Chapter Eight: Thornton v. Hadfield
The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol
Chapter Eight: Thornton v. Hadfield
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| 84. Hadfield's simplification of the 1793 Conference Plan |
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 incompetant. He saved his attack on the design for the personal letter to the president that he sent the next day.
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." Of course, 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 report on the basement that he didn't give to the president, Thornton had worried that Hallet would do away with the rusticated basement. However, Hallet retained a basement in his modified plan just as he had had in some guise in all his designs. By the way, Thornton's Tortola design had a small basement but it was not rusticated.
In his letter, he didn't address why the principal rooms were not on the First Floor. Instead, he amplified how disastrous a building without a basement would be.
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 this discussion, Thornton observed the brilliance of having arcades supporting the columns on the portico. Indeed arcades, not any 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.
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 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." Thornton didn't mention but the president already knew that Hoban had gotten his first lessons in architecture in Dublin and worked on Leinster House which, by the way, became the next Irish Parliament House.
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 reply to board and to Thornton personally give the impression that he never discussed the design with Thornton and didn't understand why he was discussing it in his office with the board's employees. He began by writing what the board refrained from writing: a concise description of Hadfield's ideas:
The president's reference to the dome had to stun Thornton. He probably hoped his long paragraph on arches would have reminded the president of his arches in the Repository holding the floor of the Vestibule from which columns supported the dome. The president alluding to the dome over 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.
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.
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| Irish Parliament above; Halle aux bles below |
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| Wanstead House |
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 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."
For the city's first comprehensive historian, Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan, Thornton's letter 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." Bryan assumed that Thornton did indeed begin to supply drawings and through that process dispelled the president's doubts about who designed the Capitol. However, beyond an unfinished and undated perspective of the long side of the North Wing, 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. But, in a letter written and published in 1819, Hadfield recalled that in regards to the design of 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."(10)
However, just after Hadfield was fired, in a draft of a letter to the secretary of state, Thornton claimed that Hadfield complained 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." In the documents generated from November 17, 1795, 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, he would have had to have joined Scott to make the order. In September 1798 in a letter to his colleagues he claimed he had drawn a section. In April 1799 in a newspaper letter he was accused of signing his name on a section drawn by someone else. All those claims will be examined in their context. Also in April 1799, his colleagues did in effect ask him for drawings and reminded him that in his 1795 letter, he admitted the principle of his being obliged to do so as the contest winner. If he had been actually making drawings, they would not have had to remind him of the principle.
Thornton tended 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.
For example, after finding it difficult to build a relationship with the president, in a November 26, 1795, letter to Lettsom, Thornton claimed that on the lots they had both bought on Peter's Hill, he and the president "travelled over together on foot, and laid out our plans of future improvement...." They walked where "the President means to build his private house of residence in the city.... 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." 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)
While
in Philadelphia lobbying congress, White corresponded regularly with
the board and his colleagues individually. 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." Obviously, this was not done in answer to an order of the board which was not wont to order anyone to "occasionally" do what needed to be done. 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. The board's secretary, not Thornton, signed the order.
One can reconcile Hadfield's claim that he drew all the working drawings with Thornton's claim by supposing that with his confidence shaken by the president's November letters, Thornton thought about future problems he might have with Hadfield. That necessitated visualizing aspects of individual windows and cornices, or his ideas for the entablature of columns and pilasters. So, indeed, he made drawings for the superintendent in his mind to be formalized and given to him in the future. That he didn't mention Hadfield by name suggests he continued to hope he would be replaced.
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 essentially 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."2 There is no evidence that he sent drawings. However, by 1798 Thornton would hang an East elevation of the Capitol in his parlor. The "pains" he had to take included depicting the facade of the North Wing as would be completed. It would have been difficult to visualize that until the late summer of 1797. His goal was "no further trouble" which in Thornton's mind meant recognition that what had been built followed his design and it followed that would be built would complete his design.(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 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. There is evidence that he did at least in regards to the dome. In 1819, when a newspaper published a woodcut engraving purporting to be the future Capitol, Hadfield owned the dramatic dome set back from the East pediment and elevated by a massive high square structure more reminiscent of Eygpt 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
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. On June 13, 1796, 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, if there was one.
