Chapter Nine: Thornton Thwarts Hadfield, Parries the Devil and Somewhat Pleases the President

Table of Contents page 136  index

Chapter Nine: Thornton Thwarts Hadfield, Parries the Devil and Somewhat Pleases the President

84. Hadfield's simplification of the 1793 Conference Plan

There is no reason to doubt Trumbull's characterization of George Hadfield as a respectful and circumspect young man. He came from ingratiating stock. His father had been a hotel keeper in Livorno, Italy, where distinguished British families spent the winter. Historians suspect that his sister Maria Cosway had an affair with Thomas Jefferson in Paris. She was otherwise well connected with British society, but George's personal life had been and would be exemplary.

What may have prompted Hadfield to redesign the Capitol so quickly 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.(1) 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."(2)

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 been given to Hadfield had been made by Hallet prior to 1795 and Hoban since then. In the midst of the dispute, Scott went to Annapolis to lobby the Maryland legislature for support, but didn't stay long. He wrote to the president "the late disagreement between Messrs. Hadfield & Hoban render my attendance absolutely necessary at the City."(3)

At that time, thanks to no plan of the building having ever been published, there was only a vague idea of what the Capitol would look like and what would be in it. In November 1795, a page 137 British traveler toured the city. His book published in 1798 chronicled his impressions of much of North America. His impressions of the Capitol in late 1795 demonstrate that while there may have been a plan for the Capitol, it was completely unknown to a curious tourist and whoever gave him information. Isaac Weld wrote: "In the capitol are to be spacious apartments for the accommodation of congress; in it are also to be the principal public offices of the executive departments of the government, together with the courts of justice. The plan on which this building is begun is grand and extensive...." He didn't mention a dome or basement, but only the cost, "a million of dollars, equal to two hundred and twenty-five pounds sterling."(4)

Scott and White thought the president, who had been interested in Hadfield's appointment, should be aware of Hadfield's complaints. They also feared that if sent away, Hadfield would publicly criticize the building as planned. They sent him to Philadelphia to meet the president and show his design for the building. They sent Hoban as well to defend the current plan. They also had him deliver a letter to the president which offered a tepid defense of "the [current] plan which has progressed in some degree...."(5) Likely Scott's and White's chief worry was that Hoban would react to attacks on his work by leaving the city.

Thornton did not have to offer his own opinion, but he did. Earlier in the year, he had drafted arguments for having a basement. There is no evidence that he had shared those arguments then but now could not let his "acquisition" destroy his basement. In the draft of a November 2nd, 2200 word letter he did send, he celebrated the idea of a basement of which his basement was but a miniature. He listed the "rusticated basements" of English manor houses illustrated in Vitruvius Britannicus:

—I will only instance a few in England. Wentworth House, which is an elegant palace belonging to the Marquis of Rockingham, six hundred feet in length—and of the same Order viz. the Corinthian with a rustic Basement—Worksop-Manor House belonging to the Duke of Norfolk, three Hundred feet in extent yet only a small part of a superb Building once contemplated—Same Order rustic Basement. Holkham House—345 feet—Heveningham Hall, which is a very elegant Structure has a line of Pilasters supported on a rustic Arcade that runs the whole length—Chiswick House, the Seat of the Duke of Devonshire has a rustic Basement supporting fluted Columns of the Corinthian Order—Wentworth Castle, Seat of the Earl of Strafford abt 6 miles from Wentworth House is of the same Order on a rustic Arcade. Wanstead House is also Corinthian on a rustic Basement, & considered as a very chaste & beautiful Building—It was designed by the Author of the Book on Architecture called the Vitruvius Britannicus—These may serve to shew that a Basement (rusticated) is not only proper, but adopted by many of the first Architects. The expense is certainly less than any other mode of obtaining the same height.(8)

85. Wanstead House

But, as William Allen points out,  in all those houses, the principal rooms were upstairs on the first floor, not in the basement like the Senate chamber would be.(9)

Despite his assertion to Trumbull in January that he would undo "wilful errors" made to his plan, in his letter he did not give that impression. Instead, he assured the president: "Mr. Hoban and I have made no material alteration that can affect the sections of the principal rooms made by Mr. Hallet,..." 

In March, Thornton had written about defects in the foundation and they were not forgotten in this November letter: “Mr Hoban and I knew of these defects. not only in the foundation but also in some parts of the distribution of the interior—we lamented, and endeavoured to correct them—In some Instances we succeeded, some small ones may yet remain, but not of much Importance in our Estimation.” 

Actually, Hoban had completed his inspection of the foundation walls only two week before Thornton wrote to the president. As for changing the "distribution of the interior," Judging from what White wrote to president in September, Hoban was the moving force.(6)

Thornton's principle message to the president was don't risk losing Hoban by supporting Hadfield. He lauded Hoban even though he "had sometimes opposed my wishes, but I knew his motives were good, and I always admire independence." He made much of Hoban's promise to him to see the work through as planned if Hadfield "persisted in his refusal" to do so.

The president met with Hadfield and Hoban "in the presence of each other with the plans before us." The letter the president wrote to the commissioners afterwards suggest that he probably paid little attention to Thornton's letter. By his own account the president had an informative and non-contentious meeting. He found that there was no suggestion that any changes would be made to the interior of the building as planned. By discarding the basement, Hadfield thought the exterior would "assume a better appearance and the Portico be found more convenient than in the present plan."  He thought two stories would create enough space and an attic would not be needed thus saving money. Then he said something that gratified the president. page 138 He assured him that the Capitol would have a dome. In his letter, the president explained: 

As far as I understand the matter, the difference lies simply in discarding the basement, & adding an attic story, if the latter shall be found necessary; but this (the attic) he thinks may be dispensed with, as sufficient elevation may be obtained, in the manner he has explained it, without—and to add a dome over the open or circular area or lobby, which in my judgment is a most desirable thing, & what I always expected was part of the original design, until otherwise informed in my late visits to the City, if strength can be given to it & sufficient light obtained.

