….” He also wanted to know where to make openings for windows. That gives the impression that he was expecting to build the basement on top o the foundation that Williamson described back in December. In his March 12 letter to the president, Thornton had not mentioned the height of the foundation walls in his original plan. He couldn’t, since that depended on the depth of the foundation which had not yet been dug. While alluding to the original plan in the proceedings put his fingerprints on the decision that the president opted to raise the wall only six feet also left Williamson’s fingerprints on it. Did the long retired surveyor see the situation in the same way as the 65 year old Scot?
That the board gave Williamson six weeks notice on the same day that the decision was made to raise the foundation certainly suggests that Thornton wanted to erase his fingerprints. That they also wrote to Hallet and declined “availing ourselves of your Talent,” can be considered a triumph for Thornton and his original plan. But there is no evidence that the president had anything to do with those decisions and Thornton had other allies. The old board had hit on the idea of simplifing their planning and accounting by switching from daily wages to piece work wages. Williamson and the Scottish masons objected. Hoban groomed his countryman Roe and he signed a piece work contract. While some of his masons quit, Williamson didn’t so the board cited his advanced age as the reason for his dismissal. They made Hoban the Superintendent of the Capitol with a 25 Guineas a month raise. Until Hadfield arrived, Hoban’s salary was doubled and higher than a commissioner’s. But they also gave Hallet $250, presumably for his “sketches.”
There is evidence that there wasn’t any deep and meaningful discussion about the design. On May 5, as the president rode through Georgetown on his way to Philadelphia, Hallet's son gave him a letter from his mother. In her letter, Mary Gomain Hallet 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, the president implied that he didn't appreciate Hallet letting his wife plead his case: "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 asked the commissioners if he had been justly compensated. He enclosed her letter and his reply, and, if they approved, asked them to send it to her, which they did.
Thornton did not challenge her damning his plan. He and Scott simply informed the president that "some time last winter with a full hearing in the presence of such of his friends as [Hallet] wished." The board "determined it was by no means adviseable to take him again into the public service." That was all news to the president which suggests that when Thornton met with the president on April 27, nothing was said about Hallet’s “wilful errors.” They closed their May 15 letter with good news: "We are happy in having it in our power to inform you that the Capitol progresses rapidly...." The president didn't reply to their happy report.(15)
The next day, the president appointed Alexander White to replace Carroll. The 57 year old former two term congressman was the lawyer Stuart had suggested. Ten days later, the president found time to explain the current unhappy situation to White:
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....
The letter alarmed White who replied that he knew nothing about "architecture" or managing workers. He had second thoughts about taking the job given that his law work would keep him in Virginia until October.(16) Exactly why is not known, but White soon relented and did his duty. He first met with his colleagues on July 17. Likely the president found a way to intimate, that his sole job would be to check Thornton and Scott. On June 10, that duo sent back letters from Johnson unopened and accused him of indecency and insanity:
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.
Thornton likely wrote the attack. He was prone to use the word "lament." 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 say no.(17)
Meanwhile, in late June, three hundred feet of foundation walls for both the North and South wings fell down. That was all of that year's work. Work would resume only on the North Wing. Both houses of congress would have to meet there in 1800. The board’s immediate reaction was to banish the contractor and all his men. They were ordered to vacate their temporary housing on Capitol Square. The president did not lecture Thornton and Scott. He left that to 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...." (In a letter he wrote to them a year later, the president was still blaming the commissioners.)
Thornton and Scott wrote to Randolph placing all the blame on the Irish contractor. 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 Ludovick Grant is one of the many to whom we allude." They were referring to Williamson who had too often regaled Thornton with stories about how he built the Scottish baron’s castle.(18)
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 assigned blame so that the culprit would pay damages. For years they carried on their account book that contractor Cornelius McDermott Roe owed $1253.33 "for work at the Capitol since condemned and pulled down."
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. 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, which evidently forced Roe to use rubble littered around the building site.(19)
Jokes were made about Roe's “continental trowel”, which is to say, the work was not worth a Continental, as worthless Revolutionary War currency was called. But, no one seems to have written a description of what remained of the aborted South Wing foundation until Latrobe did in his April 1803 report to President Jefferson on the state of the Capitol building. He wrote the report before his feud with Thornton began: "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."Latrobe also explained that work had to be done on the North Wing where unused cellar rooms were filled with trash with no light or ventilation.(20) 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. So much for Thornton's claim in his never sent report 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." To restore integrity to the work, the board gave a recent English immigrant, George Blagden, who was their most experienced stone mason and stone carver, a raise from 20 to 27 shillings ($2.66 to $3.66) a day, and a house near the Capitol. He might make as much as $1000 a year, but well below what Thornton and Hoban made.
