Chapter 10 The Ingenious A

The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol

by Bob Arnebeck

 Table of contents

 Chapter Ten: The Ingenious A

116. Law's 1800 house became the fulcrum of the New Varnum Hotel

Thornton never claimed in writing that he designed the houses built by Thomas Law, General Washington and John Tayloe for which ground was broken in 1799. No contemporary credited him for designing those houses. But no one else claimed credit or was credited for designing the houses. His biographers give Thornton a good excuse for not stepping forward. Thornton feared that being a practicing architect would tarnish his reputation as a gentleman. So, while he bragged about many accomplishment, he did not claim credit for designing the houses of his gentlemen friends. His biographers find evidence that he did the designs in his correspondence with the General and a diary his wife kept in 1800, even though she too never explicitly said he designed those houses. 

The once imposing houses the General had built on Capitol Hill have been reduced to a plaque in a park that celebrates Thornton for designing them. In 1896, Glenn Brown established that Thornton designed and superintended construction based on "the letters of Washington." Brown didn't quote or cite the letters but did report that while the exterior of the houses had changed, "some of the interior works still remains intact and shows the skill and refinement of the architect in detail." The house did not survive leveling and landscaping the way between Union Station and the Capitol. Brown's claim is certified on page 798 of the latest biography of the General: the houses were "designed by Dr. William Thornton."(1) 

Plaque in Upper Senate Park

The Octagon which still stand seals Thornton's fame as an architect. Thornton's contribution to the Capitol's design was controversial at the time and throughout most of the 19th century. At the end of the century, Brown's crediting him for designing the Octagon all but ended the debate over his Capitol design. It proved he was an architect after all.

Law's house has been supplanted by a House office building. Since Law's and Tayloe's houses both have oval rooms and were built at the same time, at the end of the 20th century, C. M. Harris decided that Thornton designed both. While there is no design in Thornton's papers resembling Law's house, in his essay introducing the collection, C. M. Harris connects the ovals in Law's house to the designs in his papers that resemble the Octagon:

Thornton probably first suggested the idea of using a curvilinear element to take an odd-angled corner lot a year earlier [1798], to Thomas Law, who had determined to build a residence on Capitol Hill, at the northwest corner of New Jersey Avenue and C Street S.W. [sic, it was S.E.], but drawings for that project have not survived.... The two plan drawings for Tayloe's house, which became known in the nineteenth century as The Octagon, are more ambitious in their use of curvilinear forms than the modified plan to which Tayloe built.

In his commentary in the Papers of William Thornton, Harris credits Thornton with more than suggesting ovals. He refers to "his design for Thomas Law's town residence of 1800...."(2) Harris champions Thornton for solving the problem both Law and Tayloe faced with oval rooms.

 

117. The Octagon in the 20th century

 

Law faced the problem first. After buying 500 lots, beginning in 1796, he was the most consistent developer in the city. Lured by Greenleaf's preaching that the "New Jerusalem" would be a commercial as well as political center, he decided to develop New Jersey Avenue. It was one of the shorter avenues but it afforded the quickest link between the Capitol and the water front. Law began building near the river. But by 1798, it was apparent that developing Square 689 was imperative because there were not enough houses surrounding the Capitol to bed and board congressmen when they came to the city in December 1800.

 

Law decided to build a large house on the square's southeast corner lot so that it could anchor a row of houses going up toward the Capitol as well as a row going west toward South Capitol Street. He would not own all the neighboring houses but he did finance their construction. A court would later agree that doing so also helped satisfy his contract obligation to build 166 houses.(3) As for the style of that corner house, thanks to the city's building regulations, it obviously had to have a bowed front. By the way, that regulation no longer rules. A corner of the Longworth House Office Building which fills Square 689 faces the acute angle of the intersection with a flat front entrance several yards from the intersection. The entrance almost forms half of the hypotenuse to the angle made by the two streets.

 

Oval rooms became the fashion in late 18th century Britain and France. New country seats had them. In 1786, while on a prolonged stay in England, William Hamilton sent instructions on how to build Woodlands, then outside Philadelphia but now in that city's Fairmount Park. His mansion would have two notable oval rooms, a parlor and dining room.(4) However, putting oval rooms in a confined townhouse as opposed to a rambling country house would be more challenging.

 

By 1797, the only oval rooms actually built in the federal city were Hoban's oval rooms in the President's house. No one has ever suggested that Hoban designed Law's or Tayloe's houses. By 1798, thanks to his education, position and income from the Tortola plantation, Thornton was solidly in Law's and the General's social set, while Hoban would never be. Plus, the relationship between Thornton and Law was more than social. They needed each other. For Thornton, Law provided entree to Mount Vernon. His wife made Law part of the family. For Law, Thornton provided information about the board of commissioners, and hopefully support during its deliberations. Thornton had planned oval rooms, albeit very large, for the Capitol and Law would have known about that.  However, in October 1797, Lovering published a notice in Washington, Georgetown and Alexandria newspapers advertising his skills as “Architect, Surveyor and Builder and c." including "to design and make drawings, plans and estimates..." In his Alexandria notice, he added to the headline "(From London)." That phrase may have struck Law. For the first houses he built on New Jersey Avenue, Thomas Law had imported bricks from London.(5)

The first record pertaining to Law's house was made by the commissioner's surveyor who laid out the lot with William Lovering on September 12, 1798. That doesn't prove that he designed the house. He could have simply already been hired to be the supervising architect of Thornton's design. By that date, Lovering had drawn up a detailed contract that he and Law signed. The contract is extant, though not widely known. Archivists mislabeled the eleven page document as being written "circa 1794" so it escaped the scrutiny of researchers interested in what Law was planning to build in 1798. 