It is hard to reconcile what Washington wrote with the idea that he had previously instructed Thornton to undo "wilfull errors." The president listed three reasons why he would leave the decision up to the board: he lacked the necessary knowledge, was too busy to acquire it, "but above all because I have not the precise knowledge of the characters you have to deal as well as all the facts in the matter."(7)

Just as the president tolerated Thornton's suggesting that the foundation be raised ten feet, he also tolerated Hadfield's suggestions. However, in a letter, the president told Hadfield "in decisive terms" that if "the plan on which you are proceeding is not capitally defective I cannot (after such changes, delays and expences as have been encountered already) consent to a departure from it...." He also wrote to the board that if the present plan was defective, he “should have no objection" to Hadfield's changes "as he conceives his character as an Architect is in some page 139 measure at stake – and inasmuch as the present plan is no body's, but a compound of every body's....”(10)

George Washington had never and would never suggest that in regards to any decision about the Capitol that Thornton's character as an architect was at stake. In a personal letter to Thornton written on the same day that he wrote to the board, the president didn't mention the basement and rather pulled the rug out from under Cadmus: “If [Hadfield] is the man of science he is represented to be, and merits the character he brings; if his proposed alterations can be accomplished without enhancing the expence or involving delay; if he will oblige himself to carry on the building to its final completion; and if he has exhibited any specimens of being a man of industry and arrangement I should have no hesitation in giving it as my opinion that his plan ought to be adopted....”(11)

However, only a more decisive nod than that could save Hadfield's plan. In his draft letter to the president, Thornton had castigated every change Hadfield suggested as more expensive. He gave a lesson in architecture. One benefit of a  basement was that it lessened the height of columns in the interior of the building used to support the upper floors. Bigger columns needed more finishing. "The greatest expense is in the columns, the pilasters, their capitals and entablatures."  A plain basement was much cheaper. 

Scott and White backed the basement and Hoban, likely because they trusted Hoban and stone had already been cut for the basement. The board's letter to the president justifying that decision faulted Hadfield for not making the case that his plan would save money. They added that "both Mr Hoban and Doctor Thornton asserted that the plan proposed by Mr Hadfield could not be executed so as to secure stability to the building." As William Allen points out, "the exact nature" of the instability was not specified. Thus Thornton had the pleasure of damning a rival plan much as Hoban and Hallet had damned his in 1793. He also wrote a letter to his colleagues promising drawings to forward the work, preferably with Hoban in charge. The board sent his letter to the president along with theirs.(12)

The November 17, 1795, letter that Thornton wrote to his colleagues changed nothing at the time. Hadfield worked on the Capitol until May 1798. But for capital city's first comprehensive historian, Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan, Thornton's letter was the first link in a chain of  evidence proving that Thornton and Glenn Brown were right: that Thornton did restore his design of the Capitol. Finding that chain of evidence was important because neither Brown nor Thornton page 140 produced evidence for the claim other than Thornton's say-so.

Finding that chain of evidence also relieved Bryan from having to challenge a colleague as instrumental as he was in the blossoming of historical studies inspired by 100th anniversary of the city's founding. Brown was still actively pursuing his dream of being appointed Architect of the Capitol based on his well received history of the Capitol published in 1900.

Thornton's letter to his colleagues that helped convince Bryan was one of his shortest:  "Mr. Hadfield, the architect, who has lately been employed in the public service, having intimated that the drawings which have been delivered to him by the Board are not sufficiently distinct for his government, I promise to supply such drawings hereafter, as may be deemed sufficient for the prosecution of the Capitol, and in time to prevent any delay whatever."  Thornton added that he was "authorized by Mr. Hoban to say that if Mr. Hadfield declines the superintendence of the building on the present plan, that he will engage to undertake it, and proceed with it to a finish."(13)

Bryan did note what the president said about the design but suggested that in "Washington's mind, at that time, at any rate, the authorship of the design was doubtful."(14) In Bryan's view, the next links in the chain of evidence, forged in 1798 and 1799, proved that Thornton did provide all necessary drawings that dispelled the president's doubts.

To be sure, the proof is in the pudding, and as an on-going feud between Thornton and Hadfield festered after November 1795, it bears trying to discern who seemed to be more in control. Also, was the plan being followed Hallet's or Thornton's? Or was the president right: "...the present plan is no body's, but a compound of every body's....” The rest of Bryan's chain of evidence will be examined later.(15)

There are no extant architectural drawings made by Thornton that could have been used to elucidate any of the work Hadfield supervised until he was fired in May 1798. Of course, working drawings are rarely preserved. In an 1819 letter to the editor, Hadfield recalled that in regards to the exterior of the North Wing, "the finishing the practical working drawings of all the cornices, and other parts of the exterior of the North Wing from the plinth to the top of the ballustrades,... was doing no more than I was obliged to execute, as superintendant of the building."

There is evidence that Thornton had a tendency to exaggerate. He told Lettsom in a February 1794 letter, "If a man wills to do, he does." Thornton mistook resolution for action. In his own mind, his claims came true.(17)

page 141 For example, in 1794 Thornton had bought lots near to those that the president had bought in 1793. In a November 26, 1795, letter to Lettsom, he described how he and the president "travelled over together on foot, and laid out our plans of future improvement.... We were alone, and I thought myself highly favored by the manner in which this great man received my opinions. Thou wishes to see him - come to this region of happiness. I have many things confided to me, that, could I consistently with my duty disclose, would make our prospects appear truly grand."(18) Seven months later, in June 1796,  the president would write to Commissioner White that he had heard nothing about Thornton's plans to move to the city.(19)

But what about the "many things confided" to Thornton? Did they share a secret plan for the Capitol? Was that what Thornton meant in 1805 when he claimed in a letter to congress that Washington told him to restore his original design? There is no evidence extant that suggests that George Washington shared confidential plans relative to the city with Thornton, the commissioners or anybody else. The president's private real estate dealings also seem to have been above board. His letters to the commissioners about them were not marked "private."