Hadfield gave his notice on June 24, and the board replied three days later. 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.
This 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.
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 board 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—." That last phrase suggests that his discomfort with the plan prompted his leaving, but it is better understood as an effort by Thornton to get Hadfield to explicitly disavow his October 1795 plan. The board took him back, with a caveat. They were not obliged to renew his contracts in three months. No letters giving Hadfield's version of events in the summer of 1796 have survived.
In his reply to their letter, the president didn't comment on the board's letting Hadfield stay or 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." The president's sharp reaction to the affair has been interpreted as evidence that, as Thornton would remember two years later, he was indeed upset at Hadfield. However, the commissioners had not coaxed Hadfield. In his July 1 letter, the president was comparing their experience with Hadfield to his experience with them. In his June 26 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's July 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)
Hadfield would superintend the work at the Capitol for almost two more years. There is no evidence that he welcomed Thornton's supervision, other than Thornton's claim. 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 Hoban.
An October 24, 1796, letter that the foremen of the stone masons, George Blagden, wrote to the board requesting drawings gives a different perspective. He asked for four drawings and at what height the columns embedded in the walls would gracefully narrow:
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.
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. Hadfield told him "that he could get the Capitol covered in this Season." Law urged him to so inform the commissioners. The architect demurred: “I shall be more likely to effect it by my own means without their knowing of my intention.”(17) The president didn't react. Yet, the Capitol was much on his mind.
On January 29 he wrote: "I persuade myself that great exertions will be used to forward the Capitol in preference to any other object." On February 15, he reiterated: "...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...."
The president referred only to the North Wing. No one pressed the president to finalize the design of the Capitol and decide whether the central dome would cover, as the president put it in November 1795, "the open or circular area or lobby." With the project depending on congressional support, it was not the time to address the South Wing which would certainly cost as much as the North Wing or to breath a word about the dome, vestibule and conference room which would cost more. In February 1797, the president nipped an effort to embellish the outside of the North Wing. The board sent Hadfield to Philadelphia to take advantage of the failure of Robert Morris and hire stone carvers who had just lost their jobs working on Morris's unfinished mansion designed by L'Enfant. Who other than Thornton would suddenly urge ornamenting North Wing and at the same time not inform the president?
When he got wind of the idea, the president reacted in a p.s. to a February 20 letter to the board: "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."
The president may have learned that lesson from his old friend Morris gagging on the expense of L'Enfant's grandiose ideas. To Hadfield's delight, his being brought back to the federal city without carvers allowed him to claim part of the design of the building's exterior. In 1819, in a letter to the editor, he explained his contribution with ironic modesty: "the only parts that no remain that I claim as eminating from my feeble architectural powers in the exterior of the North Wing of the Capitol, are the impost cornices of the basement, which was meant to top the basement, without any moulding; the said impost was accepted as an improvement and executed accordingly."(28)
How
Thornton reacted to that is not known. He couldn't have been pleased,
but historians have not noticed the comeuppance suffered by one who they
suppose had special orders from the president to have his way with the
Capitol. Glenn Brown would relieve doubts that Thornton designed the Capitol by crediting him for designing the Octagon house. However, from October 1796 to May 1798, while Hadfield threatened his legacy, Thornton did not anchor his fame by designing a private house in the city or offering a design for the next two public buildings, the Executive offices to house the departments of state and war.
If designing and building a house for himself had crossed Thornton's mind, the failure of the August 1796 auction of his Georgetown house to find a buyer gave him pause. He didn't move into the city. He found another way to please the president. On September 19, the president declined a third term in office. He asked the commissioners to bring matters "relative to the business of the City" that needed his attention. Thornton finally found a way to impress the president. 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. 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. His colleagues endorsed the idea and the president signed off on it, only to have it tabled by congress in December.
In other matters, Thornton dissented from his colleagues and thought of things that never crossed their minds. His colleagues wanted embassies along the Mall. Thornton thought they should be on both sides of the Square south of the President's house. As for Mall, Thornton assured the president that 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;..." They would line the Mall. Scott and White recommended that the Executive office buildings for the Treasury and War Departments flank the President's house. Thornton wanted them north of the President's house.