The document begins "Particular description and manner of building a house for Thomas Law Esq. fronting the side of New Jersey Avenue and South C Street on Square 689 for $5800 as per drawings marked A.B.C.D.... " The document then specifies building materials, dimensions, and the use of latches, sashes, etc. The "elliptical rooms" are mentioned but not described save for their height, 12 feet and 10 feet respectively, and that its walls were to be framed by wood scantling. Unfortunately, drawings A.B.C.D. have not been found but they were likely Lovering's designs.(6) The contract does not explicitly say that Lovering drew the designs. However, the September survey of the lot made clear to Lovering that the house needed a fifth floor, a basement kitchen, to level the house on the gently sloping lot. Law agreed and they signed an addendum to the contract that "any alteration in the above plan to be allowed for by either party as may be settled between themselves or arbitrators." In regards to the price of materials, Lovering and Law agreed to use Hoban and another builder, Leonard Harbaugh, as arbitrators. That Thornton wasn't involved in the design change suggests that he had nothing do with the design of Law's house.

 

Another clue that Lovering designed Law's house comes from something Thornton wrote and then crossed out. In the draft of his unsent letter to the secretary of state, Thornton explained Hadfield's insubordination in regards to the Executive office design, and that "the board applied to Mr. Lovering to calculate the expense of erecting such a building." After "Mr. Lovering," Thornton wrote and then crossed out "an ingenious A." Evidently, the rhetorician realized that the secretary of state might misinterpret that aside as a complement relating to Lovering's plain Executive office design. What likely had impressed Thornton was the house design Law had recently shown him.  On June 24, the Thorntons drank tea at the Law's. His unsent personal letter to Pickering was drafted over that weekend prior to the letter the board sent to Pickering on June 25th.(7)

Why else would Thornton think that Lovering was an "ingenious A"rchitect the same weekend he had tea with Law? No one then or now thought that his cheapening Hadfield's Executive office design was ingenious. Architectural historian Pamela Scott rues that instead of ''Hadfield’s sophisticated, up-to-date neoclassical building," the city got "a traditional, rather old-fashioned Georgian one."(8)

Lovering asked the board to hire him to build his design. But the board put his design out for bids and Lovering's was the third lowest. So Lovering did not show his ingenuity as a building contractor for the commissioners. In January 1798, the commissioners asked him to evaluate sashes offered by carpenters for the Capitol. He found that one needed an extra inch, with another static electricity might be a worry. As for the third, the molding was too thin. His ability to school everyone might make Lovering "ingenious" but not an "ingenious A." In an October 1798 letter to the board, Lovering claimed that he had a hand in building two-thirds of the houses in the city.(9) It's not likely that the mere number of his projects impressed Thornton. He had never commented on the design features of the Twenty Buildings and nothing about the small houses likely pleased such an exponent of grandeur. That leaves a current project, the design for Law's house, as what likely was on Thornton's mind when he almost complimented Lovering.

But could Lovering have made his design of Law's house before Thornton crossed out "ingenious A?" The commissioners' records note that the board's surveyor and Lovering laid the lot out on September 12. Before September, things weren't going well for Lovering. His attempt to establish a career independent of the bankrupt speculators proved difficult. In January 1798, Nicholson's creditors had Lovering arrested for nonpayment of debts that he incurred while working for Nicholson. The judge would not let Lovering post bail because he did not own any property. The sheriff posted bail for him, which allowed him to dun Lovering for petty cash on demand. All this happened after the Maryland legislature’s relatively short annual session. That prevented him from getting relief under the state's new bankruptcy law until the legislature reassembled in December.

During the building season of 1798, Lovering faced two problems: How to make money without losing it all to Nicholson's creditors, and how to acquire property without paying for it with money. He was told that owning property would leave him less at the mercy of judges and sheriffs. He decided that in lieu of money, he would ask to be paid in property.

The board paid Lovering $300 for his estimate and redesign of the Treasury building. On July 10, 1798, Lovering asked them to apply their payment as down payment on lot 12 in Square 691, southwest of the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and C Streets SE. He likely made the request because he knew Law was going to build on the intersection. That suggests that Law had discussed if not accepted Lovering's design by July 10. But that date is 16 days after Thornton crossed out "ingenious A" in his draft letter.(10)

In 1801, another client of Lovering's described how the architect designed and contracted to build houses. The Belgian emigre Henri Joseph Stier broke off negotiations with Benjamin Latrobe for a country mansion in nearby Maryland. Latrobe struck him as “one of those who do not finish their work." He sought out Lovering. In 1800, in a letter to Greenleaf, Law mentioned that “Steer” was staying in one of his houses. Perhaps Law told Stier about Lovering.

Stier's letters explain how Lovering tried to win a client. Lovering came, Stier wrote to his son, “expressly to show me three different plans, rather ingenious but complicated, and with unattractive facades.... He has proposed to direct my construction with such a plan as I will give him, to attend to the progress and the designs in detail, to come twice each week, and that if I want to hire enough workmen to finish it in twelve months, he will do it for $600....”

In her introduction to a collection of Stier's daughter's letters, Margaret Callcott writes that Lovering "was eager to make himself agreeable to the wealthy Belgium, and all during March [1801] he met regularly with the Stiers and gave them tours around completed houses around Washington." They signed a contract on March 24, 1801, a month after first discussing the project. Architectural historians give Lovering little credit for the design of Riverdale since Stier based the design on his house in Belgium.(11)

 

127. Stier's Riverdale

If Lovering knew where Law was going to build by mid-July, he likely had shown him designs since mid-June and Law likely shared Lovering's ideas with his friend Thornton. By June 24, 1798, when he wrote his draft letter to the secretary of state, Thornton likely knew of Lovering's designs for Law's house.

But, is it possible that Thornton collaborated in some way with the design? After all, since December 1792, he had had ovals on his mind. A letter Lovering wrote to the board in October makes clear that in architectural matters, he did not distinguish Thornton from his colleagues, which is to say, he didn't think Thornton was an architect. Lovering still had two more payments to make on the lot he bought near Law's houses. He asked the board that future payments for his Executive office design be used to cover two more annual payments on that lot. He was clutching at straws. The board had never said it would pay him more than $300, and it told him so. They advised him to take cash and not the lot. Lovering shot back, “I devoted Chearfully my time and Attention to the Office and have saved you at least 10,000 [for two office buildings] in particularizing the Building design and tho it would be natural for you Gentlemen unacquainted with the trouble of architectural details to under estimate my Services....”(10) Obviously, he had not just laid out Law's lot with Thornton's design in hand. Lovering designed Law's house to suit Law's needs and tastes.