However, on November 4, 1795, he sent a letter to the board marked "private." Since Scott was in Annapolis and White in Virginia, Thornton opened and read the letter. He wrote back immediately and assured the president: "I consider your Letter as of so private a Nature, that I have transcribed it myself, and have forwarded a Copy to each of my Colleagues, whose motions will be governed thereby." 

This is the only letter written by Thornton to Washington excluded by the editor of Thornton's published papers and for good reason. Because of his inexperience in Maryland politics, Thornton misunderstood the letter. Baltimore promoters had always been wary of developments along the Potomac. The president simply warned Scott, who had lived in Baltimore, to not misjudge the situation when he went to Annapolis to get the state to buy shares in the Potomac Company and loan money to the commissioners. He made his warning private because he dare not give written evidence that he tried to influence legislatures to favor development of the Potomac Valley. Thornton's making copies of the letter didn't help matters, but the president wasn't subsequently embarrassed. The episode suggests that Thornton's claim to Lettson that the president shared confidences with Thornton was not a complete fabrication. Thornton's panic upon receiving a letter marked "private"suggests it was a unique experience.

Meanwhile, in Annapolis, Scott sensed that the legislature would not loan money and so only lobbied for them to support the Potomac Company. At the same time, word came from London that no loan could be had there.  The board was desperate. They found an amazing way to express that to the president in a public letter. Thornton may not have written it but he certainly signed it:  "many balances remain due for services rendered and a quarterly hire of black laborers; should the masters meet with difficulties in obtaining the wages of last year, at the very moment we are advertising for 120 laborers for next year, we shall certainly go into the market with a bad grace."(20) The speculators had stopped all payments. All three were in Philadelphia and, of course, so was congress that could so easily loan money to get its future home built. 

Thornton thought his previous trip to Philadelphia was successful, although no money was forthcoming. But the president and board decided to send White who had served two terms in congress. White was the commissioner who knew the least about the Capitol. That proved embarrassing for Thornton.

As White left for Philadelphia, he asked Hadfield to send a plan of the Capitol with the estimated cost and Hadfield sent his own plan. White shocked Thornton by reporting that a congressional committee asked for a copy of the plan for the Capitol, and he showed them Hadfield's. Thornton immediately sent up what he described as a "roll of papers" so the committee could see the "plans formerly adopted by the President, and now in progress...." The mail came but White did not get the plans. He informed Thornton that they had apparently been lost.

In a draft of a letter to White written on January 16, Thornton seemed at once to think the worst and shrug it off. He regretted that Hadfield's drawing was exhibited but noted "in fact it is not indispensably requisite to show the plans exactly as they are meant to be." Then Thornton revealed his dark fears of machinations "by one who does not wish well to my plans, or to anything that comes to me, and who, I believe, has urged Hadfield further than he intended to go." Thornton was probably thinking of Thomas Johnson who in 1794 had alerted his brother in London about the need for an architect, and that led to Hadfield being hired. Who other than Johnson could have persuaded Hadfield to first take his design to Philadelphia, and then, even after it was rejected, give it to White to show to congressmen?

In the same letter, Thornton reiterated how he was putting Hadfield in his place. "Since your departure I have been occasionally engaged in making correct drawings for the Superintendent of the Capitol in which it will be impossible to make any mistake. In this I have paid great attention even to the minutiae, lest difficulties might be made where in reality none ever existed."

When Thornton wrote that, White had found that the plans had been sent to the War Office. In his letter to Thornton, he described them as "your," that is Thornton's, plans. In draft letter to White, Thornton also shuddered at "one who does not wish well to my plans." That raises the question: Had Thornton made his prize winning design the operable plan? In conversation with Tobias Lear in December 1794, Thornton had said that the building progressed according to "approved plans."That was before his January 1795 claim to Trumbull that he would have the opportunity to undo the "wilfull errors" of Hallet. His description of the plan in January 1796 as ''adopted by the president" suggests that Thornton had not undone any "wilfull errors." Indeed, his colleagues on the board used the phrase "approved by the president" when they cautioned Thornton to check his grandiose ideas. White pledged to the president to build "the plans of the president." As for Thornton's perception of a threat to "my plans," if the threat came from Johnson, Thornton may have been recalling the first criticisms of the board back in March 1793. Or he recognized that Hallet's revision of his plan was still informed by the "ideas of Dr. Thornton," while Hadfield's plan wasn't.

He probably sent White the same plans or copies of them that Hoban took to Philadelphia to show the president in November. In a February letter to White, Thornton promised to send other drawings to White and assured him "I have taken great pains with them and I hope I shall have no further trouble."(21) page 142 There is no evidence that he sent more drawings. Since White confessed unabashedly that he knew nothing about architecture, it is possible that Thornton spared him the details. However, Thornton didn't say exactly what he was drawing. Thornton was a good writer and to a fellow commissioner he could easily have been as particular about his Capitol drawings as he was about British basements. 

It took six months of lobbying for White to get a loan guarantee through congress.  Until then, despite Thornton claiming to have made drawings to forward the work, Scott and Thornton delayed the usual spring resumption of work on the buildings. In mid-May, White returned to the city. Appalled that work had not resumed, he got the board to rally proprietors to loan money to pay workers and suppliers.(22) Then the board was "a good deal surprised" by Hadfield giving three months notice that he would leave the job.

