Chapter Seven: Thornton Becomes a Commissioner/Lovering Builds Houses
Table of Contents page 103 index
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| 65. The real city in 1794: the abodes of Notley Young and his slaves |
On September 15, 1794, the new board met in Georgetown. Thornton
did not have his official notice of appointment and could only watch
Scott and the remaining original commissioner Daniel Carroll of Rock
Creek. But he was not idle. He signified to the board that he wanted to buy two lots in Square 33. This precocious investment did not reflect any sagacious reading of the largely uninhabited terrain, although one of Thornton's lots also had "a frame building fifty feet long." Thornton's lots were just around the corner from lots on
Peter's Hill that the president picked out in 1793. Washington
had told Blodget who had very likely told Thornton that he
planned to build his city residence there, overlooking the Potomac, once he sold his Western
lands that he thought James Greenleaf and Robert Morris were negotiating
to buy.
However, Thornton did not blindly invest everywhere the president did. At
the 1793 public auction of lots, the president had bought lots in Square 667 on what
would be called Greenleaf's Point even though it was L'Enfant who fated its future prominence. There he planned two spurs of a canal that reached the Potomac and its Eastern Branch after flowing east from Georgetown through the low ground southwest of the Capitol and then due south thus defeating the tides below the Potomac's Little Falls where locks were being built. The canal would ease produce from the West to the world. Greenleaf and the president thought it would the commercial center of the coming empire. The president bought lots in a square along the Eastern Branch close to the western spur of the canal.
His colleagues immediately made Thornton aware of Greenleaf's importance. On September 19, they sent a letter to Secretary of State Randolph discussing their cautious approach to Greenleaf's new proposals. They assured Randolph that once back in Philadelphia Thornton "will very readily give any further information if wished for." The phrase "very readily" suggests that his colleagues' first impression of Thornton was that he quickly grasped a problem and then couldn't stop talking about it.
Thornton went back to Philadelphia to move his wife and mother-in-law to Georgetown and to brief the secretary of state. On October 2nd, Randolph wrote to the commissioners that "Dr. Thornton, a member of your board, and Mr. Greenleaf called upon me this morning...." Greenleaf wanted to change his way of paying the commissioners $50,000 on May 1, 1795.(2) It is possible that Thornton looked up Greenleaf in Philadelphia, but it is more likely that the younger and richer man immediately began working to make Thornton as amenable to his ideas as the commissioner he replaced. In April 1795, Thornton would buy lots from Greenleaf to the tune of $1358.66, but in Square 33 and 21, not on Greenleaf's Point. The 6000 lots Greenleaf contracted to buy from the commissioners were spread throughout the city. He also bought all of Notley Young's available lots and many from Daniel Carroll of Duddington, all south of the Capitol.
Add what Thornton had to pay as down payment for the lots he bought from Greenleaf to what he paid down to the commissioners, and his whole yearly salary of $1600 was spent on federal city real estate. He evidently didn't bring up the prize lot for designing the Capitol that the commissioners, with the advice of two impartial judges, were obliged to give him. At that time, he was speculating on where the president would build. When he actually began to build in 1798, Thornton asked for the prize lot.
Back to 1794: if the president, whom he had not seen since his appointment, had somehow managed to get word to him that he must restore his design, why wouldn't Thornton alert his colleagues to that mandate by bringing up the prize lot? His colleagues did something that would seem to impugn Thornton's special mandate, if he had one. On October 1, they formalized Greenleaf's agreement to pay Hallet to support his continued work on the Capitol design.
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| 66. Washington bought lots in Square 667 at the foot of South Capitol Street |
To say that Thornton was a babe in the woods of bureaucracy perhaps goes too far, but his accompanying Greenleaf to a meeting with the secretary of state suggests that his first steps were all designed to ingratiate himself with everyone involved. Even Hallet was not yet an object of his scorn. Greenleaf kept the French architect's design viable and his family from starving.
