Chapter Seven: Thornton v. Hadfield

 

The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol

by Bob Arnebeck

Table of Contents

I am revising this chapter 

Chapter Seven: Thornton v. Hadfield

84. Hadfield's simplification of the 1793 Conference Plan

In Thornton's papers in the Library of Congress, there are drafts of two long letters attacking Hadfield as an architect. Thornton made a fair copy of the November 1795 letter. The president replied in such a stern way that Thornton never sent him another letter raising issues about the Capitol design. A June 1798 letter drafted after Hadfield was fired was never sent. It was evidently meant to guide President Adams' secretary of state as he responded to Hadfield's demand for an investigation. Thornton's draft described events that occurred in 1795 and 1796 and suggests how he substituted his design for Hallet's. However, the letter that was never sent described events that never happened.

In 1798, Thornton claimed that in 1795 Hadfield knew that "he came not to give a plan of his own, but to execute mine...." However, during the controversy sparked by Hadfield's critique of the plans given to him in October 1795, no one described them as being Thornton's, and for good reason. In 1795, there were no drawings of Thornton's floor plans or pen and washes of his elevations. In 1798, Thornton claimed that in 1795 he showed Hadfield "the plans of the Capitol, which he was to superintend." But in 1795, Hadfield complained that he did "not find the necessary Plans to carry on a work of this importance...." In April 1798, when Benjamin Latrobe first met Thornton, he saw his plans and hailed them as "one of the first designs of the modern era." In 1795, Thornton could not show Hadfield the fruits of his genius because he had not yet reconstituted his missing elevation and floor plan. The plans Hadfield saw in 1795 were what Hoban drew to elucidate what Hallet had left behind.

When Hadfield signed his employment contract on October 15, 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." Then in his October 27 report to the board, Hadfield began by belittling the plans he had been shown: "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...." He criticized the interior for “material inconveniences in the apartments, deformity in Rooms, chimneys and windows placed without simmetry, and no oeconomy of space.” Then, in a second letter, he assured the board that he would do his best to “adapt to the best of my abilitys those parts that are already executed, without alteration.” Hoban would recall that when Hadfield took over, the walls were "two or three feet above the foundation wall."

 

That concession likely didn't conciliate anyone since he reiterated his complete disrespect for the plans, this time focusing on the exterior. He suggested "omitting the basement," because 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. By "useless" he likely meant that as designed no one would have to actually walk between the columns above the arcaded entrance and below the pediment. He also drew a simplification of the East Elevation with the wings that fit the outlines of the building already laid and looked much like they do in one of Hallet's last elevations.(1)

Since historians have believed Thornton's recollections, there has been no analysis of the dilemma he faced when he read Hadfield's report. While he could not simply agree with Hadfield, he could distinguish Hallet's "wilful errors" from his own good ideas including putting the legislative chambers back up on the first floor. Jefferson no longer had any say in the project. By taking that tack, he might also get rid of Hoban who had been preparing to build Hallet's interior. Instead, Thornton decided to attack Hadfield for being incompetent and urge that Hoban superintend construction. The debacle in late June likely forced an alliance between Hoban and the board to prevent any real investigation to discover who told the hired slaves to dump rubble between thin outer walls, all to be tallied as worked done by the masons. But not hiring Hadfield after he had crossed the sea might have ramifications. Hadfield came thanks to Col. Trumbull. Thornton knew how close he was to the president. While a congressman in New York and Philadelphia, White observed the access his former aide-de-camps had. With the president's support, Scott was going to Annapolis to lobby the state legislature for support for the Potomac Company and the Capitol. Embarrassing Hadfield so that he made his critique of the Capitol public would not help. While in Annapolis, Scott added in a letter to the president that he had to hurry his return to the federal city because "the late disagreement between Messrs. Hadfield & Hoban render my attendance absolutely necessary...."

A unanimous board decided to send Hadfield to Philadelphia to talk with the president. He took a letter from the board to the president that explained: "We consider Mr Hadfields declaration as tending to involve the progression of the building in much uncertainty and perplexity as he states he cannot progress without being furnished with the drawings, he being incapable of making them from the plans and papers delivered. We forbear to go into the detail of his Ideas on the subject as he attends to lay them before you. We do not think ourselves at liberty to alter the plan which has progress’d in some degree tho the alternative seems to be a dismission of Hadfield." In a p.s., signed by Thornton and White, they also sent Hoban to see the president.

Thornton most likely wrote the board's letter to the president. He had spent more time with Hadfield than his colleagues. He could claim that he had a better grasp of what Hadfield was up to. That can account for his getting away with misconstruing Hadfield's letters. In them, Hadfield did not say that he was incapable of making plans. He said that the plans given to him were inadequate since they were unworthy of such an important building. Thornton did not question Hadfield's design in the board's letter to the president. He simply implied that Hadfield was incompetent. He saved his attack on Hadfield's design for the personal letter to the president that he sent the next day. The original is not extant, but Thornton's draft is in his papers at the Library of Congress.