In a draft letter he would write in 1798, two years after the events that he described, Thornton made Hadfield's "surprise" far more dramatic. He claimed that Hadfield made yet another design: 

His next idea was that as the building could not be reduced from from three to two stories it had better be changed to four stories. The President and Mr. Johnson were both here. They heard of these attempts so incongruous in themselves, with astonishment. The President determined that no alteration should take place, on which Mr. Hadfield resigned his office as Superintendent of the Capitol. The Board accepted his resignation

After he returned, acknowledged he had been hasty, requested to be admitted to the public service, acknowledged he had behaved to W.T. with great impropriety - that he had made objections to the plan and section when prompted by ambition to substitute his own, that he lamented such conduct, and though he had declared the plan not executable yet he assured the Board that it was and he would faithfully execute it, and at all times advise with W.T. - He was replaced [rehired] by unanimous consent of the Board.

Thornton never sent the letter. There is no evidence backing up his recollection. Hadfield had discussed the attic with the president in November 1795. On June 13, the president left Philadelphia for Mount Vernon and didn't return until August 17. On June 19, he evidently was in Georgetown and paid $1,294 in cash to cover what he owed for lots he had bought in the city. On June 22, he began sending letters from Mount Vernon to his cabinet secretaries. While in Georgetown and the federal city, he could have learned about Hadfield's new design. Hadfield gave his notice on June 24, and the board replied three days later. However, in their letter, there is no mention of the president or Hadfield's design: 

The board have had your notice of the 24th Inst. under consideration, & also the conversation which past at the board; and supposing your present situation at the Capitol to be an unpleasant one, they feel every disposition to relieve you from it—As you are to quit the Capitol at the end of 3 months, & this fact is well known among the people; we Suspect it will be difficult to keep up due authority among them; and that it will be best for both the public and yourself that you should be relieved from your present situation immediately; and that the board should pay your passage to England, or thirty five Guineas, in lieu thereof, instead of paying you three months Salary. page 143

This letter gives the impression that Hadfield was unhappy with his "situation" at the Capitol. Plus, rather than wait three  months, the board wanted to release him from that situation as soon as possible for fear that the "people" there would no longer follow his commands. That suggests that Hadfield had problems with workers at the Capitol, not with the board and president who were rarely at the Capitol.

On the 26th, the president replied to a letter the board sent to him on the 22nd. There was no mention of Hadfield in either letter. On June 29th, he received another letter from the commissioners that after discussing three other issues, reported their "surprise" at Hadfield giving notice. They noted that they gave him "liberty to quit" and passage money. Then "he seems to have considered the subject better & has applied to withdraw his notice, promising every attention to carrying on the Capitol, as approved of by the President—." They took him back, with a caveat. They were not obliged to renew his contracts in three months.

In his reply to their letter, the president did not applaud their defense of the approved plan once again threatened by Hadfield. He applauded "their decisive manner.... Coaxing a man to stay in office - or to do his duty while he is in it, is not the way to accomplish the object." He didn't comment on the board's letting Hadfield stay.(23) He would superintend the work at the Capitol for almost two more years. No letter giving his version of events in the summer of 1796 has survived.

Thornton's claims about the Capitol design became more detached from reality as time passed. That reflected his frustration at not getting the credit he thought he deserved for what he had designed. He failed to rekindle the admiration and joy the president had felt when first seeing his design in 1793. So he had to imagine the president's anger when someone challenged that design. 

Hadfield did not respect Thornton or envy him or his supposed genius. Thornton defined his career as an architect as a struggle against trained architects. Historians and biographers have obliged him by chronicling his feuds. However, what made Hadfield uncomfortable were Hoban and the men who had worked with him. 

Work on the President's house began a year before work began on the Capitol. Men who worked at the President's house moved on to work at the Capitol bringing with them techniques that had seemed to have worked. What Hadfield had learned in London and Rome had no relevance. It was Hoban not Thornton who interpreted Hallet's revisions to Thornton's plan. That revised plan was the plan approved by the president.

As for what Hadfield did after June 1796, there is no evidence  other than Thornton's claim that he welcomed Thornton's supervision. In 1801, Hadfield wrote to President Jefferson  soliciting work. He claimed credit for having "superintended the execution of the most difficult part" of what had been built and revealed the "mortification" he felt at "seeing my work remain for the praise and reputation of those, who have meditated and effected my ruin." That suggests that Hadfield built Hallet's revision of Thornton's design while trying to avoid any advice from W.T. or page 144 Hoban.(24)

An October 24, 1796, letter that the foremen of the stonemasons, George Blagden, wrote to the board requesting drawings gives a different perspective:

I find it expedient to solicit a resolution to the follow queries; shall the Pilasters diminish, how much and w[h]ere shall that determination commence. There being to be two modes to finishing between the said Pilasters a drawing for each will be necessary, commencing with the top of the Subb Plinth and ending at the top of Capitals. The dementions of each of their parts figured respectively. A drawing of one of the windows for principle and study if to a scale of one inch to foot the better. And also a drawing at large for the mouldings composing the whole of Entablature.(25)

Given his promise of directions and drawings, it would seem that in the fall of 1796 Thornton would have been involved in that magical period when the walls of a building he thought he had designed began to rise in earnest. How the board or Thornton individually responded to Blagden's letter is not known, but it suggests that Thornton and Hadfield were not working together as the building progressed. At the same time, it suggests that Hadfield did not know the answers to Blagden's questions. Blagden also felt obliged to address the board as a whole rather than Thornton which suggests that he was not accustomed to getting drawings from Thornton.

A letter Thomas Law wrote to the president in February 1797 gives yet another perspective:

I yesterday delivered a Lre into the Commissioners Office and returning from thence in company with Mr Hadfield, that gentleman told me that he could get the Capitol covered in this Season, “why not write so then to the Commissioners?[”] said I—his answer was “I shall be more likely to effect it by my own means without their knowing of my intention”—this upon my honor is a fact, but I do not wish it to become public as I might be deemed censurable for divulging a private Conversation & yet I am only acting faithfully by imparting it to You.