Thornton's biographers don't dwell on his first days as a commissioner, but they do pay attention to Greenleaf's Point in 1794, and for Thornton's greater glory. Orlando Ridout V and C. M. Harris grant that William Lovering, one of the architects Greenleaf hired, was the supervising architect at the Octagon. It was customary for an architect to supervise construction of his own design, but, in Lovering's case according Ridout and Harris, what he designed for Greenleaf proves that he couldn't have designed the Octagon. He is credited for designing and building what is now known as the Honeymoon House or Thomas Law House at 6th and N Streets SW. Harris describes it as "well conceived but, in page 105 terms of design, conventional and unadventurous." Thus, Lovering could not have designed an innovative house like the Octagon.(4)
Greenleaf hired Lovering and other architects to design and build handsome row houses. Greenleaf and his partners Robert Morris and John Nicholson had contracted with the commissioners to build 20 houses a year. Rather than view Greenleaf's operation as an arena where men proved they were unable to draw ovals and design a house like the the Octagon, it makes more sense to view it as an arena where architects and builders had a chance to distinguish themselves from their peers. The Octagon was likely designed in early 1799, a bit over four years after Lovering and Thornton came to the federal city. Thornton had been in the country longer. Lovering came from London in late 1793 or early 1794, with his second wife and their baby daughter. He had his left his teenage son in England. He was probably born around 1750 and thus was around ten years old than Thornton.
To prove that Lovering designed the Octagon requires examining how he might have come to Tayloe's attention. That necessitates uncovering a relatively unknown story in the city's history. Much of his historical reputation is based on what he didn't do. For example, Lovering probably didn't design the Honeymoon house. He did finish it, but construction began before Greenleaf hired Lovering.
Greenleaf made his contract with James Simmons on November 30, 1793. He was to begin working on January 1, 1794, as supervisor of operations for three years at a salary of 1,000 Pennsylvania pounds or $2,600. One of his jobs was to "plan buildings." Greenleaf also made contracts with experienced builders including Lovering, and those builders likely designed the houses they built. However, when Greenleaf made his contract with Lovering in Philadelphia on May 8, 1794, Simmons had been at the Point with a crew of workers for almost a month. He paid Greenleaf's installment on April 17. He and his "people" were observed as being at work on May 20. Tobias Lear's business partner, former senator Tristram Dalton, wrote to Greenleaf: "Mr. Simmons and your people were well, the sloop sent by Dr. Appleton from Boston was unloaded; the Brick machine nearly ready to be worked...."(5)
Dr. Nathaniel Appleton was Greenleaf's brother-in-law who he sent down from Boston to be his chief clerk. In a February 1795 letter, Appleton recalled that the Simmons house and two smaller houses near it "were erected before I arrived there," including a house for Mr. Frost, the man in charge of a newly invented brick making machine. Appleton arrived at the Point toward the end of June 1794. He would remember the place well. He had also come down for his health and that didn't work out. Soon, he was rushed to a house in Georgetown high above Little Falls so he could breath better. Once back north, two months before he died in April 1795, he would caution his replacement that houses on 6th Street flanking page 106 the Potomac were "the most ineligible in that climate, as you'll perceive in June, July and August next."(6)
That such a large house was made habitable in such a short time is hard to believe, but don't forget Frost's machine that Greenleaf had bought and shipped down from New York City. At first, the machine invented by Dr. Apollos Kinsley of New York City worked well. Thus, the walls of the house were likely up when Appleton arrived.(7)
If Simmons was simply too inexperienced to design "the conventional and unadventurous" house, its design likely did not have to await the arrival of Lovering who came to the Point in July. In his May letter, Dalton also wrote: “When I left the city I pressed Mr. Hoban to have our store completed as soon as possible, not to exceed June 10....” A July letter alluded to other stores including Greenleaf's: “My opinion of Mr. Hoban coincides with yours – my order to him relative to the store will save 50% in the running up the other stores, whenever or however they may be done.”(8)
When Simmons left the Point in late 1795, the Simmons' house briefly became a store selling wet and dry goods. Judging from the rental agreement, the house may have been designed for dual use. The store keeper got the use of the house "except the long room on the south front and the chamber above." The then owners of the house, the speculators Morris and Nicholson, wanted to reserve that space for themselves. The commercial potential for the house was obvious. It faced a wharf on tide water that invited boats coming down a broad reach of the Potomac before it turned south.(9)
Complicating the design question is a 1796 report on the houses built for Greenleaf that Lovering may have written. He gave the house at 6th and N Streets SW the highest value, $10,000, and noted "built by Lovering" with "late Simmons" in parentheses. (10) That suggests that once on the scene, Lovering took over the project. By contract, he had to hire workers but since he was "late from London," he had no crew to follow him to the Point. He likely finished the house for Simmons and then recruited Simmons' men to work on the houses he contracted to build. His report noted the house's "marble slate and chimney pieces; mahogany twist handrails. and stone circular arches over windows." All that had to be shipped down from New York and Boston suitable for a design made before Lovering took over the project.