That doesn't prove that Thornton didn't design the Octagon, especially if he had designed the General's houses. Tayloe was a stranger to the city and to Law and Lovering, but not to the General. A word from him might have prompted Tayloe to call on the doctor. In the summer of 1798, Thornton certainly had time enough to draw house designs. With money from congress in hand and work on both the Capitol's roof and the Executive office going smoothly, the commissioners parted ways and took vacations. Scott went to medicinal springs for his health. White went to his farm.(13)

 

Thornton visited Mount Vernon in early July. Evidently he was working on his plans for the National University. In August, he gave a "plan" to Thomas Peter who then passed it on to the General on August 26 who sent it back to Peter the next day. The General otherwise did not mention the plan. Congress still showed no interest in the project. Both the editors of Washington's and Thornton's papers suggest the plan in question was a design for the General's houses. However, in January 1796, Thornton had told White that he was working on a "plan" for the National University and would pass it around to friends for comment. Why would the General return the plan to Peter the next day if the plan was a design for his houses? He didn't react to the plan for the university because congress had tabled the memorial urging its creation. That set back was arguably the major embarrassment the General endured while he was president.(14)

In early September, the General asked Commissioner White to send him the prices of available lots on Capitol Hill. On September 6, White went with the board's surveyor to identify lots, had a map made, checked with his colleagues about prices and reported to the General on the 8th. On September 12, 1798, Washington revealed his project in a letter to White. He boasted "I never require much time to execute any measure after I have resolved upon it." He even wanted the commissioners to find a contractor to "dig the Cellars, & lay the foundation" that fall "(and the earlier the better)." Then next summer, he wanted two joined houses built together as that "will look better, & come cheaper than building them seperately or at different times...." Then he discussed the design of the house, even though he was "not skilled in Architecture, and perhaps know as little of planning." He wanted the houses "plain," and enclosed "a sketch, to convey my ideas of the size of the houses, rooms, & manner of building them; to enable you [the commissioners] to enter into the Contract." In closing the letter, he added "My plan when it comes to be examined, may be radically wrong; if so, I persuade myself that Doctr Thornton (who understands these matters well) will have the goodness to suggest alterations."(15)

The General's floor plan

 

The General's parenthetical comment confirms posterity's take on Thornton. But one generally doesn't laud another in a parenthesis. The way the General used it was akin to the humorous asides in 18th century British comedies. White likely got the joke. He had to endure Thornton's pouting about a 50 foot high modallion. His latest was objecting to the board getting around their inability to find mahogany to make doors by giving pine doors a mahogany finish. Thornton insisted that "mahogany is recommended by the best writers in architecture." If the General really wanted Thornton's opinion why did he write to White? As it turned out, White immediately gave the floor plan to Thornton. (16)

The board had to find a contractor which was not White's forte. Alone with the plan, Thornton did not "suggest alterations." If he saw it, which he likely did given the board's spirit of collegiality, he never revealed his reaction to the General's letter to White. He must have been shocked that the General used White to arrange matters with the board. The elderly Virginia lawyer knew nothing about architecture and little about the city. Due to his wife's protestations, the president had excused White from having to move to the city. Thornton had designed the Capitol and had thoroughly studied the city plan, had taken levels of the city, contemplated its landscaping, and, most pertinent, had invested in the city while White had not. Constrained from writing an angry letter to the man he worshiped, Thornton reacted by finding a way to compensate for the blow and to at least restore his reputation in the eyes of his colleagues and others.

On September 21, the day the General chose two lots, Thornton handed a letter to his colleagues asking that the board finally award him the lot that, along with the $500, was the award for winning the Capitol design contest. Doing that was not a simple matter. The prospectus for the design contest required "impartial judges" to designate the lot. On October 1, 1798, Thomas Law and Notley Young, two advocates for the East side of the city, awarded Thornton a lot next to the General's. An obvious motive for arranging to get the lot was to profit from one of the most significant real estate transactions in the city's short history. The board sold the public lot to the General for $535.70. With the General building on it, the lots nearby would be worth much more. But Thornton was loath to give that impression.

Thornton decided to couch his letter to his colleagues in way that made it seem that he was getting his due for making sure the North Wing conformed to his original design. He had been

 

prevented by motives of delicacy from requesting your attention to a claim which I have from my drawings for the capitol of the United States being approved by the late President of the United States and the commissioners, our predecessors, which plan, though deviated in some respects, I restored and accommodated to my original ideas, and furnished correspondent elevations and sections for the same, which have thus far been carried into execution, and as no material change is now contemplated it is presumed the whole will be completed upon the plan now adopted.(17) 

 

Scott and White, both lawyers, authorized his getting a lot, but didn't reply to their colleague. Because they didn't contradict Thornton, in his authoritative 1914 history of the city, W. B. Bryan insisted that proved that Thornton had indeed restored his original design.

 

However, having joined the board well after the July 1793 conference and after Thornton's plans went missing, Scott and White were in no position to judge and they evidently did not ask the president or Hoban for their opinion. Evidently they did not even tell the president that Thornton was given a lot adjoining his. While spending three nights at Mount Vernon in early October, Thornton did not share the news with his host.(18)

 

Until mid-September, the General dealt with White, and then he corresponded with the board. They arranged for George Blagden, who with the stone work ending was no longer needed at the Capitol, to build the houses. The General asked them to draw up a contract with Blagden and use their knowledge of suppliers and subcontractors to make sure he wasn't being cheated. Then the General bristled at Blagden's $12,982.29 estimate of the cost of the houses. He knew that Law had contracted to build a house, "not much if any less than my two," for under $6,000. He had calculated that his house would cost $8,000, or $10,000 at most. So, he decided "to suspend any final decision until I see Mr Blagdens estimate in detail, with your observations thereupon; and what part of the work I can execute with my own Tradesmen, thereby reducing the advances." In their reply, signed by Thornton, the commissioners admitted that they were not "able to say whether the Estimate on that subject is reasonable or not.... Hoban is confined by indisposition, or we would have taken his opinion on Mr Blagdin’s Estimate."(19) Thornton seemed as clueless as his colleagues and obviously had not designed the General or Law's houses.