The president didn't reply but seemed to appreciate Thornton's letter. He opposed embassies on the Mall, but showed no interest in his idea to build a politicians' ghetto along the Mall. In a letter from Mount Vernon, the president opined that the Executive offices should be near the president but declined to pick a spot until he was on the scene. Then once there, he didn't. He wanted the commissioners to concentrate on getting the Capitol ready to receive congress. That could be why Thornton took no interest in the design of the Executive offices. But in late 1796, the board asked Hadfield and Hoban for relatively a plain design for two brick buildings. Thornton likely avoided that project because monetary constraints foretold plain buildings built with bricks. That's why they had to be north of the President's house. He explained to the president that "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." Perhaps, his lack of interest in houses reflected his disdain for brick buildings.(22)
Even though encouraging private building was a commissioner's job, Thornton could be uncharacteristically cranky when going about it. While he was in Philadelphia, Commissioner 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. Thornton wrote that he agreed with White that "we must accommodate every person as well as we can." But 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.(21)
Thornton didn't seem to understand real estate. His colleague Scott did and made money off one of Thornton's ideas. That real estate coup begins the story of the Octagon.
In a meeting with the board in late October 1796, the president did not object to Thornton's idea of putting embassies south of the President's house. Square 170 was one of the six squares that Thornton thought should have embassies. The board decided they best divide Square 170, which is to say, they would divvy the lots in the square 50-50 with its original owners. That was requisite before any development could begin. On November 19, 1796, Commissioners Scott and White met with David Burnes and Samuel Davidson and agreed that Lot 8, the largest lot in the square, should belong to the public. Thornton was not there. Two days later, Scott bought Lot 8, from the board. In April 1797, he would sell the lot to John Tayloe III for a handsome profit.(26)
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| Division sheet for Square 170 |
In1796, there was an eruption of private building principally thanks to wealthy men that Greenleaf attracted to the city.
Before the winter social season ended in Philadelphia, Thomas Law settled 10,000 Pounds Sterling on his bride, 20 year old Elizabeth ("Eliza" or "Betsy") Parke Custis, who was the most admired of the president's grand daughters. Law still hadn't gotten deeds for lots he had bought from Greenleaf, so he became a thorn in Morris's and Nicholson's sides. To relieve that pain, Nicholson moved a wet and dry goods merchant out of the Simmons house and let the Laws move into what forever more has been known as "Honeymoon House."
Although the couple did not stay in that house long, once in the city 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.
Until his death in December 1799, when the General visited the city, he
would stay with the Laws. Historians would credit Thornton for
designing houses for both the General and Law. The designs for both were
completed by October 1798. As will be shown, Thornton was not asked to
and did not design their houses. In the summer of 1798, he was as little
interested in house design as he was in the summer of 1796.(18)
Other architects were designing houses in the summer of 1796. 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 would credit 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 so Duncanson could pay the builders. Lovering didn't testify that he was paid for designing or building the house. Both Law and Duncanson used Hallet. He divided his time between Philadelphia in the winter and the federal city in the summer. Given his detailed description of The Maples in a report to European investors, he most likely designed the house.(19)
At
the same time money ruled, Morris and Nicholson, supposed to be the
richest men in the country, broke ranks with Greenleaf's "new elegant
stile of building." Lovering persuaded them to cater to the working
class. To fulfill an
obligation made by Greenleaf in September 1793, Morris and Nicholson 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 designed houses at the end of the block with storefront windows. While his 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.