At the same time, he began doing what Greenleaf hired him to do, design and build town houses. In
late 18th century London, speculative developments of town houses were
the rage. Lovering probably learned his skills working on them. He was
an expert at hanging windows and Georgian architects lined the streets
with windows. In 1798, he would school the commissioners and their
contractors on proper sashes.(12)
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| 68. Portland Place, London 1800 |
Clark invested his all in the city. His wife, Isabella, put it this way in a letter to Greenleaf: "In June 1794 we Sold our House, our Store of Merchandize, Three Female Slaves, also about one half of our Household Furniture, not to pay our Debts, for we owed none of consequence, NO, but to carry the money to Greenleafs Point - we had in addition upwards of four thousand dollars in paper Money, and I had sixty one half Joes long hoarded up..." One of the first things Clark did when he got to the city was try to organize the "Architects and Carpenters Society of the Territory of Columbia."(13)
page 108 Lovering and Clark contracted to build 10 and 12 houses respectively. In the paper work generated by Greenleaf's clerks, what they built were called "Lovering's houses" and "Clark's houses." Greenleaf gave Lovering and Clark a fee of unprecedented generosity in America. They would be paid 8% of the cost of the houses. With every move he made, Greenleaf tried to make it clear that he wanted to build a magnificent city. (14)
The only house Lovering built on the Point that is still standing is the restored Cranch-Duncanson House. A photo taken in the 20th century suggests his talent for hanging windows, and how the pretensions of the neighborhood diminished when Greenleaf's Point did not become the commercial center of the empire.
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| 69. Cranch-Duncanson House |
Oval rooms made the Octagon unconventional and adventurous, but don't lose sight of another feature of the Octagon: thirty-two windows facing the streets. In the late 18th century, windows were called "lights." Judging from the criticism of his Capitol design, the placement of lights challenged Thornton. Even the builder he prevailed upon to defend his Capitol design had to admit “the want of light and air in some cases.”
Greenleaf's
architects understood that they were competing. The relatively unknown
Lovering was most under pressure to prove his worth. Greenleaf had an operation sophisticated enough to measure the efficiency of his builders. He had hired a French engineer, only known as "Mr. Henry," who was described as a "kind of Secretaire Economique whose business is solely too study, to economize the business, to suggest hints for improvement and to systematize everything...." Lovering's houses cost $4.50 a square foot and Clark's cost $5.50. Mr. Henry also thought that a house of Lovering's left unpaired at the end of the building season could be modified to make a good hotel. He evidently had the knack of embedding a large room in a town house.(15)
However, there is no evidence that Tayloe asked Greenleaf about Lovering. By the time Tayloe came to town in 1797, Greenleaf was on his way to debtor's prison. In his fall, Greenleaf brought Joseph Clark down with him and almost ruined Lovering. In the meantime, according to historians, Thornton was the nonpareil as a commissioner, leading the board while he restored his original design and oversaw its construction. How could there be any doubt about who to choose to design your house: a bankrupted window hanger or a man who won George Washington's favor both as a designer and commissioner?
Straightaway, Thornton puzzled the president. Unlike the architects that Greenleaf sent to the city, Thornton did not live in the city. He opted for the president's "tantamount" option of living in Georgetown, but instead of just boarding at an inn and spending most of his time in the new commissioners' office near the President's house, rented from Hoban, he bought a house in Georgetown. He brought his mother-in-law with him, and there was no society to speak of in the federal city.
In the fall of 1795, a count of houses found brick houses on 27 of the city's 1200 squares, as well as some 300 wooden houses. The latter housed most of the 200 or so men working for the commissioners. The laborers, mostly hired slaves, slept in a camp with log huts. The attraction of living between the public buildings was blunted by the two story wooden hospital for sick laborers of both races that Hoban had just built.(18)
At Greenleaf's Point, there were shells of substantial brick houses flanked by wooden houses for free workers and a site for a barracks for slaves as well as a "negro kitchen."(19). The Simmons, Lovering and Clark families had no society but themselves. The big houses of the Carroll clan surrounded by slave shacks were nearby but the Carrolls were not sociable. Workers outnumbered the better sort. Greenleaf sent another brother-in-law to replace Appleton. William Cranch, who came with his wife, was alarmed at "the number of workmen here,... their mode of life, their imprudences and their bad provision."(20)
The Thorntons stayed in Georgetown and soon bought a house on the north side of Bridge Street, 3221 M Street by today's reckoning. The house faced the bank and a tavern.(21) His wife and mother-in-law did miss Philadelphia but were likely not all that disappointed in Georgetown society. The number of rich gentlemen in Georgetown had impressed Greenleaf's lawyer. James Kent thought some of the city's streets as busy as some in Philadelphia.(22)
page 110 The new arrivals made a good fit in Georgetown. Thornton was then 36 years old, Mrs. Brodeau just 10 years older, and his wife was 20. They socialized with other young couples, sons or nephews of major holders of federal city lots as well as older gentlemen and ladies who had heard of Mrs. Brodeau's famous school for girls. The Thorntons' Georgetown house became a pleasant place to visit. Thornton was likely indefatigable in ingratiating himself into Georgetown society. Unlike in Philadelphia, there was no ambiguity about who he was and why he was there.