Then on October 18, the day after receiving a letter from Thornton, the General honored him with a long reply. Thornton's letter is no longer extant. In his reply, the General thanked him "for the details - as I shall do on similar future occasions." The General appreciated Thornton as a source of information, but did not ask for advice. He simply announced how he planned to lower the contracted price for the house by using his own "people" to do some of the carpentry. He also wanted the foundation dug and laid that autumn. Thornton replied on the 25th with an offer to send a specimen of different moldings to Mount Vernon so that with models to work with, his people could shape the wood before they brought it to the city. Thornton added that he and White had "formed a contract, with which Mr. Blagdin will wait on you." That gives the impression that Thornton chose the molding. However, the General had asked the commissioners to form a contract only after some back and forth between Blagden and the General. He had asked them to simply "cause efficient articles to be drawn under your Inspection & correction." He had not asked them to change the specifications regarding the molding detailed by Blagden. As it turned, out Thornton never sent molding to Mount Vernon. The General balked at "sending Negro Carpenters to the City, and having them to provide for there."(20)

 

Then Thornton offered another way to lower the contract estimate for the house. He prefaced his offer by revealing that "the Board allowed me the lot adjoining yours (it being awarded to me by Messrs. Young and Law for the premium which I had not demanded from motives of Delicacy, but which I was entitled to for my plans of Capitol.)" Then he offered to build a three story brick house “or Houses on a similar plan” next door and assume the full cost of the party wall. However, there was a hitch. Thornton added that he could not build until he recovered from “some late heavy losses; not in Speculations, but matters of Confidence, to the amount of between four and five thousand Dollars, I should have been enabled to carry up a house now - I hope, however, to assist in making a respectable row of houses."
    

Did Thornton answer the parenthetical dig at his reputation in the General's letter to White, with a parenthetical riposte? He did get a lot, but his colleagues did not answer his letter confirming his claims nor did they inform the General. His letter did not ignite a discussion, let alone a celebration of his restoration of his design. The Capitol seemed parenthetical to those gentlemen. Or, did he merely try to gain some credit from the General without claiming, as he did in his letter to his colleagues, that "no material change is now contemplated it is presumed the whole will be completed upon the plan now adopted." The General had never acknowledged that and had never endorsed the elevation then hanging in Thornton's parlor. Not knowing what he had written to the General on the 15th or 16th, it is impossible to be sure what Thornton was thinking. That lost letter inspired the General to begin a correspondence with Thornton unlike the pattern of their previous trading of long letters and curt responses. Having found the topic the General wanted to address, his house, Thornton had no motive, for the moment, to belabor the Capitol. The General had never really discussed the Capitol with him, so why harp on it and jeopardize the collaboration with the General that had just begun. 

 

Indeed, the understanding between gentlemen that Thornton assumed must have been exhilarating. He implied that he would be able to save the General money pending correcting a misunderstanding with his bankers. Likely the "heavy losses" Thornton alluded to was his inability to mortgage his share of the Tortola plantation or his Lancashire property after his grandmother's death in 1797. All to say, bankers did not have enough confidence in him to loan him "between four and five thousand dollars." (They never would even though Thornton likely tried to impress them with his owning the lot next to General. In 1802, he assigned the lot to his mother-in-law. He or she never built on it.)(21)

 

In his reply, the General did not pry into Thornton's losses. He had used the same excuse at times: money rightfully expected was not forthcoming. Assuming all would turn out right, the General promised to share the cost of the party wall and authorized Thornton to get needed specifications from the contractor. The General did find a way to assuage Thornton's obvious desire to have something to do with the houses: “as you reside in the City, and [are] always there, and have moreover been so obliging as to offer to receive the Bills and pay their amount (when presented by Mr Blagden) I will avail myself of this kindness."(22)

To perform that service, the General and Thornton had to correspond. The doctor became interested in residential architecture. The General teased him for his reliance on the books he had so often cited in his dissents to the board's decisions. In a December 20 letter, the General decided to change in his design: "I saw a building in Philadelphia of about the same front and elevation that are to be given to my two houses, which pleased me. It consisted also of two houses united - doors in the center - a pediment in the roof and dormer window on each side of it in front - skylights in the rear. If it is not incongruous with rules of architecture, I should be glad to have my two houses executed in this style."

Thornton wrote back: "it is a desideratum in architecture to hide as much as possible the roof - for which reason in London, there is a generally a parapet to hide the dormer windows. The pediment may with propriety be introduced, but I have some doubts with respect to its adding any beauty"

Washington replied: "Rules of architecture are calculated, I presume, to give symmetry, and just proportion to all the orders, and parts of the building, in order to please the eye. Small departures from strict rules are discoverable only by skilful architects, or by the eye of criticism, while ninety-nine in a hundred - deficient of their knowledge - might be pleased with things not quite orthodox. This, more than probable, would be the case relative to a pediment in the roof over the doors of my houses in the city." The best that can said of Thornton's contribution to the design of the General's house is that two months after the building contract was signed, the General did share his intention to change the design. Thornton argued against the idea, and the General did not take his advice. His house would not have a parapet.(23)

131. Two houses built by the General on right. Street below had been leveled during construction of the New Capitol. The house on the left was not built by Thornton

Tayloe's house would have a parapet. However, in the several letters that passed between the General and the doctor, there was no mention of Tayloe's house until April 19, 1799, three weeks before ground was broken for the house. When the doctor prescribed a parapet for the General, he did not cite Tayloe's exemplary design. However, there is evidence that Tayloe had not yet put his mind to getting a design. The first known mention of the  house was in a February 10, 1799, letter that Tayloe wrote to the General.

