Table of Contents: Case of the Ingenious A

"Dr. T-" Examined

and the Case for 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 perplexes the president by harassing a former commissioner and letting the foundation walls collapse

Chapter Seven:  Thornton v. Hadfield (1795-1797) George Hadfield, a young but well taught English architect ridicules what he was hired to build, and Thornton defend Hallet’s plan  

Chapter Eight: - Tayloe Wins a Race (1797) and buys a building lot; Thornton is attracted to his thoroughbreds, shares his vision of the city with the retiring president, and Hadfield is finally fired. . 

Chapter Nine:  The Case for the"Ingenious A" How William Lovering designed Thomas Law's house and the Octagon, and his subsequent career.

 

Chapter Ten:  The General's House: The General Washington designs two houses and Thornton claims he restored his original design of the Capitol.

 

 Chapter Eleven:  Mrs. Thornton's Diary:   More evidence that Thornton didn’t design the General’s, Law’s and Tayloe’s houses. Dr. T. designs a house for himself to rival Tayloe's. Tayloe sends Driver back lame, and for the next 22 years Thornton tries to prove he is a better breeder than Tayloe

Chapter Twelve: Thornton v. Latrobe: The walls of Thornton temporary South Wing buckle: after embracing Thornton’s design, President Jefferson embraces Thornton’s design but letd Benjamin Latrobe change it; the feud effectively ends Thornton’s architectural pretensions

Epilogue: John Quincy Adams' Diary: His boss at the Patent Office and next door neighbor assesses Thornton’s propensity to exaggerate and lie about steamboats and South American revolutions; his tales about the General and his mother-laws and remembrances that forget his Capitol design

 

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.