Table of Contents: Case of the Ingenious A

"Dr. T-" Examined

and the Case of the "Ingenious A"

"Saturday, Feby 1st a fine day. The ground covered with the deepest snow we have ever seen here (in 5 yrs.) - river frozen over. Dr. T- engaged in drawing at his plan for a House to build one day or another on Sq. 171."

 
 Or Why William Thornton Didn't Design the Octagon House and Isn't the "First Architect of the Capitol"

 

 By Bob Arnebeck

author of Through a Fiery Trial: Building Washington 1790-1800 and Slave Labor in Capitol: Building Washington's Iconic Federal Landmarks

Introduction:  How Glenn Brown, an architect of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, helped his own career by making William Thornton the most famous American architect of the 18th century. 

Chapter One:   A Tale of Two Properties (1755 to 1786) Lancaster, Tortola and a Scientific Education - The roots of Thornton's wealth, his Quaker education, medical degree and mentors 

Chapter Two:   Going to Africa Via Boston (1786-1790) - His reaction to his Tortola slave plantation and his secret plan to take America's blacks to Africa; a philosophical career in Philadelphia with Fitch's steamboat, a two day study of architecture, marriage and back to Tortola  

Chapter Three: "“give beauty & granduer to the pile” (1777 to 1792) - An interlude tracing the conception and planning of the City of Washington with a focus on L'Enfant whose fall allowed Thornton to rise with help from friends 

Chapter Four: Design by Committee (1793) Architect Stephen Hallet find flaws in Thornton's design and a committee chaired by Jefferson accepts his changes but saves Thornton's reputation and his own. 


Chapter Five: Hallet Dismissed/Thornton Appointed (1794) - after laying out the foundation Hallet loses his job and the president makes Thornton one of three commissioners in charge of building the Capitol.
 

Chapter Six:  Walls Fall Down (1795-6) - Thornton fails to win the president's confidence; the Capitol's foundation walls collapse; George Hadfield, an architect sent from England, criticizes the Capitol design.

Chapter Seven:  Thornton v. Hadfield (1795-1797) and Lovering  designs the Twenty Buildings  


Chapter Eight: - Tayloe Wins a Race (1797) and buys a building lot; Thornton buys lots nearby, but seems more interested in grander things than designing and building houses. 


Chapter Nine:  The Case of the"Ingenious A": the Capitol Hill Houses  Lovering designs Law's largest house and General Washington designs two his own houses. 

 

Chapter Ten:  The Case of the Ingenious A: Tayloe's House: Lovering overcomes insolvency and is able to build the house he built for Tayloe; Thornton's imported horse comes back from Mount Airy in "bad plight" and Thornton attacks Tayloe.

 

 Chapter Eleven:  To Be The Last Architect Standing: Thornton strains to get his colleagues and the General to acknowledge his design and fails to get Hoban "out of the way." The Death of the General prompts Thornton draw floor plans

Chapter Twelve: Jefferson and the Ideas of Dr. Thornton: the new president tries to work with Thornton but realizes that Latrobe can draw designs and has ideas. Thornton's counterattack embarrasses himself and the Capitol.

Chapter Thirteen: On those Healthy Hills Near Panama: The Patent Office, Thornton's coup d'etat, his imagination goes south on the steamboat he could never build, and other tales. 

 


Sources: I provide links to those available on-line

Illustrations: I will provide links to those available on-line

Acknowledgements:  Mandy Katz reminded me that the 1790s is a living presence in the city. The late Don Hawkins continues to be an inspiration. His work on the Capitol design is seminal in correcting the current misconceptions. While by no means smitten by the bricks and stones of the old federal city, in his Morris's Folly, Ryan Smith shared his love of several of the characters who shaped it. He also read an early draft of this effort and opined that it was worth it. The Mount Vernon library's curator Dana Stefanelli, with his enlightened policy of putting requested documents on-line immediately, shared a clue that cracked the case of the Ingenious A. Although he comes in for much criticism in this book, we are all indebted to C. M. Harris for his transcribing the Papers of William Thornton. Finally, Seth Barrett Tillman, who, by example, taught me to drive the nails into a coffin lest mourners try to breath new life into narratives better left for dead.

 






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