 

In July 1798, President Adams asked the General to once again be a general, and raise a provisional army to defend the country from possible French aggression. John Tayloe III promptly volunteered and on January 23 the Senate confirmed the appointment of the General's officers. The General notified Tayloe that he would be one of two majors in the dragoons. 

 

132. 18th century dragoon

 

He also recalled that in late 1797, Tayloe had expressed interest in buying "Jack Asses when I shd be disposed to part with any." The General offered him "three for $800, and one for $300." He added that "Ready money would be very convenient to me, as my buildings in the City call for it...." In his reply sent on February 10, Tayloe explained that becoming an officer would force him to vacate his seat in the Virginia senate. "Respecting the Jack," Tayloe explained that his father-in-law gave him "a very fine one—consequently my wants on that head [are] supplied—Beside this—I am anxious to appropriate every shilling I can raise—towards the improvements I contemplate putting up in the F. City.”(24)

 

The General replied promptly and assured him that he need not accept the commission until the war actually started. He didn't mention houses, or Thornton who had just spent two nights at Mount Vernon. Tayloe wrote to the General from Mount Airy. State politics had kept him near Richmond that winter. In February, he joined his wife in her "confinement" after she gave birth to a son on January 29. That meant he would not head north for another 40 days or so. Then when he did leave on March 26, he got sick on the road and returned to Mount Airy. He did not get to the Federal City until mid-April.(25)

 

There is evidence that Tayloe had a design in hand and a contract all but signed by March 9. On that day, William Lovering wrote to John Nicholson: “I shall not be able to get any business at this place owing to being insolvent. I could have had a Building to do upon a contract close to fifteen thousand dollars for a Gentleman in Virginia but could get no security therefore have lost it and I hope and trust you will do something for me.” The letter doesn't prove that Lovering made a design for Tayloe's house, but Lovering's contract to build Law's house shows that he had drawings A. B. C. and D. before he drew up a contract. Why would the cost conscious Tayloe who was "anxious" about "every shilling" operate differently?

 

Is it possible that Tayloe actually had Thornton's design in hand and asked Lovering to estimate its cost and build it? Beginning in December 1798 and for a few months after, Mrs. Thornton began listing notables who came to their F Street house for dinner. In his October 25, 1798, letter to the General, Thornton mentioned that Presley Thornton, no relation, may have sold some federal city lots to Tayloe, but that he, Thornton, had not seen either gentleman recently. That suggests that Thornton had a relationship with both. Tayloe is not on Mrs. Thornton's list, but in January, Presley Thornton as well as the General are. They came at different times but their ties to Tayloe were tight. The Virginia Thornton's and Tayloe's fathers had been business partners and the General knew them both. To contact Thornton, Tayloe could have used the good offices of other gentlemen who went back forth from federal city to their Virginia seats. 

However, if Thornton and Tayloe messaged each other, it was probably about horses. The General had sold his only race horse a decade earlier, but he came to dinner with the Peters, and Thomas Peter owned thoroughbreds. Presley Thornton dined with the William Thorntons on January 2 and were joined by the Fitzhughs. Until the advent of the Tayloes, the Fitzhugh family had been the lions of the turf in Virginia. The Thorntons had dined with the Fitzhugh a week earlier.1 In January 1800, Tayloe sent a message to Thornton through Fitzhugh and what Mrs. Thornton wrote in her diary suggests that the message had to do with horses not the house. Indeed back in 1799, Tayloe may have tried to sell Thornton a horse. Tayloe placed an ad dated April 4 offering "for sale and at a great bargain if immediately applied for the celebrated running horse Gabriel." At the same time, Thornton was arranging to buy horses in England with the help of his rich cousin in England, Isaac Pickering. Driver and Clifden who would land in Norfolk in November.

 
Unfortunately, in 1799, Mrs. Thornton only listed names, with one notable exception. On January 20, a sculptor spent the day with the Thornton's and "began to model Dr. T's profile in wax...." Evidently his future fame was on his mind. Why else a profile in was, the Thorntons had no children. At the same time, Thornton set in motion a scheme to leave no doubt that he was chiefly responsible for the Capitol. He planned to be the last architect standing. As Commissioner White put in an 1802  letter to President Jefferson, "both of the my colleagues were desirous of getting Hoban out of the way and amazing exertions were made to find something in his conduct which would justify them in dismissing him."(29)

At first Thornton stood alone. He moved for an investigation of a charge that Hoban fired a carpenter because he would not join the artillery militia. There was no second. Then Thornton broadened the investation and Scott joined him. In February 1799, the board asked carpenters and joiners for complaints against both Hoban and Redmund Purcell who played such a large role in getting Hadfield out of the way. Scott also thought he was the source of a rumor that the commissioner stole building materials from the public stores for his own house. The board soon charged Purcell for not properly supervising men working under him during the winter. He even paid slave sawyers their shilling a day while doing little work. Purcell asked for time to prepare a defense. The board gave him two days and then fired him when he didn't appear before a board of carpenters chosen to hear his case. Commissioner White, a lawyer, didn't like that rush to judgment.(30)

Meanwhile, when Hoban heard that the board had received letters from workers impugning his conduct, he asked the board to share that evidence. The investigation centered on the complaints of an English joiner, Joseph Middleton, who claimed that Hoban did not provide the drawings and materials he needed to build shutters that the board hired him to build. On March 12, Hoban explained that he had given Middleton what he needed to make doors and doubted he had time to make shutters.

As the investigations continued, the board ordered Hoban to estimate the cost of getting the Capitol in a state to receive congress in December 1800. He had done annual estimates for work on the President's house that the board had sent to congress, but he had designed and supervised construction of that building. He replied that he could not very well estimate expenses at the Capitol for the coming season because he had no "plan or sections of the building to calculate by, nor the parts in detail, all which should be put into the hands of the superintendent." Hoban knew of that requirement because he too had been a design contest winner.