A few days after Law wrote to the president, instead of getting him to work on covering the building, the board sent Hadfield to Philadelphia to hire some ornamental stone carvers. That displeased the president, and his p.s. to one of his last letters as president clearly demonstrated that he didn't rely on Thornton to get the Capitol ready for congress. He wrote, "P.S. I am informed that Mr Hadfield is enquiring, in this City, for Carvers. I earnestly recommend, that all carving not absolutely necessary to preserve consistency, may be avoided; as well to save time and expence, as because I believe it is not so much the taste now as formerly."

In 1819, Hadfield wrote a wry and laconic letter crediting Thornton for designing the exterior of the Capitol. He added that "The only parts that now remain, and which I, for the first time, claim as emanating from my feeble architectural powers, in the exterior of the North Wing of the Capitol, are the impost cornices to  the basement without the Galosh ornament, which was meant to top the basement, without any moulding; the said impost was accepted as an  improvement and executed accordingly."

In other words, Thornton evidently wanted the stone of the outer walls ornamented extensively. The president's veto of that left Hadfield's plain cornices which was deemed an improvement. Thornton's motive for wanting ornaments was likely his fear that once Washington page 145 retired, the grandeur that Thornton thought they both believed in would be neglected. That Hadfield recalled the episode in 1819, suggests how much a blow Washington's p.s. must have been to Thornton.(26)

Back to June 1796, it was clear that the president was not upset by Hadfield or much cared whether he left or stayed. He was upset by the commissioners' reluctance to move to the city. That vexation may explain why the board unanimously took Hadfield back.

In the spring of 1796, several proprietors in the city petitioned the president to make the commissioners' long expected move to the city happen. In his letter to the commissioners endorsing the petition, the president brought up the collapsed Capitol walls: "It is said, if this had been the case, those defective walls, which to put up, & pull down, have cost the public much time, labour & expence, would never have been a subject of reproach."(27)

Scott and Thornton wrote back on May 31 and explained again that the debacle was the fault of the contractor. They even clambered up a precarious kind of moral high ground: "If the commissioners had walked on the walls three times a day, they could not have prevented it."(28)

The equivocation the board exhibited in response to Hadfield giving notice might have reflected their worry about another debacle at the Capitol. The first happened after Hallet left the project and before Hadfield arrived. They needed someone to prevent another, or take the blame. In any case, letting Hadfield stay made their not moving into the city less alarming.

The president's pleas were in vain. In their reply, Scott and Thornton absolved themselves by blaming the proprietors: "We lament that any person could expect us to live there, before houses are prepared for accommodation—some of the board have always said, that they mean to remove thither as soon as even decent houses could be had—The proprietors have not been active in their preparations, otherwise, this cause of their complaint would not now exist."(29) The use of the word "lament" suggests that the letter was written by Thornton.

By proprietors, Thornton meant the original landowners none of whom had yet built housing in the city. However, new investors like Thomas Law and William Duncanson were soon building, as was Blodget. In the summer of 1795, the commissioners and everyone else in the city reacted with pleasure at the imperious Greenleaf selling out to Morris and Nicholson. The former was the friendliest of the Founders and the president's old friend. John Nicholson gave money and loans to a myriad of good causes, from the steamboat company to the African Church in Philadelphia. Like Thornton, he was a member of the American Philosophical Society. While in Philadelphia, White tried in vain to get the speculators to pay what they owed to the commissioners. But the two paragons were short of ready money. They at least tried to dedicate what they could raise to building more in the federal city. They both believed that their projects there would more likely turn profitable. Yet, at the same time that Morris was missing promised deadlines, L'Enfant was putting the finishing touches on Morris's new mansion that promised to be the grandest and most luxurious private residence in the country.

Thornton did not seem to grasp the predicaments of speculators and real estate developers and their ways and means of getting out of them. He was predisposed to distrust and scorn them, even though encouraging housing projects was very much a commissioner's job. While he was in Philadelphia,  White cultivated a developer named Joseph Cooke who built a row of houses in that city and wanted to do the same near the Capitol. In a draft letter, Thornton dutifully agreed with White that "we must accommodate every person as well as we can." Then Thornton bristled at what Cooke built in Philadelphia: "...it is indeed the finest cook's shop I ever saw, but destitute of taste, and loaded with trifles, finery and whimwhams." In the same draft, Thornton bemoaned congressional critiques of the plan for the Capitol: "It would be destruction to alter a stone!" The board, formed by Thornton and Scott, offered Cooke lots at 12 cents a foot "if he really means to improve and soon." Cooke never built in the city.(33)

Of course, Morris and Nicholson presented much greater problems and opportunities. Thornton puzzled and pleased them by helping to right their sinking ship. With Greenleaf gone, he thought it prudent to make sure that his purchase of lots from Greenleaf could be completed. Most lot purchases in the city were one-third down and three years to pay. page 146 Morris assured Thornton that the lots were his, got him to a pay another installment of  $1,354.10, and used that money to pay disgruntled unpaid workers.(30)

87. Robert Morris

However, given that Morris and Nicholson were still tied to the agreement Greenleaf had made to build 20 houses a year and given that Greenleaf had done most of the building to date, it is strange that a self-professed builder of cities, and architect to boot, would not take a deeper interest in their problems. However, Thornton thought it was his job to protect the public against private interests, especially those who threatened to mar the grandeur of the capital city with inappropriate houses. Thornton prioritized the creation of great national institutions in the national capital. 

Other architects in the city had different priorities. William Lovering went to Philadelphia to offer his services as an architect. He had pressing reasons to call on Morris and Nicholson. Rather than pay him 8% of the cost of the buildings, Greenleaf had put him on a salary which seemed to guarantee some money in lieu of haggling over the cost of the buildings, but Greenleaf still did not pay him. In Philadelphia, Lovering charmed Morris who agreed to continue the $1500 salary and have Lovering supervise all other builders. Morris grandly headed his first letter to the one man now in charge: "Mr. William Lovering, Architect at City Washington." Nicholson agreed to use Lovering too and pay half his salary.