After apologizing for disturbing the president, and lauding Hadfield as "a young man of genius," Thornton allowed that he expected him to try to "establish his character as an architect" by coming up with some small changes to the plan. "But we find he is for innovating throughout, and I cannot but express my astonishment at some of his observations." Hadfield's plan had a dome and a Rotunda just as Thornton's did. That left the basement as the most telling idea of Dr. Thornton's that Hadfield threatened. In his letter, he didn't address why the principal rooms were not on the main floor. Instead, he amplified how disastrous a building without a basement would be.

1st. He was for omitting the Basement, & having the Columns & Pilasters five feet in diameter to give sufficient height, & drew sketches to exhibit this, without examining whether they would admit of a proper finish or not. When it was objected to by Mr Hoban & myself as increasing the expense enormously—he stated to the Board that the Colums & Pilasters might be reduced to three feet six Inches—We find the Rooms will be only in just proportion if there be a basement of 20 feet, and Colums & Pilasters above of three feet diameter so that it is impossible to have sufficient Elevation according to his statement

Thanks to the collapse of the foundation walls, the commissioners and president had postponed discussion of the South Wing, where the larger House would sit. In 1800, the Senate would sit in its chamber in the North Wing and the House would have temporary quarters in what would become the library on the second floor. In his second point, Thornton discussed the havoc done to the library by making the North and South wings lower. His third point returned to the basement. Arcades throughout the building that supported columns gave the building its requisite height. He claimed Hadfield opposed all arcades and that invited the chaos of columns on top of columns. In his original design, Thornton used arcades to support the first floor. The Halle au Ble, which Jefferson asked Hallet and Thornton to use as a model for the House chamber, had its wooden dome rising up from a ring of arcades. Without alluding to that, Thornton assured the president that arcades, not the basement's relationship to the principal rooms, defined the basement both inside and outside the building: "It thus appears proper to admit the Arcade internally if admitted it is peculiarly requisite to have the Basement as now intended, also an arcade under the Portico & in the interior of the Building;..."

His fourth point was the ultimate celebration of a rusticated basement featuring a list of English country mansions that had them including  "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." That salvo settled into a truism: "It is universally admitted to be more proper to place a mass of Building under Columns than over them; the first makes the Building appear light, the other heavy; and a Basement in this is peculiarly proper on account of the interior." He didn't explain why the principal government building in the country should appear light. Hadfield said his portico with large columns was grander. While usually an exponent of grandeur, Thornton celebrated the smaller and cheaper columns.

Wanstead House

  

Then he turned to the here and now. Hadfield's changes would require taking down "two or three courses of freestone at one corner," and the sills of windows which "...will give rise to a thousand murmurings from every quarter." Stone already prepared would be wasted. Work might not resume for another two years and Hoban might leave. No one else suggested that and it would have been completely out of character for Hoban to quit. However, Thornton revealed a collaboration between himself and Hoban suggesting that he knew the Irish architect's mind. Discussing that also addressed the president's wish that the commissioners to oversee those who superintended the work. Thornton nicely revealed his controlling their collaboration: Hoban "had sometimes opposed my wishes, but I knew his motives were good, and I always admire independence." Then he assured the president that he and Hoban saw to it that all was well at the Capitol beginning with the foundation: “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.” He assured the president that the foundation "as now compleated will be sufficiently strong; otherwise, proceeding with the superstructure would have been unwarrantable."

As for Hadfield needing sections and drawings, Thornton didn't mention any that he had drawn. Instead, he made a hero out of Hoban: "He has as many Drawings as Mr Hoban had, who never doubted a moment. He has indeed more, for Mr Hoban has with much attention and industry calculated the minutiæ of the finish to the parts now begun, and he does not hesitate to say he can proceed to make a compleat finish." Then Thornton gave up any pretense of his having corrected Hallet's "wilful errors." "Mr Hoban & I have made no material alteration that can affect the Sections of the principal Rooms made by Mr Hallet,..." At the same time, he shifted the relevant model from Paris to Dublin: "indeed a Section of the Irish Parliament Hall would give a sufficient Idea to any Man conversant with Architecture of the intention of the Halls; and the Elevation, and Foundation, as now laid, would be sufficient to designate the rest with such a description as Mr Hoban has given."

 

Irish Parliament

If one assumes that Thornton and the president had previously discussed the design in detail, then one can see the president nodding through Thornton's tour of all that shouldn't be changed. However, the president's replies to board and to Thornton personally give the impression that he had never discussed the design with Thornton and didn't understand why he was discussing it in his office with the board's employees. His letter to the board began with a concise description of Hadfield's ideas:

Your Letter of the 31st ulto by Mr Hatfield has been received. I have since seen Mr Hoban, & have had a good deal of conversation with both of them, in the presence of each other, with the plans before us. From the explanations of the former, it would seem as if he had not been perfectly understood—or in other words—that now he means no change in the interior of the building, of the least importance; nor any elsewhere, that will occasion delay, or add to the expense—but the contrary: whilst the exterior will in his opinion, assume a better appearance & the portico be found more convenient, than on the present plan. 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....

The president's reference to the dome had to stun Thornton. His alluding to it covering the "open" area meant that Hallet's court yard of some sort still lurked in his imagination. Then while the president put Hadfield in his place, he also insulted Thornton.