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| 70. A Plat of downtown Georgetown 1794 |
Daniel Carroll became the leader of the board primarily because the president was too unfamiliar with Gustavus Scott and Thornton to confide his ideas to them. However, while Carroll led, Scott set the agenda. He began reviewing contracts made with the speculators. When Thornton got back to the federal city, he learned soon enough that associating himself with Greenleaf's ideas about paying his installment was not appreciated by his colleagues.
Scott found that Greenleaf contracted to mortgage lots for a loan from Dutch banks without including a building clause. To assure that the speculators would not merely sell lots to other speculators, they had agreed to require buyers of their lot to build on every third lot. Commissioner Carroll was sensitive to the building requirement because his nephew, Daniel Carroll of Duddington, had sold many lots to Greenleaf on condition that he build. The Carrolls didn't want any precedent waiving that condition.
Greenleaf took Scott's complaint in stride. He had bought some of the best legal advice in the New York City. On that advice, he had already assured the Dutch bankers that they didn't have to worry about building. But Greenleaf didn't battle the board over the missing building clause. His agent in Holland told him it was very unlikely he would secure that loan anyway.
When Greenleaf made a brief visit to the city, he adroitly deflected the board's attention from building lots. He asked if there was anything he could do for them when he made a trip to Holland before the end of the year. At last, Thornton had something to contribute. Carroll had been educated in page 111 France many years ago, and Scott got a law degree in Edinburgh. Thornton had last been in the Old Country and thanks to his inveterate questioning and gadding about knew a bit about labor conditions there. Thornton outlined a program of indenturing stone masons to come work in the city. He even told Greenleaf, who had just hired many, how to hire workers.(23)
This exchange of letters between the board and Greenleaf in October emboldened the board to try to use the good offices of Greenleaf's factotum in charge of architects to try to get drawings from Hallet. The board thought it got Hallet to agree to give them "the sections and what relates to the first or basement story of the Capitol." What he sent didn't satisfy them, but the evidence doesn't particularize their dissatisfaction.(24) Also, even though the prospectus for the design contest required that the winner supply sections and drawings, there is no evidence that Hallet's snub prompted Thornton to come to the rescue.
Then within two weeks, the board got a possible solution to their Hallet problem. Commissioner Johnson's brother in London asked John Trumbull, who had just returned to London, to recommend a British architect. The artist knew just the young man for the job. Trumbull sent a letter to his brother Jonathan in Connecticut extolling George Hadfield's bona fides which included eight years studying architecture at the Royal Academy in London and Rome. Trumbull's brother passed the letter on to the president who sent it down to the commissioners without saying the young man had to be hired.
John Trumbull also wrote to Tobias Lear who pressed the matter with Commissioner Scott, who was not encouraging, and with Thornton who offered some hope. According to Lear, he explained that "the great public buildings are now going on upon approved plans.... However, as other public buildings, such as an University and its appendages, Churches &c. &c. would presently be wanting, he could, in these, have an opportunity of originating and superintending, which might make it worth his while to come over...."(25)
Judging from what happened in the ensuing year, the “approved plans" were Hallet’s correction of Thornton’s original elevation and floor plan. Judging from what Thornton said to Lear, he thought the Capitol was on course to completion without any need to undo the changes made by Hallet. On December 18, they wrote a discouraging letter to Trumbull and informed the president: “We do not at present see an opening sufficient to encourage Mr. Hatfield to come to the City under a prospect of being employed in the public Service.”(26)
Within the next two weeks, the board changed its mind, and sent Hadfield an offer. They again informed the president of their decision. Judging from the stilted and equivocating language, Thornton probably wrote the letter. Would either Carroll or Scott hazard an opinion that "ordinary talents" demanded too high a salary in America? It seems someone convinced Thornton or he realized himself that he would not have the time to superintend work at the Capitol: "We view, and review the magnitude of our Undertaking; which, requiring all our Attention, leaves less time to individual Exertion in the Superintendance of the public Buildings, and we are convinced of the necessity of constant attention to adjust the various Members of the Work, to preserve an elegant Correspondence—A Superintendant of great ability, whose time will be wholly engaged is therefore requisite; and when we consider how much is demanded here for very ordinary Talents; when we are also encouraged by the moderation of Mr Hatfields Desires, though we have hitherto declined giving any Expectation, yet on more mature reflection, we think the public may page 112 be materially benefitted by the offer we now make him."(27)
That said, five days later, Thornton wrote a personal letter to Trumbull that was sent with an official offer to Hadfield. Thornton's letter suggests that when he told Lear that "the great public buildings are now going on upon approved plans," he was being disingenuous. The board's letter to the president also didn't express Thornton's true feelings.