Lovering landed on his feet but he was on shaky ground. Morris also hired Cranch and advised him that as for "Mr. Lovering's debts and the balance due to him [just over $3000] gain as much time as you can...." Neither Lovering nor anyone else Greenleaf hired ever received any more money under the contracts they made with Greenleaf. Morris made a start at fulfilling his contractual agreement with Lovering. He promptly sent $50 to Cranch to give to Lovering. Then Morris told Cranch that "it seems almost time for the City of Washington to support itself." (34)

Morris and Nicholson failed to carry on Greenleaf's building plans for the summer of 1795. That prompted Simmons to leave. He sold his "elegant" furniture and "two milch cows." Nicholson rented the Simmons house to a storekeeper. Not until the spring of 1796, did Cranch place an ad in the newspaper for an unencumbered four story brick house that Lovering had just finished. It had “two convenient kitchens, two parlors and six lodging chambers – a brick pavement in front, and the yard and area are paved with brick.” Plus, it had a coach house and stables.(35)

However, Law and Duncanson picked up the slack. Hallet stayed in the city as a designer, builder, inventor, and consultant. The Holland Land Company, which curated investments by European speculators, hired Hallet to take a census of the state of housing in the federal city. He counted 77 brick houses, and  described William Duncanson's house in a way that suggests he designed and built it. Why else make note of its large ballroom, and why else describe a house that was secluded from other developments? It was along South Carolina Avenue on a slope southeast of the Capitol. It was the only house in the city Hallet described. Architectural historians credit Lovering for designing the house. However, in a lawsuit on another matter, Lovering testified that to help Duncanson hurry construction of the house, he provided seasoned building materials and measured the work so Duncanson could pay the builders. Lovering didn't testify that he was paid for designing it. In the fall of 1796, Duncanson entertained the British minister and his lady at The Maples. 

Hallet also offered his services to Nicholson in July 1795. Luckily for Hallet, Nicholson didn't bite. Thoma Law did and he also offered to promote Hallet's invention that offered an improved crane to raise stone at construction sites.(36)

88. Elizabeth Parke Custis Law

page 148 Thomas Law also moved to the city after a significant detour. In the winter of 1795-96, he courted and married 19 year old Elizabeth Parke Custis, the eldest grand daughter of Martha Washington. At the behest of her step father, former commissioner David Stuart, Law had papers drawn "to settle" 10,000 Pounds Sterling on his wife. Her parents frowned at the gap in their ages, Law was 39 years old, but they liked having a fortune in the family that was not tied up in slaves.

In a letter to the president, Stuart gushed that Law "has received lately many letters from his friends in India, empowering him to buy largely for them in this Country. He says, they seem to be alarmed at the situation of England, and are looking fast towards transferring their wealth here—I expect, he will prove the most valuable acquisition the City has yet made, not only from what he will do himself, but from the very high point of respectability in which both his character and abilities appear to be held in the E. Indies."(37)

Nicholson moved the store keeper he had hired out of the Simmons house and let Law and his bride stay there for a late honeymoon. They were entertaining visitors at the house by the end of April. One of Law's old East India associates visited and kept a diary: "In the afternoon Mr. Law took me about his new estate. His house, built by himself.... In the rear of the house Mr. Law was  building a street, consisting of much smaller houses than his own...." To a visitor who would return to England in a few weeks, Law couldn't resist claiming credit for what Greenleaf had done. Thornton was not the only emigrant who bragged to the folks back in England. Law did begin building houses on New Jersey Avenue. In 1796, Law received two letters from Hallet about lumber, bricks, scaffold poles, and glazing windows.(38) 

There are surely exceptions, but generally speaking, unlike Thornton, architects like to page 149 encourage building. Lovering showed how it was done. In 1793, Greenleaf had made an agreement with Daniel Carroll of Duddington to build 20 houses on a square along South Capitol Street by the end of September 1796. There was a $10,000 penalty if the agreement was not fulfilled. Morris was inclined to renegotiate the contract with Carroll. When he heard that, Lovering went to Philadelphia again and warned Morris and Nicholson. Carroll had "a most rigid disposition and will be glad to take any advantage." Lovering thought the best revenge would be to build those houses.(39)

The speculators knew that they had to do something to save their investment. Building houses would raise lot values and attract buyers, especially if done with eclat. Beating Carroll's deadline would do just that. Vowing that “Mr. Carroll shall not have the forfeiture,” Morris raised $22,000; Nicholson raised $21,000, and building began in late June 1796. If the houses were only two stories and most shared party walls, Lovering thought they could be built by September. He also designed houses at the end of the block with space for a store front window. Morris's only advice was that they "must be easy and cheap to execute and at the same time agreeable to purchasers and tenants."(40)

While the designs for the houses have not been found, letters between Morris, Nicholson, Cranch, Lovering and William Prentiss, who Nicholson hired as his builder, all mention Lovering's designs. Lovering described his drawings to Morris as "most suitable and economize as much as possible." Morris sold a corner house lot on South Capitol Street to a merchant named Edward Langley and had Lovering and James Hoban set the value of the lot. The contract for the sale had the proviso that Langley have his builders "conform to Lovering's design."(41)

89. Historians attribute the design of this house to a man named Langley, but in the contract for the sale of the building lot,  Langley agreed to “conform” to a design drawn by William Lovering.

Lovering's and Prentiss's crews built the shells of 20 two-story brick houses on the square northwest of the intersection of South Capitol and N Streets SW. In the late summer of 1796, both Morris and Nicholson came to the city. They hosted a page 150 barbecue for 200 to celebrate the accomplishment. Initially, even Carroll was satisfied. But the Twenty Buildings did not afford Lovering any posthumous fame. In her essay in Creating Capitol Hill, architectural historian Pamela Scott only mentions him as a builder, credits Prentiss for being in charge, and Nicholas King for designing Langley's house which she rated as representing "the quality of houses and shops Carroll sought when he first contracted with Greenleaf." Not that knowing it was Lovering's design would changed her estimation of his talent. She concluded that in 1797, the only architects in the city who could design a notable house were Hoban, Hadfield and Thornton.