I have told [Hadfield] in decisive terms, however, that if the plan on which you have been proceeding, is not capitally defective, I cannot (after such changes, delays and expenses as have been encountered already) consent to a departure from it, if either of these consequences is to be involved: but that if he can satisfy you of the contrary, in these points, I should have no objection, as he conceives his character as an architect is in some measure at stake—and in short, as the present plan is nobody’s, but a compound of everybody’s, to the proposed change; provided these things, as I have just observed, can be ascertained to your entire satisfaction. 

A personal letter he wrote to Thornton on the same day all but said that he approved Hadfield's plan solely on the basis of his character as an architect: “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....” 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. He thanked Thornton for "the explanations & details" in his letters, and added a warning about his attacks on Hadfield: "if there be any cause to suspect him of ignorance—or misrepresentation much caution, & strict investigation ought to be used." The president did not mention Hoban in either letter. What Hoban may have written about the dispute at the time or later is no longer extant. But judging from what the president wrote to the commissioners, Hoban did not own up to lamenting and correcting anything with Thornton. There is no evidence, other than his say so, that Thornton did indeed collaborate with Hoban in correcting defects in the foundation after that season's work had to be torn down.

The president left the decision up to the commissioners because "I have not the precise knowledge of the characters you have to deal as well as all the facts in the matter." In a letter signed by all three, the board cited a cost estimate by Blagden that Hadfield's design would be more expensive. They also cited the expert opinions of Hoban and Thornton that Hadfield's building would be unstable. His colleagues allowed Thornton to make the case that Hadfield wasn't needed without making a formal dissent to the president. In their letter to the president, they enclosed a November 17 letter Thornton wrote to the board giving "assurances" that the job could be done without Hadfield: "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." Thornton shifted from discounting the need for drawings to promising to provide all the drawings needed himself. What likely caused such an about face was the president's writing that "the present plan is no body's, but a compound of every body's." Without directly contradicting the president, Thornton notified his colleagues and the president that he could fulfill the design contest winner's obligation to provide drawings as needed. The president did not reply to the board's letter or show any appreciation for Thornton's offer. He had his secretary write that he approved of their "proceedings."

Thornton salvaged his self regard by telling himself a lie and sharing it with Lettsom. In an April 1794 letter to the commissioners, the president had recounted how he picked the lots he first bought in Square 21: "I am sensible that the No. East quartr of square Number 21. is subject to the disadvantage of a North and East front (not desirable I confess) but these are more than counterpoised in my estimation by the formation of the ground, which, though expensive to improve, on account of a steep declevity on the other two sides, can never (if a quarter of the square is taken, and improved) have the view from it obscured by buildings on the adjoining lots. I was on the ground, and examined it in company with Mr Blodget during the Sale in September last; and after comparing the advantages and disadvantages, resolved to fix on that spot...."(XY) In a long November 26, 1795, letter to Lettsom, Thornton did not mention the Capitol. Instead, he addressed his other achievement, Cadmus, as proven by George Turner's using the new alphabet to transcribe Indian languages and the news that upon landing in Philadelphia the French savant Comte de Volney asked to see Thornton. He bragged about his 572 1/2 acre farm "for which I pay... L3530 Sterling" and then noted the lots he bought "next to those whereupon the President means to build his private house of residence in the city. which we have 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." 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.(11) Thornton was not on the board in April 1794. Likely, to compensate for losing the president's trust, Blodget told Thornton the story proving that he once had it. To gain the sense of intimacy with the president that he craved, Thornton imagined himself in Blodget's shoes. In his letter to Lettsom, he explained that duty prevented him from sharing many things confided to him by the president. He did describe his habits, and mentioned "a regular Journal of his whole life" and that "I have seen in his private closet the trunks that contain these valuable memoirs."    

For the city's first comprehensive historian, Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan, Thornton's November 17 letter to the commissioners was evidence proving that Glenn Brown, his colleague in the recently organized Columbia Historical Society, was right: Thornton did restore his design of the Capitol. 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." Working drawings are rarely preserved, so Bryan assumed that Thornton, as he promised, began to supply drawings and through that process dispelled the president's doubts about who designed the Capitol. 

However, in the draft of a 1798 letter to Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, he claimed that in 1795 he only grudgingly helped Hadfield. The upstart had complained to the board that he "could do nothing without sections being made of the whole building, although one wing only was to be executed." Thornton recalled that he knew sections "to be unnecessary," and Hadfield's request "only intended by him to fatigue me by throwing difficulties in my way. These I stated, but by the Board attending to his representations I was under the necessity of complying with their wish to satisfy him. I drew the section of the whole accordingly." 

More likely, he didn't draw the section which, since he had assured the president that no changes had been made in Hallet's interior, would have been a section of Hallet's plan. Also, in the documents generated by the board from November 17 to December 3, when commissioners White left for a six month mission to lobby congress for money, there is no mention of Thornton being asked to make drawings. For the board to have ordered him to do so with White gone, Thornton would have had to have joined Scott to make the order

Thornton corresponded with White and mentioned drawings and promised more, but he likely didn't draw anything for Hadfield. Their correspondence began in a way that embarrassed both gentlemen. White was the commissioner who knew the least about the Capitol. 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 led the first board that first questioned Thornton's design, had alerted his brother in London about the need for an architect, and continued to stalk the city protecting his investments.

