William Thornton Re-examined by Bob Arnebeck

About the Author  Bob Arnebeck was born in Washington, DC, in 1947 and was raised in Silver Spring, Maryland. He graduated from Montgomery Blair High School, and then got a B.A. in English Literature and Composition at Beloit College in Wisconsin. He produced his own play, Boom Power: a history of the Ford Motor Company, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was described as a "fascinating failure" in Boston After Dark. He worked briefly at the American Revolution Bicentennial Commissioner where he leaked documents that informed three days of front page articles in the Washington Post. He briefly worked for the People's Bicentennial Commission. Then he worked as a free lance writer primarily for the Washington Post Magazine. He wrote many articles on historical topics, and briefly was a regular commentator on NPR's Morning Edition. In 1994, he moved with his wife and son to a large island in the St. Lawrence River where he observed otters and beavers and for around ten

  Table of Contents page 274 Chapter Seventeen: Patents, Dolley's Snub and John Quincy Adams' Diary 189. Col. William Thornton, the Doctor's friend among the enemy That Thornton lost Madison's friendship has nothing to do with the design of the Capitol, but does reflect on Thornton as an architect. Thornton became obsessed with proving that he invented the steamboat. He used his government office to press his claim. That has striking parallels to how he exaggerated his role as the "author" of the Capitol.  To further inflate his ego, he claimed that he kept the federal capital in Washington after the British burned its public buildings in 1814. That couldn't help but annoy the president who had to flee the President's house. That Madison then lived for six months in the Octagon did not change his relationship to Thornton who had nothing to do with its design. Thornton's biographers don't dwell on Thornton's relationship with Madison and