Langley's house and the houses Lovering built did not fare well. Langley soon put his house up for sale. If occupied at all, the houses served as compensation for workers that the speculators couldn't pay. By 1800, they had been pillaged of any building materials of value and sheltered the otherwise homeless including members of the slowly growing free African American community.(42) 

Soon after the barbecue, Morris returned to Philadelphia taking a circuitous route to avoid sheriffs sicced on him by his many creditors. Nicholson stayed in the city and even tried to get money from Thornton. Nicholson never discouraged rumors that he had plenty of money, and that, combined with his inability to pay his obligations made him both attractive and dangerous. He successfully gave the impression that he was sure to succeed by churning out a series of brilliant ideas. He stayed in the city and prodded the commissioners to divide all the remaining squares in the city into building lots. The speculators had contracted to buy 6000, but didn't have the money to buy them. Nicholson made something out of nothing. He asked for transferable certificates for each lot payable in three years. He then used the certificates as security for more loans or as a scrip currency. White objected to the scheme but Scott and Thornton who themselves owned lots recognized the logic and necessity for doing something to maintain faith in the value of lots.(45)

90. Transferable Certificate for Lot Used as Scrip Currency by Nicholson

Nicholson came up with another scheme, this one with a national scope. To buy six million of acres land, the speculators had written the equivalent of today's bank check. When Greenleaf failed to get money from Holland, those checks all bounced. However, those checks, known as M & N notes, were not exactly worthless. Just as investors had speculated that worthless continental and state paper currency issued during the Revolution would be redeemed at par by the new federal government, so M & N notes selling for 17 cents on the dollar proved attractive once page 151 Nicholson spread the news that to re-establish their credit, he and Morris would buy back their notes at higher prices. Their building houses proved that they were serious. As work came to an end on the Twenty Buildings, the value of the notes rose from 17 cents on the dollar, to 21 cents almost a 25% increase in value.(46)

Commissioner Scott joined a group of Georgetown speculators who bought M & N notes from the speculators at a market prices with the understanding that the money would pay for the speculators' lots in the city which in turn should raise the value of certificates and everyone's lots in the city. Then Greenleaf attacked the schemes in newspapers nationwide, their value dropped which got creditors' lawyers active again.(47)

Finally, Nicholson tried to get men with money to assume the speculators' obligations. He was wary of Scott, writing to Morris that "Scott is working for his own purposes," and "out to plunder me." So, Nicholson arranged to spend an evening with Thornton. He had written to Morris that on issues he brought before the board, the doctor was "faithful as the needle to the pole" and "stands by me." Thornton responded to Nicholson's expansive ideas to improve the city.

Perhaps Thornton's kindness in sharing a “good pipe of Madeira,” caused the speculator to misjudge him. Nicholson wrote to Morris on December 9, 1796, that he “made a strong attack on him to get his paper." Thornton parried by saying "his wife and mother-in-law would be alarmed.”(48)

91. Tunnicliff's Hotel

Once his schemes lost traction, Nicholson moved into his own hotel east of the Capitol, at Pennsylvania Avenue and 9th Streets SE, built for him by Deblois's men and run by William Tunnicliff and his wife. They came from England expressly to work for Nicholson. The hotel was his castle and the friendly local sheriff assured him he was safe from creditors' writs if he stayed in his room there. On February 4, creditors lured Nicholson out of his castle and he was briefly jailed in page 152 Georgetown where enough gullible men loath to see the M & N bubble collapse paid his bail. Shortly after that without giving anyone notice, Nicholson returned to Philadelphia. Lovering followed him and didn't return to the city until mid-April. (49)

Lovering remained faithful to Nicholson, and it earned him some credit, but only with Nicholson. To reassure creditors and entice investors, before he left the city, Nicholson had Lovering estimate the value of the speculators' houses. He valued the brick houses at $100,839 and the wooden houses and shops at $11,821. Assuming that Nicholson would raise money, Lovering proposed building 166 three-story houses with dormer windows, which would rent or sell for 25% more than two-story houses.

Meanwhile, Lovering was doing very little. On New Year's Day, he wrote to Nicholson: "I conceive myself of so little use or consequence that must hardly be worth your notice.... It will be impossible for me to continue in this City with such perturbations of mind and embarrassed circumstances." Lovering had to battle suits from the speculators' creditors who hoped to recoup losses by bleeding the speculators' contractors. Nicholson promptly gave Lovering $45. Then he paid Lovering $5 a day when he marked trees for lumber. Then on January 16, Lovering's ill wife died. Nicholson loaned his carriage for the ride to Rock Creek cemetery. Nicholson was not a sentimental man. In a letter to Morris, his reaction to the death of Lovering's wife was that now the builder would get back to finishing the houses on South Capitol Street.(50)

Nicholson's flight from the federal city was his admission of defeat. In Philadelphia, Morris and Nicholson assigned all their property to the seven trustees managing Greenleaf's debts. Nicholson asked Lovering to visit the trustees and describe their valuable property and prospects in the federal city. Lovering obliged and once back in the city became an informal advisor to the trustees' agent in the city, William Hammond Dorsey who was a young, rich and well connected Georgetown gentleman. When John Tayloe III began building the Octagon, he also used Dorsey as his agent. Lovering would become the supervising architect for the project.(51)

However, since Thornton served the president and Lovering served bankrupts, historians decided that the fates had destined Thornton to be the designer of the Octagon. In December 1796, Thornton arranged to move to city and completed the move in February 1797. If he had page 153 designed and built his new home then historians are surely on to something. But instead, he rented a house that Blodget had built on F Street just east of 14th Street NW. 