Hoban's letter was disingenuous. No one knew the Capitol design better than he did. He had seen and criticized Thornton's original design, endorsed Hallet's revision of it, and defended it against Hadfield in 1795. He superintended construction when the foundation was laid, and since 1798 when the building was covered with a roof. The board did not react or respond to his letter.

Unlike Purcell, Hoban asked the board to begin hearing evidence at once and that process continued until April 9. Then in an April 12 letter to White, Purcell announced his determination "to pour broadsides" into the hulls of Thornton and Scott. He attacked "the fribbling quack architect who smuggled his name to the only drawing of sections for the Capitol ever delivered to the commissioners' office, made out by another man." There were also no updated plans based on the work already done, and Thornton should draw them. In his attack, Purcell mentioned Thornton's extant elevation, but it was not in the hands of the superintendent: "The original plan is hung as a trophy to science in his [Thornton's] parlor." The letter was published on April 16.

On April 15, Hoban asked the board for "drawings necessary for carrying on the following work at the Capitol, viz. 1st. The East entrance and staircase, 2nd. The Elliptic staircase, 3rd. The back staircase, 4. The Representatives Chamber, 5. The Senate Chamber." This time the board reacted to Hoban's request. White had already signaled his sympathy for Hoban, and evidently persuaded Scott to stop the investigation. Why did Scott switch?

In 1802, congress abolished the board. President Jefferson then appointed its clerk to take over the commissioners' duties, which for the moment entailed only accommodating the government and not finishing the Capitol and President's house. To save money and because he was not needed, the new superintendent gave Hoban notice. He threatened to sue on the grounds that the board had renewed his contract in 1801 on condition that he work until the Capitol and President's house "shall be finished." That puzzled the president who then asked White about Hoban's reaction to being fired. White didn't recall the contract renewal which he never would have approved. He had not seen Hoban since leaving the board but did opine that in 1799, Hoban "would then have disputed their right,..." to dismiss him. In 1799, White likely persuaded lawyer Scott that Hoban's case against Thornton for dereliction of duty was likely stronger than any case that could be made against Hoban who had built the President's house and was finishing the North Wing of the Capitol.

White and Scott passed Hoban's request on to Thornton and reminded him that in 1795, he had written a letter to his colleagues assuring them that he would provide drawings to carry on the work. They also noted that doing so was an obligation of the design contest winner. Indeed, "your letter of 17th of November 1795 admits the principle." That suggests that Thornton had never practiced that principal. If he had, his colleagues could simply ask him to supply the drawings as usual.

Thornton wrote the draft of his reply to his colleagues on April 17. He began by pointing out that he had already made enough drawings and that he was on hand to give advice. He reminded them that the "late Superintendent," meaning Hadfield, was "expressly engaged to furnish the detailed drawings.…" No historian has produced an example of Thornton sketching something for Hadfield to draw. He didn’t, for example, sketch the Capitol roof and relied on forcing Hadfield to stipulate in writing that the roof would not be higher than the balustrade.

Thornton found an ingenious way to split hairs and free himself from any principle that he should make drawings in order to get the Capitol ready for congress. He reminded the board that it "had determined not to finish the rooms in a splendid and expensive style at present but in a plain manner...." He argued that such "plain" expedients to get the building ready for use were not part of his design and not his responsibility. The stairways were to be temporary and made of wood. They were an expedient. Otherwise, he would be anxious to make drawings. He evidently forgot that in his November 1795 letter he had written "...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."

Then he launched into a written description of features in each room and his descriptions were not plain nor expedient. As for the Senate chamber, he wrote: "I propose that the columns be executed in the ancient Ionic order with the volutes curved in the middle over the column and with an astragal below the volutes to form a neck to the column: the shaft of the column plain - the entablature full but plain and without modilions."

That's not exactly from Chambers who described Ionic columns with "angular volutes with an astragal and fillet below the volute." Chambers at least provided a glossary. A volute is a scroll. An astragal is "a small moulding whose profile is semi-circular."Thornton wished marble for the columns but accepted substitutes. But he offered no drawings. He also noted times when the board had asked Hoban for drawings, and suggested that doing drawings had always been Hoban's job.

Thus, the First Architect of the Capitol, in the eyes of historians, stood his ground. On April 18, his colleagues asked Hoban to make the necessary drawings "as conveniently you can."(31) Meanwhile, Tayloe didn't head north until mid-April and on the 17th dined with the General at Mount Vernon, then left after breakfast. On the 19th, Thornton informed the General that Tayloe signed a contract for a house. Thornton likely witnessed the signatures.

If he had made the house design, the way he shared the news demonstrated uncharacteristic humility. His April 19 letter to the General was principally about the dangers of wooden sills getting damp. Thornton mentioned the Tayloe house as the third item in a string of gossip. He briefly reported the death and internment of the Daltons' daughter, the planned visit to Mount Vernon of several gentlemen from Baltimore, as well as: "Mr J. Tayloe of Virga has contracted to build a House in the City near the President’s Square of $13,000 value." He didn't mention who designed the house.  The General had very likely never heard of Lovering and in his letters Thornton was loath to focus attention on others.(32) 

Evidently by May 1799, Lovering solved his problems with security that prevented him from signing a contract with Tayloe during the winter. He was hired to be the superintending architect. There is no evidence that in the interval he raised money or established a line of credit so how he seemed to pass muster may reflect on the question of who made the design. That Tayloe took the risk of eventually hiring Lovering to oversee building the house suggests other builders turned down the job involving oval rooms. That in turn suggests that if he were the only builder able to address the problem then, contrary to opinions of Ridout and Harris, he was able to have designed the problem.

His letters to Nicholson whose insolvency was the root of his problems show that Lovering's financial situation was bleak.  

During the summer of 1798, ever worried that he might be arrested, the arrival of his adult son from his first marriage added to Lovering's burdens. He began to plan a return to England. At the end of August, a friend of Nicholson's warned the speculator of the possible loss of “a man of abilities." Laying out Law's lot two weeks later kept him in the country. In the fall of 1798, while Lovering waited for the Maryland legislature to convene, he had to advertise his intention to declare bankruptcy. His advertisement excited his creditors, who then leaned on the sheriff to arrest him. On December 4, Lovering wrote to Nicholson that “the advertisement of my intentions has been a great injury to me for I should have had several buildings...."