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." The occasion could not have been dictated by progress on the building because apart from cutting stone no work was being done in the winter. On December 29, Hadfield was told to account for all the building materials at the Capitol and "lay before the board the materials which will probably be wanting for the next year supposing the business to be carried on with vigor." It is possible that Hadfield asked Thornton for drawings of minutiae so that he could decide what was needed. However, the board's order did not offer that help, and the board's secretary, not Thornton, signed the order.

White found that the "roll of papers" had been sent to the War Office. In his letter to Thornton, he described them as "your plans." That raises the question: Had Thornton made his prize winning design the operable plan? But in the same letter, White referred to the plan ''adopted by the president" which was the phrase his colleagues used when warning Thornton not to make any changes. The roll probably contained copies of some of what Hoban took to Philadelphia 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." There is no evidence that he sent drawings. In a letter written and published in 1819, Hadfield recalled that in regards to the design of the exterior of the North Wing, his providing "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." Thornton did not contradict Hadfield's claim.(13)

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.(14) Then the board was "a good deal surprised" by Hadfield giving three months notice that he would leave the job. In the ensuing controversy, there was no mention of Thornton's drawings.

In the draft of a 1798 letter to Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, written two years after the events that he described, Thornton made Hadfield's "surprise" far more dramatic. He claimed that Hadfield made yet another design. There is evidence that he did at least in regards to the dome. In 1819, a forward looking local newspaper put a depiction of the completed Capitol on its masthead. Of course, at that time only the North and South Wings had been built and restored after the war. The depiction copied a woodcut of Hadfield's design that showed the wings as they were. In the middle there was a dramatic dome set back from the East pediment and elevated by a massive high square structure more reminiscent of Egypt than Rome. But that's not what Thornton accused Hallet of doing in 1796: 

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.

As he would 1806 in regards to Hallet, Thornton fancied that the president personally thwarted Thornton's rivals. However, Hadfield changed his mind. That allowed Thornton to fancy that he extracted a confession: 

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. There is no evidence of the president's being astonished by another design. On June 13, 1796, he left Philadelphia for Mount Vernon and didn't return until August 17. On June 19, he 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.

The letter gives the impression that Hadfield was unhappy with his "situation" at the Capitol. Indeed, 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 the president who were rarely at the Capitol. Many of those Irish workers had been working for Hoban at the President's house and moved to the Capitol.

In a June 29 letter to the president, after discussing three other issues, the board reported their "surprise" at Hadfield giving notice and that they gave him "liberty to quit" and passage money to England. 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—." No letters giving Hadfield's version of events in the summer of 1796 have survived.

During the first crisis with Hadfield, Thornton wrote a personal letter to the president giving his version of events. During the second crisis with Hadfield, he didn't, likely because of the president's chilly response to his November 1, 1795, letter. He never again sent a letter to the president about the Capitol's design. However, while that suggests that Thornton did not have a special mandate to restore the design, there is evidence that Thornton did at times tell Hadfield what to do. There was and is little doubt that the exterior of the North Wing embodies the ideas of Doctor Thornton. Only his and George Turner's design lined the walls of the Capitol's wings with pilasters. But his ideas were not crystal clear to the man who had to build them. In an October 24, 1796, letter to the board, George Blagden asked "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." Blagden also wanted a drawing of the "entablature," which is to say the layer of stone above the order defining ornaments on the upper end of a pilaster or column. An undated drawing in Thornton's papers of a capital suggests that he was capable of obliging. But during an ensuing controversy, Thornton tried to make his point by showing his colleagues Blagden's drawing of the entablature.

 

Thornton seemed adverse to involving the president in any design decisions. Taking advantage of a surfeit of unemployed stone carvers in Philadelphia, thanks to the bankruptcy of Robert Morris forcing work to stop on his mansion designed by L'Enfant, Thornton evidently persuaded his colleague to add some ornaments to pilasters and cornices. The board ordered Hadfield to get those carvers and he asked for help from Thomas Law who was going to Philadelphia. Hadfield was against the ornaments but explained to Law: "I am therefore obliged for the sake of peace & harmony to have recourse to the only expedient to prevent delay, by multiplying hands if possible.” He added that "the unnecessary ornements introdus’d have lost, do & will lose much time &c:"(ZZ) When in Philadelphia, Law told the president that $10,000 could be saved by telling Hadfield "to avoid all superfluous & useless ornaments.” In a p.s. to a February 20 letter to the board, the president reacted: "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." To Hadfield's delight, work continued according to a drawing he made that had no ornaments.