91A. Lovering's wife tombstone

 

Go to Chapter Ten

Footnotes to Chapter Nine:

1. Commrs to GW 27 September 1795, 

2.  Ibid, 31 October 1795 

3.  Scott to GW, 13 November 1795, 

4.  Weld, Isaac, Travels Through the States of North America...., p. 82

5.  Op. cit. Oct 31, 1795

6.  RG 42; White to GW 17 September 1795

7.  GW to Commrs, 9 November 1795

8.  WT to GW 2 November 1795

9. Allen, William, History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics.

10. GW to Commrs. 9 November 1795, 

11. W. H. Bryan, History of the National Capitol, vol. 1,  p. 315

12.  Commrs to GW, 18 November 1795

13.  See the Introduction to this book for sources on Brown's ambition. WT to Commrs. 17 November 1795, Harris p. 337. 

14.   Bryan, History of the National Capital. vol. 1 pp. 315-17,

15.  White to Jefferson 13 July 1802 ; See Chapter Thirteen for the crisis with Hoban. 

17.  The Gazette 6 February 1819; Pettigrew 2 pp 544-45, 21 February 1794

18. WT to Lettsom, 26 November 1795; Pettigrew 2: 549-55

19. GW to White 5 June 1796

20.  GW to commrs, 4 November 1795; WT to GW 7 November1795, Founders online; Commrs. to GW 31 December 1795

21. Harris pp. 369-380, 387-392; Johnson to GW, 29 August 1795 ; GW to Johnson 24 August 1795 ;A biographer of Hadfield thinks Thornton was referring to Gustavus Scott, but his attitude toward Hadfield seemed no different than White's. Thornton had been Scott's ally in their fight with Greenleaf and Johnson. The latter had ridiculed Thornton's plan. There is no evidence that Scott ever criticized it.  King, p. 

22. White to GW,  25 May 1796

23. draft letter WT to Pickering,  23-25 June 1798, Harris p. 455; Commrs to GW 29 June 1795     GW to Commrs, 1 July 1796, ;  GWto Commrs. 10 June 1796 footnote 3; 

24. Hadfield to Jefferson, 27 March 1801

25.  Blagden to Commrs, 24, October 1796, Commrs records

26.  Law to GW, 8 February 1797; GW to Commrs 20 February 1797 ; Bryan, History of National Capital volume one, pp. 317-8; The Gazette 6 February 1819; Hunsberger, 'The Architecture of George Hadfield;" The president may also have been reacting to what was being called Morris's Folly, the house for Robert Morris designed, built but not finished by L'Enfant. It was not finished because Morris went bankrupt. Most observers blamed L'Enfant's passion for ornaments for delaying completion of the mansion.  There were indeed stone carvers in Philadelphia out of work. At least one Italian carver did go down to the federal city. Smith, Morris's Folly, p. 143.

27. GW to Commrs 22 May 1796

28. Commrs to GW, 31 May 1796

29  GW to White 5 June 1796;  Commrs to GW 31 May 1796

30.  Morris to Cranch  19 August 1795; Receipt in Greenleaf Papers 1 September 1795; Dermott to Cranch 22 June 1795

31. Smith, Ryan, Robert Morris's Folly, pp. 93ff; Latrobe Journal p. 92

32. Hallet to Law 1796

33.  WT to White draft 7 March 1796, Harris p.387-8.

34. Greenleaf to Lovering, 6 July 1795; Morris to Cranch, August 17, 1795: Morris to Lovering, 17 August 1795; Nicholson to Clark, 18 August 1795; for description of Cooke's building, see Smith, Morris's Folly, p. 126.

35. Simmons family genealogy;  Simmons' ads in Washington Gazette July and  October 1795; Morris to to Lovering Sept 12, 1795, to Nicholson, April 29, 1796, to Cranch October 1, 1795, February 16, May 22, 1796; Washington Gazette, June 22, 1796.

36. Hallet letter copied with "Observation sur la Valeur des terreins de la Ville Federale soit Washing ton" Holland Land Company Papers reel 54. In his 1901 book Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City,  Allen Clark credited William Lovering for designing The Maples but did not cite any evidence. For Lovering testimony see "Letter to John Mercer", 7 September 1803 Baltimore Republican;Law to Commrs, recalled but unsourced, alludes to his invention.

37. Stuart to GW, 25 February 1796,

38. Prentiss to Nicholson  29 February 1796; Hallet to Nicholson, 30 July 1795; Twining, Travels in America 100 Years Ago, p. 104 ; Law to GW, 11 May 1796  ;  Hallet to Law, undated, Law Family Papers, Maryland Historical Society

39  Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City; Lovering to Morris

40.   Lovering to Nicholson, June 27, 1796; Morris to Cranch April 12 and May 30, 1796; Lovering to Nicholson, 7 June 1796, 12 July 1796.

41. Langley and Morris contract 26 September 1796, Greenleaf Papers 

42. Greenleaf and Law in F.C., p. 129 ; Scott, Creating Capitol Hill, pp. 82, 79.

43.  Morris to Cranch, -- September 1796, Morris papers

44.  WT to GW, 13 September 1796,

45. Nicholson diary and for more on Nicholson see excerpts from Through a Fiery Trial;  Cranch to his mother, 28 April 1796

46.  William Smith to Reed and Forde 14 and 23 September 1796, Reed and Forde Papers

47. Arnebeck, Through a Fiery Trial, pp. 388ff; Nicholson to Morris 18 November 1796:  Morris to Nicholson 10 January 1797, Haverford College. 

48. Nicholson to Commrs. 24 Sept 1796, 26 October 1796;  Nicholson  to Morris, December 9, 1796; Nicholson to Commrs 31 August 1796

49.  Nicholson to Morris, 5 February 1797

50.  Greenleaf Point estimate; Lovering to Nicholson, 1 January 1797; 

51. Nicholson to Morris 17, 20 January 1797; Dorsey; Prentiss to Nicholson 17 April 1797: Nicholson to Lovering 17 March 1797