He boasted to Trumbull that he was "pleased" that his appointment as a commissioner "will afford me an opportunity of correcting some wilful errors which have been fallen into by those jealous men who objected to my plan, because I was not regularly brought up an architect.” Then he envisioned Hadfield as just the young man also regularly brought up as an architect who would help him: “you will be so kind as to represent to Mr. Hadfield that the general plan is adopted, but there may be particular parts that will require minute attention, and I shall be always happy in consulting the taste of Mr. Hadfield. I have much pleasure in expectation, for he will be a pleasing acquisition to me.” In the same letter, Thornton asked Trumbull to send him a copy in miniature of the Farnese "Hercules."(28)
Trumbull reaction to Thornton's scheming was to advise Hadfield "to avoid any circumstances that may thwart their [the commissioners'] views or give them offence." He also intimated that except for L'Enfant, no one in America would "be your equal in knowledge in your profession."(29)
The equivocation over hiring Hadfield proves that Thornton had no instructions from the president to restore his original design. However, in the back and forth over the decision, Thornton found his mission: protect the plan from changes from the likes of young Hadfield and at the same time undo all the nagging changes Hallet made to his original plan.
In a January 1, 1805, open letter to members of congress, Thornton would claim that the president blessed his mission. In January 1795, Thornton must have hoped for some response from the president; that he might be taken by the idea of "the necessity of constant attention to adjust the various Members of the Work, to preserve an elegant Correspondence" and also grasp the need for a genius to oversee that process. The president need only say the obvious: with Hadfield working under Thornton what could go wrong?
The
president did not react to the offer sent to Hadfield nor the board's
reasons for their change of heart. Other issues vexed the president and
he vented his spleen, not to the board, but in a letter to Commissioner
Carroll. Greenleaf decided not to go to Holland. Instead, he did exactly
what the president expected the commissioners to do, and he did it in a
spectacular fashion. He persuaded Thomas Law, a Nabob, as men who got
rich in India were called, to buy 500 of the speculators' federal city
lots for $180,000. That is, Law paid $360 a lot that Greenleaf had
bought for $80. The president was dumbfounded. He wrote to Carroll and
asked why the commissioners had sold lots to Greenleaf so cheaply, and
why didn't they make the sale that Greenleaf did?
What a difference two weeks can make. In December, in an upbeat letter to Lettsom, Thornton puffed his new job beyond recognition: "We have the expenditure of all the public monies, for the accommodation of congress, in buildings, etc. We have the disposal of one half the whole city....The trust reposed in us is so great that I do not know a more extensive power in any office of the government, except the President, or perhaps the Secretary of State, Treasury and War."
Then two days after he wrote his letter to Trumbull, Thornton wrote a shorter letter to Lettsom. He began by exalting his job even higher: "It is odd, but when I baptized my work Cadmus, and the American Philosophical Society inscribed it on my medal as an honour, I had no idea that, like him, I was to build a city." As well as inventing the alphabet, Cadmus had built the city of Thebes. But then Thornton lamented his fate. There would be a monument commemorating Lettsom's contributions to civilization, Thornton bemoaned the mere stone that might mark his. He had done nothing and time was running out. He wanted to found a philosophical society in the federal city, as well as an agricultural society.