Ironically, the June 1796 drama with Hadfield proved once again that the president did not think of Thornton as an architect. He was simply a commissioner who continued to disappoint him. In reply to the board's extracting Hadfield's promise to build according to a design approved by the president,  the president didn't comment on Hadfield or the plan. He applauded the board's "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." However, the commissioners had not coaxed Hadfield. In his letter, the president was comparing their experience with Hadfield to his experience with them. In his previous letter to them, he had once again tried to coax them to live in the city:  "It cannot be tolerated, that the Superintendant, and others, whose duty it is to see that every thing moves harmoniously as well as œeconomically; and who to effect these ought always to be on the spot, to receive applications & to provide instantaneously for wants, should be at the distance of thre⟨e⟩ miles from the active scenes of their employments."(15)

The commissioners had been rather flippant when repelling the president's previous reminder in May. The city's land owners had sent a memorial insisting that the commissioners live in the city. In his letter written a year after the June 1795 debacle at the Capitol, the president had reminded Thornton and Scott that it would not have happened if they had lived in the city. In reply, they insisted that "If the commissioners had walked on the walls three times a day, they could not have prevented it.... 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." The use of the word "lament" suggests that Thornton wrote the letter. 

The president observation that dismissal was a better option than the futility of coaxing men to do their duty seemed to have made an impression on Thornton. On July 18, a newspaper notice announced the auction sale of his Georgetown house on August 4 and also announced "Immediate possession will be given as the proprietor is removing to the city of Washington." (16) As it turned out, his auction sale of his Georgetown house did not attract a buyer. Still, by December, Thornton arranged to rent a solid three story brick house near F and 14th Streets NW from Blodget. It was not far from the Commissioner's office on the other side of 14th Street. F Street was the established route to the Capitol because Pennsylvania Avenue had not been made passable by carriage. On December 26, the president sent a very kind letter in which he congratulated Thornton for the "situation" between the public buildings. "As it is in the midst of your operations,... let me give it strongly as my opinion, that all the Offices, and every matter, & thing, that relates to the City ought to be transacted therein, and the persons to whose care they are committed Residents. Measures of this sort, would form societies in the City—give it eclat...." He urged that all the commissioners make "that part of the city their resident, and compelling all those who are under their control to do the same...."

The president's gracious letter is otherwise interesting on two accounts. On September 19, 1796, the president published his Farewell Address. He would leave office in March 1797. Thus, rather than give his inability to sell his Georgetown house as an excuse not to move, Thornton moved to the city as a point of honor to please the retiring president.  Then on April 19, 1797, John Tayloe III would buy the lot upon which Lovering would build the Octagon house southwest of the President's house. By renting a house in the city, Thornton all but proved that he had little interest in designing houses.,Certainly, as he tried to sneak ornaments onto the exterior walls of North Wing, evidently relying on the imagination  of out of work Italian carvers, it cannot fairly be said that he turned his back on architecture. Indeed, the board of a church in Georgetown asked Thornton for a design and he obliged with something that he confessed was uncommon. He wanted a circular steeple and colonnade, likely akin to the Roman temple effect he began to crave for the Capitol. Construction began and in an undated letter, he wrote to the board, probably in 1797, he noted that the foundation as laid would not allow his design to be built.

Of course, for an amateur like Thornton designing a public building is relatively easy. Many more considerations come into play when designing a house for oneself. Plus, that fall, perhaps for the first time, Thornton lost himself in his work as a commissioner. He had a hand in planning the future of the nation's capital. Thanks to the president's Farewell Address the commissioners were pressed with answering the president's request to bring matters "relative to the business of the City" that needed his attention. As a consequence, by March they had written out a description of the plan noting government reservations and infrastructure. Since March 28, 1791, technically two trustees in Georgetown held title to all the land in the city. With the president's and their signature on the document, the government would get title to the land it designated as belonging to the public thus allowing the original proprietors to get $66 an acre for land taken from them. As a corollary to that process, the design of and site for the Executive Offices to house the departments and State and War had to be decided. The president wanted to designate a site for the National University. The commissioners wanted sites designated for foreign embassies. Needless to add, some proprietors objected to not enough of their land being taken.

Thornton shined from the get go. The old board had assumed that the National University would be on land offered by Blodget between I and P Streets North and 11th and 5th Streets West. Scott and White were disposed to recommend the same to the president. However, Thornton discovered that 5 or 6 acres in that parcel belonged to minors or had been sold to "strangers." He suggested a site on Peter's Hill already designated for government use, around which both he and the president owned lots. Both his colleagues and the president agreed. The board drafted a resolution for congress to pass, and the president signed off on it, only to have congress table it in December.

Thornton dissented from his colleagues' other decisions. They recommended that embassies be built along the Mall just as L'Enfant planned. Thornton thought they should be on both sides of the park south of the President's house. As for Mall, Thornton assured the president that there the government would "build at public expense a mansion house for each representative in both houses of Congress in a similar style by which all improper competition in point of grandeur will be avoided;..." The president opposed embassies on the Mall, and in a meeting with the president, Scott got the impression that he was not adverse to embassies south of the President's house. Within a week, the board divided one of the squares in questions and Scott bought the largest lot in it. However, the president showed no interest in Thornton's idea to build a politicians' ghetto along the Mall.