In that same letter, he told Nicholson that he had conferred with William Hammond Dorsey, the agent for the trustees who were trying to extract money from the bankrupt speculators. Dorsey would become Tayloe's agent in the city handling the finances for the Octagon project. He was also selected as Georgetown’s senator in the Maryland legislature. Lovering mentioned to Nicholson that several legislators were helping him get bankruptcy protection. (25)

In December, Lovering went to Annapolis where he found that other legislators questioned whether he was a citizen of Maryland, a requisite for getting protection. (Until congress moved to the District of Columbia, all who lived in the federal city lived in Maryland.) Just before adjourning in January, the legislature passed a bill granting him protection, provided he could prove his citizenship to the Chancellor, who was the highest legal officer in the state. When he appeared before the Chancellor for a final decision, creditors complained about the inadequacy of Lovering's bookkeeping, and his case was put off until February.(26)

Lovering viewed the snag as a mere formality. On January 22, 1799, he appealed to Nicholson and Morris on their honor not to use his bankruptcy petition as a pretext for withholding what they owed him. Lovering understood that they were short of cash so he asked for Tennessee land as compensation, and claimed that he planned to go to London in the spring where he could easily sell it. Soon after he wrote that letter, he learned of Tayloe's project and tried to land a contract. The likely way that he heard about Tayloe's project was through Dorsey who had helped him in Annapolis. Then it seems Lovering's process of wooing a client with a choice of designs came up empty because his financial predicament made his assets suspect and getting security from others risky.(27) However, he wound up being the superintending architect of the project for which he was paid $900.

The "ingenious A" might have joined Thornton on April 27th, and Tayloe may have pulled strings to get him there. On April 10, the new sheriff notified Lovering that his creditors had writs that would force the sheriff to seize all of Lovering's property the following day. He would also put a notice in the newspaper warning people not to do business with him. Because court was in session at the county seat in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, there were no lawyers in town to help Lovering. Someone advised him to hurry to Annapolis and see the Chancellor.

Lovering lacked money for the trip. He got it from Thomas Law. In Annapolis, Lovering saw the Chancellor, who quashed the sheriff's writs. This is such a fairy tale ending to Lovering's crisis that one has to suspect the fine hand of a superior power. Indeed, in November, the legislature had elected Benjamin Ogle governor. He was Tayloe's father-in-law. Lovering had the joy of writing to Nicholson, who by then had joined Morris in Philadelphia's Prune Street debtors prison, about the reaction of their creditors when Lovering gave them the Chancellor's order: “You would have been pleased to see their chagrin." Tayloe or his agent Dorsey also reacted in that they hired him to supervise construction of Tayloe's house. That raises the question, assuming that they helped Lovering get bankruptcy protection, would they have gone to such lengths if Lovering had not also designed the house? (34)

However, Lovering evidently didn't sign the contract Thornton mentioned in his April 19 letter. In an April 22 letter to Nicholson, Lovering sounded like a man with no hope: “I have nothing to do here and shall be soon be on my way to Philadelphia, as I now am down to the last shilling without any hope of getting any relief,...”(19) Then suddenly, Lovering landed on his feet. During its session the Maryland legislature had authorized a tax levy for repairs to or replacement of the Prince George's County Courthouse in Upper Marlboro. On April 26, the justices of the Levy Court opted for a new courthouse and asked "William Lovering of the City of Washington Architect, to draft a plan thereof...." He would receive $400 for his design and construction of the building would be under his "Direction and Inspection."(20)

139A. What had been built under Lovering was later added to throughout the 19th century. The porch and back buildings were not his design. The secular steeple was likely within the $12,000 budget for the project.

On April 25, 1799, Thomas Law wrote to George Washington that “your corner stone is to be laid today and I am to attend” and that same day Law would sign a building contract.  Presumably, thanks to the Chancellor's order Lovering signed that contract to build Law’s house just three days after his morose letter to Nicholson. Lovering could now also sign Tayloe's contract. Work began in early May. Lovering stopped writing to Nicholson who died while in prison in December 1800.

But after all that, Tayloe could have hired Lovering to build a design drawn by Thornton. Tayloe's contract is not extant. Ridout found nothing in Tayloe's papers revealing the design process for the Octagon. The principle pieces of evidence cited as proof that Thornton designed the Octagon are two unsigned and undated floor plans that resemble the floor plan of the house as built. Evidently, circa 1896, Glenn Brown drew the first extant floor plan of the innovative design.

 

 

Ridout argues that "a careful comparison of these two preliminary plans with the first-floor plan of the house as built leaves little doubt of their relationship. The jumble of conflicting and asymmetrically placed geometric forms of the first plan

 

 

has largely been organized in the second,

 

 

 

Ridout doesn't note that the first design only has 5 windows facing the streets instead of 9. The first design also shows an aversion to rectangular rooms. On the floor depicted, the only rectangular room is small and next to the stair case.The second and actual floor plan make rectangular rooms the principal rooms. The floor plan that Ridout identifies as the first preliminary design is an outlier that apart from being suitable to face an angled intersections has no logical relationship to the other preliminary floor plan or the actual house. In May 1797, Thornton had bought bought a triangulated lot that faced the President's house. He likely drew the first design for that lot. The other design in his papers was likely a copy of one of the three preliminary designs Lovering offered or sent to Tayloe that Thornton used as a model for his design.

Back to Thornton's dated activities. On April 27, Thornton jotted down in a notebook where he occasionally kept track of his activities that he "set out Mr. Tayloe's lot." The official process of setting out a lot required a representative of the board in consultation with the architect and/or property owner to ascertain that the design conformed to building regulations. Thornton didn't note who represented Tayloe. Whether a curvilinear front could be parallel to intersecting straight streets was a question that required special understanding from the commissioners' representative. Law's design had already gotten a pass, but Tayloe's design was different. The front wall with a protruding oval had several feet of flat wall on either side of the bow. That part of the wall did not parallel the nearby streets. It marked a hypotenuse to the angled intersection.