A recent letter from Blodget might have stung him into realizing what he could not do as a mere commissioner. After replying to the commissioners concerns about the Second Lottery, Blodget sassed his "good friend": "No sir, altho you may understand the building of federal cities, capitols, anatomy, painting, botany, belle lettre and such trifles give me leave to assure you that you are not yet sufficiently instructed in the more noble and exalted science of lottery making." Then he added: "our mutual friend Parkins and myself are very busily employed in the affairs of the national university. We are now on the college of painting." Thornton had just entertained the famous English painter who came to the take views of the federal city, and promised to teach Thornton how to do aquatints.(32)
In his down beat letter to Lettsom, Thornton almost rallied at the end by claiming he had mentioned a National University to the president who asked him to prepare a plan. Then he worried that whenever he was fatigued, he got sick.(31) What likely depressed him was his inability to deal with Hallet who everyone thought was designing the Capitol. The president no longer seemed to recognize his role. He didn't even mention the Capitol in his letter to Lettsom. It was not as if Thornton had lost his knack for exaggerating. He did when he bragged on his plan for the university.
If Thornton had indeed talked to the president, it made no impression. Thornton claimed the president "desired me to write and digest a plan." On January 28, the president wrote to the commissioners urging the creation of a National University and added that he was "ignorant who the persons are, that have taken or disposed to take the maturation of the plan upon themselves."(31A)
The flowery letter sent in reply to the president was signed by all three commissioners but obviously written by Thornton: "Your Letter of the 20th (sic) of January relates to one of the most engaging subjects with which the human mind can be impressed. The Legislators of all enlightened Countries have thought the education of youth so important to the welfare of Society that it has been a primary object of their attention. It is a theme which merits the most serious Consideration of United America at this time; for, as you well observe it is much to be regretted that the youth of this Country should be obliged to emigrate in search of learning, by which they run the hazard of imbibing disadvantageous prepossessions."
After two more blossoming paragraphs, the letter answered the president's question: "Many have suggested in part what ought to be done in forming a general plan. None has yet been presented, but the Board was informed, some time ago, that Dr Thornton has long had it in Contemplation to lay such an one before the Executive, and has made some progress in digesting it."(41)
The board also concentrated on more essential things and discerning Thornton's role in uncertain. Carroll bore the brunt of defending the sale of thousands of lots to Greenleaf so cheaply. He agreed with every point in the president's complaint about the deal with the speculators and assured him that his new colleagues did too. Then Carroll trotted out the good news. Thanks to the contract with Greenleaf requiring purchasers of his lot to built on every third lot, Greenleaf's sale of 500 lots would lead to 166 houses being built in the next four years. The money from the sale would go toward paying the speculators' annual obligations to the commissioners. Carroll also argued that the rage for selling lots in bulk had ended. The value of individual lots would rise. Buyers would recognize the need for their paying more for public lots in order to finance the public buildings. Meanwhile, Carroll told the president, the board was readying a report accounting for past expenditures and estimating what was needed in the future. And by the way, a bridge over the Eastern Branch would help the city.(35) That bridge would also raise the value of lots owned by the Carroll clan in the eastern part of the city.
It was a graceful letter with just a touch of self interest. But don't knock the Carroll clan. The commissioners sold valuable lots at a good price to James Barry, a Baltimore merchant also in the India trade. His ties to the Catholic church in Baltimore, where Carroll's brother was bishop, likely made the sale easier. Barry would hire another Catholic, James Hoban, to design his counting house along the Eastern Branch of the Potomac. Carroll's letter calmed the president but his next letter announced his resignation due to ill health as soon as a replacement could be appointed.(36)
With Carroll bowing out, the new board members took over. That was bad news for Hallet. On January 21, he wrote to the board apologizing for his insubordination and asking for his old job back. He also gave his side of the story. He had been on edge because of the difficulty of the job: "I traced and directed the laying of the foundation of the Capitol, a work of such extent and importance as to require in every point of view the greatest attention and the more so because it could only be done in detached squares and had the unevenness of the ground to contend with."
By "in detached squares," Hallet must have meant that he did not lay the foundation of the central part of the building, only the two square wings. It would seem, Thornton had the opportunity to force Hallet to confess that he had gone against the "ideas of Doctor Thornton." There is no documentary evidence that he did. The board took a month to reply to Hallet's letter. The board's secretary informed him that "the Board have concluded previous to giving an answer to request you will lay before them any papers you have respecting the Capitol."(37)
Clearly,
Thornton didn't want Hallet back but how he persuaded his colleagues to
disdain any help from Hallet is a mystery. If he told them that he was
about to undue Hallet's "wilful errors," his colleagues weren't
impressed. They would soon tell Thornton that they opposed any changes
to the design approved by the president.(38) And there is another way to
look at it. Because Hallet did not share his plans with the board,
Thornton could not be sure what needed correction. The board had no idea how much it would cost to build the Capitol.