Thornton and his colleagues differed over the Executive Office buildings . The board asked Hadfield and Hoban to each submit a relatively plain design for two buildings. They chose Hadfield's and Scott and White recommended that the offices flank the President's house. Thornton wanted them north of the President's house because a stone building like the President's house should not have brick buildings nearby: "to place brick buildings (though ornamented with free stone) as wings in any way connected with a stone edifice would not only be novel, but irregular and improper."

Instead, his study of the L'Enfant Plan gave him other ideas. Before the president signed the finalized plan, Thornton tried to expand public grounds. He studied all the large intersections created by angling avenues crossing the grid of streets. Many of those intersections created space that dwarfed the need to accommodate traffic. He described each one and calculated the area and how much buying each plot would cost the government. For example: "No. 10 At the junction of Kentucky with the intersection of North Carolina and Massachusetts Avenue admitting a street of 100 feet in front of the surrounding squares will leave an area or parallelogram of 686 1/2 feet by 191 1/2 feet containing 131,465 square feet." A map accompanied the list. He added that "these areas will serve for fountains, obelisks, statues, temples, etc. etc. - or will be amply sufficient for handsome churches, public academies, etc. - and most of them ornamented with grass-plots, gravel walks, trees, etc." The president liked the idea. Taking that land for public use meant the grumbling original landowners would get $66 an acre for the land taken.

Ironically, the future great architect became a city planner just when, in the wake of Greenleaf's failure, house building resumed and a few were actually occupied by notable men. Since it was in his job description, Thornton did deal with developers. While he was in Philadelphia, Commissioner White cultivated Joseph Cooke who had built a row of houses in that city and wanted to do the same near the Capitol. Thornton wrote that he 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.

It is possible that speculators and developers didn't understand that Thornton was an architect. Greenleaf responded to the dismissal of Hallet by getting him reinstated. He didn't seem to know about the winner of the design contest. Of course, he hardly knew Thornton. Morris and Nicholson worked Commissioners Thornton and Scott to their advantage and got the board's help as they created a bubble banking on their 6 million acres and city lots eventually funding their debts and raising property values everywhere as well. Scott and two associates wound up owing the commissioners $33,000. As for Thornton, before the bubble burst, Nicholson wrote to Morris 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.”(23) There is no evidence that they talked about  rchitecture. Thornton didn't seem to have any interest in what they were building

Lovering did. 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. Thornton was a critic of developers. Lovering was a catalyst. 

To fulfill an obligation made by Greenleaf in September 1793, the speculators had to build 20 houses on lots owned by Daniel Carroll of Duddington or forfeit the lots and pay a $10,000 penalty. By the spring of 1796, no houses had been built nor any planned. Morris was inclined to renegotiate the contract with Carroll. Lovering, who had been sued by Carroll, went to Philadelphia and warned Morris and Nicholson that Carroll had "a most rigid disposition and will be glad to take any advantage." The speculators knew that they had to do something to save their investment. Building houses would raise lot values throughout the city, especially if done with eclat. Beating Carroll's deadline would catch everyone's attention. Vowing that “Mr. Carroll shall not have the forfeiture,” Morris and Nicholson promised money.

If the houses were only two stories and most shared party walls, Lovering thought they could be built by September. Morris told him that they "must be easy and cheap to execute and at the same time agreeable to purchasers and tenants." Lovering did just that and designed houses at the end of the block with storefront windows. While the designs for the houses have not been found, letters between Morris, Nicholson, Cranch, Lovering and William Prentiss, an English storekeeper who Nicholson hired as his builder, all mention Lovering's designs. Lovering described his drawings as "most suitable and economize as much as possible." Building began in late June 1796 on the square northwest of the intersection of South Capitol and N Streets SW. Despite Lovering being prostrated with a fever, his and Prentiss's crews beat the deadline. Both Morris and Nicholson came to the city and hosted a barbecue for 200 to celebrate the accomplishment. Initially, even Carroll was satisfied. 

Architectural historian Pamela Scott is underwhelmed, but in her architectural history of Capitol Hill does rate one house as interesting. Their seeming success enabled Morris to sell a corner lot to a merchant named Edward Langley. The contract for the sale had the proviso that Langley have his builders "conform to Lovering's design." This proviso was likely made and enforced to help the speculators if Carroll sued. Langley had the house/store built and then in 1798 tried to sell it. To advertise the sale, a surveyor brought to the city by Nicholson, drew the building and its floor plan. In small print in the lower right hand corner of the advertisement, the surveyor wrote "Drawn by Nich. King July 14, 1798." Pamela Scott and other historians give King credit for designing the house. Scott rated the building as representing "the quality of houses and shops Carroll sought when he first contracted with Greenleaf."