As for the commissioners’ reputation, any blow caused by the fall of the walls was cushioned by the fall of Greenleaf. They could have claimed some credit. After Greenleaf missed their May 1 deadline for payment, they threatened legal consequences in May 2 & 18 letters. For awhile, the speculator’s luck continued. A clause in their contract allowed Thomas Law to back out of their deal within 18 months. He became uncomfortable with Greenleaf’s ethics in financial matters. Greenleaf never told him about the obligation to build a house on every third lot. He also left it to Law to ask the commissioners for deeds for his lots. But Law had told the president that he would spend the rest of his life in the city. Judging from the letters Law wrote to Greenleaf, he thought the speculator heaven sent to lead him to the New Jerusalem. Greenleaf convinced him that relinquishing the option to back out would “give a spur to the city.” But it didn't spur the commissioners to give him deeds. In a letter to Randolph, Greenleaf took a last shot at the commissioners by accusing them of thwarting Law because he wanted to develop New Jersey Avenue southeast of the Capitol while they had an interest in Pennsylvania Avenue to the west. In their letter to Randolph, Scott and Thornton accused Greenleaf of being "a malignant slanderer." Randolph badgered Greenleaf for proof. Instead, Greenleaf "sold" his share of their investment in the city to his partners Morris and Nicholson, and "bought" their shares in the North American Land Company that they had organized to market their 6 million acres of Western land. "Sold" and "bought" are in quotes because no money changed hands.Despite the debacle in June, the board didn't officially address the continuing work on the Capitol, and that puzzled White. Returning from a confidential trip through Virginia and Maryland to assess the reaction of the "yeomanry of the country" to the Jay Treaty with Britain, he also reported to the president that "Visiting the Works this morning an alteration of part of the Plan of the Capital agreed to by the President was brought into view...." He gave his opinion of the change: "without a scientific knowledge of Architecture I confess the alteration proposed struck me as adding to the elegance of the Building and on conversing with Mr Hoban I find he is of the same opinion, and that it will throw 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." But he was troubled by not having the president's approval: "The Board supposing they were to execute the Plans of the President and not to alter them, did not take up the business officially—but believing the matter to be of considerable consequence I was desirous that it should in some shape be brought under consideration—Doctor Thornton waits on the President for that purpose." If Thornton went to Mount Vernon, it didn't register in the president's diary, and Thornton never mentioned it. Neither he nor Hoban nor anybody else subsequently claimed credit for that change. At that time, as Hoban would recall, the walls of the basement were "two or three feet above the foundation wall." Perhaps, a mason laying the stone suggested the change.
At the end of the summer of 1795, the president got a letter endorsing Thornton in the most glowing terms. It came from Lettsom who was trying to find someone interested in planting "turkey rhubarb" in America. He also offered 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."(28)
Footnotes for Chapter 6:
1. 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.
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
2. Randolph to GW, 27 February 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. WT to Commrs, 13 March 1795; Commrs. to WT 20 March 1795; Commrs. to Randolf , 20 March 1795.
5. William Allen, History of Capitol, p. 29;
6. Harris, p. 311;
7. Johnson to GW 28 February 1795; GW to Johnson 6 March 1795; Johnson to GW 21 March 1795; Lear to GW 8 March 1795.
8. WT to Commrs. 13 March 1795; Carroll and Scott to Thornton, 24 March 1795;
9. Jefferson wrote: "I need not repeat to you the opinions of Colo. Williams an undertaker also produced by Dr. Thornton, who on seeing the plans and hearing the objections proposed, thought some of them removeable, others not so, and on the whole that the reformed plan was the best. This past in your presence,..." Jefferson to GW 17 July 1793
11. Allen Clark, "Doctor and Mrs. Thornton", p. 168; Ibid., p. 167; WT to Lettsom, 26 November 1795, Pettigrew 2 pp. 549-55; For horse, see Thornton Papers reel 7. Amer. Phil. Soc. Minutes; WT to Commrs. 25 March 1795; Wistar to WT Sept. 16, 1795, Harris p. 326.
12. Commrs. to GW 20 April 1795; GW to Commrs. 24 April 1795; GW to Carroll, 17 May 1795;
13 GW to Carrington, 20 April 1795 & reply
14. Commissioners proceedings; 1795 Almanac, 10 April 1795, Thornton papers, Lib. of Congress Reel 7.
15. Mary Gomain Hallet to GW, 27 April 1795, reply 5 May 1795; GW to Commrs 5 May 1795; Commrs to GW, 15 May 1795.
16. Stuart to GW 22 February 1795, GW to White 28 April 1795GW to White, 17 May 1795; White to GW, 8 June 1795.
17. Carroll to GW, 15 August 1795; Williamson to GW 11 July 1796; Commrs. to Johnson, 10 June 1795; Johnson to GW, 15 June 1795; GW to Johnson, 5 July 1795 ;GW to Johnson 24 August 1795;
18. Randolph to Commrs. 10 July 1795; Commrs to Randolph, 7 July 1795; Commrs to Randolph, 13 July 1795; Commrs to Randolph 10 June 1795
19. American State Papers Class X Miscellaneous vol. 1 p. 227; 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.
20. Latrobe, Benjamin, The Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of, 3 April 1803, p. 278.
21. Law to Greenleaf July 1795, Clark pp. 108-9; Commrs to Randolph, 20 July 1795.
22. Isabella Clark to Greenleaf, Morris and Nicholson, November 28, 1795; Morris to Cranch, August 17 & 19, 1795: Morris to Lovering, 17 August 1795;, Morris papers; Nicholson to Clark, 18 August 1795, Nicholson Papers.
23. WT to Commrs, 18 July 1795, Harris, pp. 320-21; 17 June 1795 notebook entries, reel 7; Samuel Davidson papers slave purchases, 6 & 16 February 1795; Berlin, Jean V. "A Mistress and a Slave: Anna Maria Thornton and John Arthur Bowen" Proceeding South Carolina Historical Association, 1990;
24. Commrs. to GW 24 July 1795; WT to GW 26 July 1795, Harris pp. 321-3; GW to Commrs. 29 July 1795.
25. White to GW, 17 September 1795; Washington Federalist 27 October 1808
26. GW to Commrs, 9 November 1795.
27. Harris, p. 582
28. Lettsom to GW, 15 July 1795.
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