Relying mostly on the memory and expertise of Hoban, the board estimated past expenditures and future expenses. As for the Capitol, the board blamed the conduct "of Mr Hallet whose capricious and obstinate refusal to deliver up such Sections of the Capitol as were Wanting obliged the late Commissioners to discharge him, and occasioned some difficulties in this business."
But the board's primary problem was lack of money. They had only 6856.17.6 Maryland pounds in hand as of October 1, 1794, or around $11,000. They took the money expected from the speculators for lots they contracted to buy off the books by suggesting it would only cover what was due to original proprietors for the land taken by the L'Enfant's Plan for public use. While they didn't spell it out, they implied that the boast of former Commissioner Johnson that the deal with the speculators guaranteed financing of the public buildings was nonsense.
They decided that a loan raised by themselves was the best solution to their problems: "Spirited exertions in the public buildings, which cannot be made without money whilst it encreased the public confidence would give a great additional value to the public property yet left"
For
the president, one pleasing feature of the long letter was that it only asked him to make one decision: whether or not to get a loan. The board had some doubts about the height of the
foundation, but divided on whether to ask the president or just ask the
secretary of state to ask the president. They mooted the debate between a courtyard and portico. They suggested delaying building the center of the Capitol and dome until well in the future: "... we beg leave to Suggest the Idea whether it would not be prudent in the present State of our funds to forego carrying on more of that building than the immediate accommodation of Congress may require."
All that said, they did lumber the president with a load of details about their operations. For example, they ordered that quarried stone be delivered by the supplier to the work site so that the commissioners' slave laborers would not have to be called from other work in order to unload scows at the public wharves. They bragged on their piece-work contracts and highlighted one they made "with a Mr Dobson from England; who has given very good Security for his performance & has commenced his Operations."
They attached Papers or reports marked B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I. At the end of the very long letter, they apologized, at great length for its great length: "We ought perhaps to apologize for giving you this long Detail, being Sensible how little time you can devote to the Subject. It is however of importance: & we are Confident you will think so, that we should with the utmost truth & candor lay before you the real state of things. Should any unexpected Incidents prevent the public buildings from being prepared in Time for the reception of Congress, how deep would be your, & our regret. Such an Event might ultimately shake the Dignity, Honor & peace of the Union. Thinking as we do, we should be wanting in official Duty if we did not make a just representation of affairs here. With such means as we have eked out by the strictest System of Œconomy, the utmost exertions shall be made; and whenever a Prospect of page 116 enlarging them shall offer, we shall with the sincerest pleasure grasp the happy occasion, having most ardently at heart the fullest Success of the City." Then they added a P.S. This performance cannot be fully blamed on or credited to Thornton, but he was clearly in his element.(39)
The letter also laid the groundwork for a dispute that soon caused the president to lose confidence in Thornton and Scott. They started a row with Thomas Johnson, the man Scott replaced. Johnson had long worked with Washington to develop the Potomac Valley. When he first mentioned retiring from the board, Johnson wrote to his old friend that he thought it was time to "benefit myself by the rise of the City." He bought lots from Greenleaf along Rock Creek just north of the stone bridge at K Street NW. When Johnson tried to get the deeds for the lots, the two new members of the board told him that the old board had not been authorized to sell water lots to Greenleaf. Johnson promptly wrote to the president, blamed Scott for the misunderstanding and trusted that when once "on the spot," the president would see that Johnson was right.(40) In their letter, the commissioners explained how valuable the lots above the Rock Creek bridge would be. They had gotten a good price from Barry for the water lots he bought near the confluence of the Potomac and its Eastern Branch. It made sense to them to make a lot bordering Rock Creek a valuable water lot
The administration reacted to the long letter. As the short session of congress came to a close, Secretary of State Randolph asked that one of the commissioners come to Philadelphia to arrange for a loan from Philadelphia banks.(42) The loan was Carroll's idea and he had expected to go, but illness kept him home. Scott had argued that the board had mortgaged too many lots, and shouldn't mortgage more to get a loan. That left Thornton to go Philadelphia.
Go to Chapter Eight
Footnotes to Chapter 7:
1. Arnebcck, "The Bubble and the Nest Egg"
2. Commrs to Randolph 19 September 1794; Randolph to Commrs. 2 October 1794
3.Twining, Travels in America a Hundred Years Ago, p. 102ff
4. Ridout, pp 28-29, 76, 123; Harris p 588. Harris made that observation in an "Editorial Note: Miscellaneous Architectural Designs to 1802"which is a 15 pages essay appended to the Thornton's Papers. In those papers, Thornton never mentioned designing the Octagon and that obliged Harris to describe Thornton's talents as a house designer.