 

While Lovering was busy, so was Hallet. He began dividing his time between Philadelphia in the winter and the federal city in the summer. Thomas Law began his building program at the river side foot of New Jersey Avenue with plans to build houses up the hill to the Capitol.1 There is evidence in Law's papers that he employed Hallet as a contractor through 1797. The other Nabob, William Duncanson, built The Maples, a country manor tucked in the slope southeast of the Capitol near 6th and D Streets SE. In the fall of 1796, Duncanson entertained the British minister and his lady there. Architectural historians credit William Lovering for designing the house, but 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. Lovering didn't testify that he was paid for designing or building the house. Given his detailed description of The Maples in a report for European investors, Hallet most likely designed the house.2

Hallet went back to Philadelphia. Lovering had only been in the country four years working in the federal city for speculators who all had spectacular bankruptcies. In the winter of 1796-7, he stuck with Nicholson. After all in the fall, he seemed to be everywhere. Then he broke his leg trying to jump a ditch and stuck to headquarters in a hotel on 14th Street near the commissioners' office. Then his bubble began to leak and he made found his castle in a room in a hotel he financed near the Capitol. The sheriff recognized that room as his castle where he could not be served writs. On New Year's day 1797 Lovering pushed a letter under the door of his room, asking for money, of course: "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. When, Lovering's ill wife died on January 16, 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 her death was that now Lovering would get back to finishing the houses on South Capitol Street. On February 4, creditors lured Nicholson out of his castle and he was briefly jailed in Georgetown but enough men loath to see the bubble collapse paid his bail. Shortly after that, without giving anyone notice, Nicholson returned to Philadelphia. Lovering followed him and saw Morris too. He wrote back to Cranch: "they are at wits end almost."(24)

With the back drop of the speculators' failure, the progress at the Capitol and President's house under the commissioners' supervision and with the blessings of George Washington should have redounded to their credit. But instead the president became more uncertain of their leadership. His favorite and the most famous of Martha Washington's grand daughters married Thomas Law. A 20,000 Pounds Sterling settlement was very persuasive. Law had invested all his money and time into developing New Jersey Avenue and Capitol Hill. Thornton might seem to have been the logical person to keep the president informed with reassuring inside information. Instead, Thomas Law did and Hadfield was his source of information. Along with the commissioners' plan to waste money on ornaments, Law also reported that Hadfield told he could put the roof on the Capitol in the summer of 1797, but the commissioners forced him to delay. The president began insisting and ever reminding the commissioners to finish the North Wing first. They could even stop work on the President's house.

Hadfield did not seem to have an agenda. Except for Blagden, he didn't respect the men who worked on the Capitol. He would be accused of being Commissioner Scott's favorite which may account how his simply showing Law his Executive Office design and mentioning that the commissioners wanted them built next to the President's houses sent Law into a rage. He confronted Scott and on February 4, 1797, complained to the president that Scott "amused" by shewing the President's House on the Map and by pointing out where the [Executive] Offices should be and by anticipating "the future splendor of that part of the City by the residence of Ambassadors and by the Assemblage of Americans who were great Courtiers." In a letter to one of Law's allies, who specifically demanded the removal of Commissioner Scott, the president allowed that it "certainly is his duty, when charges of malpractice, or improper conduct are exhibited against them, to cause the charges to be fairly examined. This I shall do; in the first instance, by transmitting a copy of your letter, that they may severally know, of what they are accused; that, from the answers I shall receive, ulterior measures may be decided on."2

The commissioners had to conclude that they were being investigated. Then on February 15, in a letter to the commissioners, the president seemed damning in his persistence: "...the public mind is in a state of doubt, if not in despair of having the principal building in readiness for Congress, by the time contemplated—for these reasons I say, and for others which might be enumerated, I am now decidedly of opinion that the edifices for the Executive Offices ought to be suspended; that the work on the house for the President should advance no faster (at the expence or retardment of the Capitol) than is necessary to keep pace therewith and to preserve it from injury; and that all the means (not essential for other purposes) & all the force, ought to be employed on the Capitol...."

Then the president realized what he had been doing. He completely backtrack and even forgave Scott for not moving into the city. Then he complimented the board as a whole. "I think the United States are interested in the continuance of you in their service, and therefore I should regret, if either of you by resignation, should deprive them of the assistance which I believe you are able to give in the business committed to your care."3 For the rest of his life, Thornton paraphrased the letter. As he put it to an October 1797 letter to Dr. Lettsom, the president "wrote a very flattering letter of approbation to the commissioners, testifying his satisfaction and pleasure in their conduct, observing, too, that if any of us retired from office, the country would experience a great loss."

No longer the president but simply the General, when he  passed through the federal city on his way to Mount Vernon, Captain Hoban's artillery militia fired a salute from the Capitol's grounds. The General met with the commissioners long enough to have it pointed out that his signed description of the plan, a prerequisite for the transfer of property from the trustees to the government, did not have the official seal. He sent it back to Philadelphia. The delay made no difference because two proprietors sued. They wanted the government to take more of their property. There is no evidence of any exchange of views or sentiments between the General and Thornton. Not until 1805 would Thornton claim that they had a special relationship dedicated to the restoration of his original Capitol design.

There was no truce in the war between the East and West sides of the city. In one salvo Law sent to the commissioners, Thornton read the name of the man who history would rate as important as the General in Thornton's life as an architect. To counter Scott's machinations, Law taunted the commissioners with a rumor that  "Mr. Cook of Annapolis, Samuel Ringold of Hagerstown and Mr. Tayloe of Virginia resolved last year to build on Square 688."1 The square was just southeast of the Capitol. Tayloe built elsewhere and historians credit Thornton for designing the house. He didn't, but Thornton became Tayloe's lifelong friend and rival in breeding and racing thoroughbred horses which was the sporting obsession of that era.