Their seeming success, enabled Morris to sell a neighboring corner lot to a merchant named Edward Langley. The contract for the sale had the proviso that Langley have his builder "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, King wrote "Drawn by Nich. King July 14,
1798." Pamela Scott and other historians give King credit for designing
the
house. She rates the building as representing "the quality of houses
and shops Carroll
sought when he first contracted with Greenleaf."(20)
The store did not survive. There was no reason to live on Greenleaf's Point. The failure of Morris and Nicholson sealed its fate. Morris slinked out of the city in October. The sheriff agreed that the room in a small hotel Nicholson owned at 6th and Pennsylvania Southeast, not far from the Capitol, was his castle where he could avoid writs pressed by his creditors. The Twenty Buildings was the most innocent of the speculators' schemes. With the cooperation of Commissioners Scott and Thornton, they pumped up a complicated bubble based on a promise to fund their bounced checks through trading certificates tied to the value of their lots. Commissioner White did not trust him. He had been in Philadelphia when State Comptroller Nicholson faced impeachment for swindling the state. Then Greenleaf threatened legal action. In three years when payment on the certificates came due,Commissioner Scott and two associates accrued a $33,000 debt and were soon bankrupt. Scott understood real estate but not bubbles. As for Thornton, Nicholson, also a fellow in the Philosophical Society, “made a strong attack on him to get his paper." Thornton parried by saying "his wife and mother-in-law would be alarmed.”(23)
Nicholson fed Lovering with promises. To reassure creditors and entice investors, 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. However, in reality, Lovering's building career was grinding to a halt. 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." 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 her death was that now the builder would get back to finishing the houses on South Capitol Street. On February 4, creditors lured Nicholson out of his castle. He was briefly jailed in Georgetown but enough gullible 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)
 |
About the same time the speculators' circus left the city, Mrs. Thornton served her first tea in the federal city. She didn't preserve the guest list. But her new establishment had been blessed by the General. Blodget had also been building and Thornton rented a solid three story brick house near F and 14th Streets NW. It was not far from the Commissioner's office on the other side of 14th Street and F Street was the established route to the Capitol because Pennsylvania Avenue had not been made passable by carriage. In a December 26 letter, the president congratulated Thornton for the "situation" he chose "as it is in the midst of your operations; and 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...."(25)
Instead, Thornton began to study the L'Enfant Plan. The March 1791 agreement between the president and the original landowners did not transfer title to any land in the city to the government for its own use. Since 1791, that land had been held in trust until the president signified that the city plan was finalized. All the land to be taken for public use had to be described and measured. Before leaving office, the president wanted to sign off on a comprehensive and legally impeccable document that once signed by the two trustees would effect the transfer of all the property to the government once the landowners were paid.
Thornton sensed an opportunity 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 in so far as taking that land for public use meant the grumbling original landowners would get $66 an acre for the land taken.(27) By the way, the lot Tayloe would buy faced an intersection enlarged by New York Avenue crossing 18th Street at an angle. However, Thornton didn't pinpoint that intersection as big enough for public embellishments.
A few days before he left office, the president thanked the commissioners. For the rest of his life, Thornton cherished the letter. As he put it to Dr. Lettsom in October 1797, 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." The president didn't write that. In his February 27 letter, he put it this way: "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."(29)
His comments were directed to Scott. Some proprietors were demanding that he be replaced. The president allowed that, if warranted, there could be an investigation. That stunned the commissioners which prompted the president to completely backtrack and even forgive Scott for not moving into the city. Then he complimented the board as a whole. If he had been more specific about "the assistance" Thornton gave to "the business committed to your care" history would have been better served. There is no evidence that he disavowed his belief that the Capitol design was "no body's, but a compound of every body's." He seemed deaf to Thornton's claims and never saw the one other drawing of the building Thornton surely made between 1795 and 1797. That said, there was no doubt that no one took the design more seriously than Thornton. Hadfield resigned himself to doing a job he more or loss thought useless. Thus, the question remains: were men contemplating building an important house impressed by Thornton's earnest belief in himself? Given the reputation Thornton has today, they had to have been impressed. In her essay on the architecture of Capitol Hill, Pamela Scott wrote that in 1797 only three men in the city were able to design a notable house: Hoban, Hadfield and Thornton. However, due to his reputation and the attitude he had toward residential building, no one asked Thornton to design a house in 1797, 1798, or 1799.
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
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
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
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.
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. WT to Lettsom, 9 Oct 1797, Pettigrew 2: 555-58; GW to Commrs. 27 February 1797.
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