5. Dalton to Greenleaf 20 May 1794; Greenleaf's Account with Commissioners; Stoddert to Greenleaf 12 May 1794 In Greenleaf Papers, Stoddert looks forward to "getting supplied with bricks from your machines...."; for excerpts from Through a Fiery Trial on Greenleaf's speculation
6. Appleton to Cranch, 2 February 1795, NALC papers; Ford, Notes on Webster, p. 384; Appleton to Greenleaf, 24 September 1794. He moved in with John Templeman who had moved to city from Boston; Appleton to Cranch 21 February 1795. Judging from a letter sent to another brother-in-law, Noah Webster, Cranch began corresponding to Appleton to keep hope alive that he would mend and return to the city. Ford, Notes on Noah Webster. p. 391.
7. Appleton to Greenleaf, June 23, 1794; agreement with Kinsley 16 November 1793. See Kinsley to Jefferson 22 November 1793.
8. On June 23, Appleton wrote to Greenleaf that he was chalking out the ground for Clark's men and that Clark in Baltimore; he mentioned Lovering only in so far as he was arranging to get money from Robert Morris to pay him; Dalton to Greenleaf, May 20, 1794 and July 14, 1794,
9. Contract with William Prentiss, Nicholson Papers.
10. Description of Houses and Property on Greenleaf's Point, Book 75, Greenleaf's Papers - Nicholson also asked Prentiss to calculate the value of the houses.
11. In the contract he made with Greenleaf on 8 May 1794, Lovering is described as "late of London." Thanks to the marriage of Lovering's daughter to Dr. John Brereton, some attempts at describing Lovering's life are found in genealogies of the Brereton Family
12. Fitzroy Square ; Lovering to Commissioners, January 9, 1798.
13. Contract with Clark, 12 May 1794, Greenleaf papers; Isabella Clark to Morris and Nicholson, 28 November 1795. She sent the same letter to Greenleaf
14. Appleton to Henry, 3 & 9 February 1795
15. Cranch to his father 25 November 1794
17. Thornton papers LOC Reel 7; Morris to Cranch
18. Commrs proceedings 10 December 1794; https://dcswamp.blogspot.com/2019/04/1795-and-1797-house-census.html; Arnebeck, Slave Labor in the Capital p.
19. List of Houses and Property on Greenleaf's Point, Book 75 Greenleaf's Papers
20. Cranch to his father 22 October 1794;
21. Clark, Dr. and Mrs. Thornton, p. 167
22. James Kent Journal LOC
23. Greenleaf's secretary to Commrs, 18 September 1794; Commrs to Greenleaf, 18, 20, 27. 29, 31 October 1794, 3 November1794; Commrs to Randolph, 18 Oct. 1794.
24. Commrs proceedings 31 December 1794
25. John Trumbull to Jn. Trumbull, 23 Sept. 1793, as quoted in King, Julia, George Hadfield: Architect of the Federal City; GW to Commrs, 27 November 1794; Lear to GW, 17 December 1794.
26. Commrs. to GW, 18 December 1794
27. Commrs to GW, 2 January 1795
28. WT to Trumbull, 6 January 1795, Harris, p. 291
29. Trumbull to Hadfield, 9 March 1795, Trumbull Papers, also Harris, p. 304
30. Op. Cit. p. 292
31. WT to Lettsom 22 Dec 1794and 8 Jan 1795, Pettigrew vol 2 546-9.
31A. GW to Commers, 28 January 1795.
32. Blodget to WT, 5 January 1796, Harris, p. 288-9;
33. GW to Carroll, 7 January 1795,
34. Cranch to father, 8 December 1794; ; Law to Alexander Ross circa 1795, auction description; Law to Greenleaf, 10 April 1808.
35. Carroll to GW 13 January 1795
36. James Barry papers; Carroll to GW, 19 February 1795
37. Commrs to Simmonds 25 November 1794; Hallet to the commrs, 21 January 1795; Richmond to Hallet, 20 February 1795
38. Commrs to Thornton, 20 March 1795
39. Commrs to GW 4 February 1795
40. Johnson to GW, 23 December 1793, Johnson to GW, 15 June 1795
41. Commrs to GW, 18 February 1795
42. Randolph to Commrs., 13 February 1795
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