Go to Chapter Eight

Footnotes to Chapter Eight:

1. Hunsberger, p. 46; The Story of James Hoban on the Irish Emigration Museum website.

1. Commrs to GW 27 September 1795,   31 October 1795

3. Scott to GW, 13 November 1795, 

4.  Op. cit. Oct 31, 1795

5.  WT to GW 2 November 1795

6.  GW to Commrs, 9 November 1795, Commrs to GW, 18 November 1795 ; Purcell to White, 12 April 1799 in Washington Federalist 16 April 1799

7. GW to WT 9 November 1795.

8. Commrs to GW, 18 November 1795 ; WT to Commrs. 17 November 1795, Harris p. 337, or see footnote to  Commrs to GW, 18 November 1795 

XY GW to Commrs 11 April 1794 

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

10. Washington Gazette 6 February 1819.

11. Pettigrew 2 pp 544-45, 21 February 1794; WT to Lettsom, 26 November 1795; Pettigrew 2: 549-55; GW to White 5 June 1796; As for GW sharing confidences with WT, a few weeks before writing to Lettsom, WT did have to deal with a "private" letter from GW. On November 4, 1795, GW 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 WT to GW 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 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 the Maryland legislature to favor development of the Potomac Valley. GW to commrs, 4 November 1795; WT to GW 7 November1795 

12. Commrs. to GW 31 December 1795 

13. WT and White correspondence, Harris pp. 369-380, 387-392;A biographer of Hadfield thinks Thornton was referring to Gustavus Scott, but 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, George Hadfield: Architect of the Federal City.

14.  White to GW,  25 May 1796

15. GW to Commrs. 26 June 1796;  1 July 1796; Commrs to GW 29 June 1795;
draft letter WT to Pickering,  23-25 June 1798, Harris p. 455;

16.GW to Commrs 22 May 1796 ; Commrs to GW, 31 May 1796; GW to White 5 June 1796; Commrs to GW 31 May 1796; Washington Federalist 18 July 1796.   

17. Hadfield to Jefferson, 27 March 1801; Blagden to Commrs, 24, October 1796, Commrs records; Law to GW, 8 February 1797;

18. Prentiss to Nicholson  29 February 1796; Stuart to GW, 25 February 1796;  Twining, Travels in America a Hundred Years Ago, p. 102ff ; Law to GW, 11 May 1796. 

19.  Hallet to Nicholson, 30 July 1795;  Hallet to Law, undated, Law Family Papers, Maryland Historical Society. Hallet letter copied with "Observation sur la Valeur des terreins de la Ville Federale soit Washington" 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's testimony see "Letter to John Mercer", 7 September 1803 Baltimore Republican; Law to Commrs, recalled but unsourced, alludes to his invention.

20. Clark, Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City, p. 129; Lovering to Nicholson, 12 July 1796, Nicholson Papers Lovering to Nicholson, June 27, 1796; Morris to Cranch April 12 and May 30; Lovering to Nicholson, 7 June 1796, 12 July 1796; Lovering to Morris, 29 April 1796, Morris papers; Langley and Morris contract 26 September 1796, Greenleaf Papers; Scott, Creating Capitol Hill, pp. 82, 79.

21.WT to White draft 7 March 1796; for description of Cooke's building, see Smith, Morris's Folly, p. 126.   

22. WT to GW, 13 September 1796, Harris pp. 395-7; WT to GW, 1 October 1796 ; Scott to GW, 1 October 1796; GW to Commrs. 21 October 1796; summary of House action 26 December 1796. Harris pp 290. Also see White to Madison, 2 December 1796, WT to GW, 14 February 1797.

23.Nicholson to Commrs. 31 August & 24 Sept 1796, 26 October 1796, Commrs. records; Nicholson to Morris, December 9, 1796; For his hopes of good fortune see Scott to Morris, 10 May 1797, Hist. Soc. of Pennsylvania. 

24. Lovering to Nicholson, 1 January 1797;  Morris to Nicholson 10 January 1797, Haverford College. , 20 January 1797; Dorsey; Prentiss to Nicholson 17 April 1797: Nicholson to Lovering, 17 March 1797, Nicholson Papers; Lovering to Cranch 

25. GW to WT, 26 December 1796.  

26. GW to Commrs. 21 October 1796; 1796 Division sheet in the Office of the Surveyor Land Management Record System.;  Square 170.

27.  WT to GW, 14 February 1797; 

28. GW to Commrs. 29 January 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, pp. 142-3.

29. Law to GW 4 February 1797, in footnote find Law to Commissioners, Feb. 6, 1797; see  see also Walker to GW, 24 January 1797

30. WT to Lettsom, 9 Oct 1797, Pettigrew 2: 555-58; GW to Commrs. 27 February 1797.

ZZ. footnote 2 in Law to GW circa 10 February 1797