Thornton was likely there representing the commissioners so that he could do Tayloe a favor for the very good reason that he needed Tayloe's services to train the three year old Driver who he was in the process of buying in England. Offering a house design is a dangerous favor to give. New houses can be costly and problematical, but bending a rule? That said, Tayloe wasn't in the federal city on April 27. He had returned to Mount Airy for the crucial Virginia elections in which he was re-elected to the state senate.1 One would think that if Thornton had designed the house and condescended to also set the lot, that Tayloe would have been gentleman enough to be there. If Lovering had designed the house, he would have felt no obligation at all to be there.

 

It would seem that with work beginning on the house, the design process had ended. However, C. M. Harris suggests that Thornton designed the house after the contract was signed and work began: "Thornton's work on his design for Tayloe can be dated to the period between April and September 1799 on the basis of letters he wrote to George Washington."(36)

 

He primarily wrote to the General about the General's houses, and not as much about them as he hoped. He tried and failed to become superintending architect. In March, the General had relied on his nephew Lawrence Lewis to see what Blagden was up to and learned from him that nothing had been done. He knew that his secretary Tobias Lear was staying with Thornton and getting treatment for a lame leg. He asked Lear, not Thornton, to prod Blagden. Lear told his host and, on April 19, in the same letter that he mentioned Tayloe's contract, the doctor reported to General that he couldn't find Blagden but his partner "informed me that every Contract was made, and every material provided for." Thornton also "visited the workmen the Day before yesterday, & they progress to my Satisfaction. I took the liberty of directing Stone Sills to be laid, instead of wooden ones, to the outer Doors of the Basement, as wood decays very soon, when so much exposed to the damp; but I desired Mr Blagdin would do them with as little expense as possible." 

In reply, the General allowed that he expected the sills to be stone. But Thornton never again mentioned correcting Blagden's workers. He was careful not to cross that line again. In a 1799 letter to his old Lancashire friend Thomas Wilkinson, he wrote: "The late President General Washington, who appointed me here, continues to honor me with his particular friendship. I frequently visit and am visited by this great and good man, besides corresponding. He is now building two Government Houses in this city, and has confided to me his money transactions here, as a friend...."(35) Evidently, the General thought Thornton honest enough to transfer his payments to Blagden, but the legacy of Thornton's incompetence as an overseer of work gave the General pause.(32) As the work progressed, the General schooled Thornton. He reminded Thornton to get the contractors to paint sashes before installing them, instructed him on the proper mixture of sand in the paint for the walls and lectured him on plaster of Paris. After that last lesson, Thornton referred him to a pamphlet on the subject written by a Pennsylvania judge. While president, Washington had asked the judge to do the research and write the pamphlet.(37)

Stymied at correcting details, Thornton looked at the big picture. The General asked Thornton to find out what would be the  customary rent for houses like his. In his reply, Thornton discussed the issue at length, concluded that 10% of the cost of construction would be fair, but he had a better idea: "...preserve them unrented, and keep them for sale, fixing a price on them together or separately; and I have no Doubt you could sell them for nine or ten thousand Dollars each, and if you were inclined to lay out the proceeds again in building other Houses this might be repeated to your Advantage, without any trouble, with perfect safety from risk, and to the great improvement of the City." In reply, other than thanking him "for the information, and sentiments," the General didn't react to Thornton's suggestion that in the waning years of his illustrious life, he become a real estate developer. Then Thornton drove away a boarding house manager who back in September 1798 had expressed an interest in renting the house. Because the prospective renter wanted to build back buildings, Thornton wrote to the General that he “refused to name any price.”(38)

 
On September 1, in reply to a note from the General about his next payment to Blagden, Thornton wrote a long letter that tried to compensate for he and his wife not making a visit to Mount Vernon as they had hoped. They"meant to have paid our respects to you and Mrs Washington Yesterday, but Mr Tayloe of Mount Airy spent the Day with us, and Mr Wm Hamilton of the Woodlands, near Philada is to be with us tomorrow. He is returning immediately, and laments he cannot have the happiness of paying you a Visit...." Hamilton's Woodlands had oval rooms, too, but the proximity of Thornton, Hamilton, Tayloe and Tayloe's house did not inspire Thornton to share his thoughts on oval rooms or Tayloe's house. 

 

Then after explaining the latest bill from Blagden, he reported on progress in the city without mentioning Tayloe's house:

 

Our late Sales [of lots] have been very productive, and purchases of great extent have been made by persons resident in Baltimore. We shall continue them as long as we find Purchasers. The Trustees, of Morris & Nicholson, are going to finish the Houses at the Point.... The Navy-Yard will be fixed, I have reason to believe, where I recommended it—in the Space South of Square 930. The Board voted a portion of the Marine-hospital Square for that purpose. I remonstrated to them & to the Secretary of the Navy, stating the impropriety of touching Grounds already appropriated, and wished also the point of the City to be left for a Military Academy; for parade-Ground; for the Exercise of the great Guns; for Magazines, &c. &c....

In his brief reply, the General didn't react but his secretary Tobias Lear did: "I hope the grand and magnificent will be combined with the useful in all the new public undertakings. We are not working for our selves or our children; but for ages to come, and the works should be admired as well as used. Your wharves and the introduction of running water are among the first objects. Let no little mindedness or contracted views of private interest prevent their being accomplished upon the most extensive and beautiful plan that the nature of things will admit of - and - But hold, I am talking to one who has considered and understands these subjects much better than myself, and who, I trust, will exert himself to have everything done in the best manner."

Simply put, Thornton did not give the impression that he was interested in designing a house. He had more important things to do. In September, just after Thornton had spent four night at Mount Vernon, the General gave his nephew Lawrence Lewis 2000 acres and urged him to build a house. He had just married the last of Martha Washington's unmarried grand daughters. But the General didn't mention the house to Thornton.(40)

In November 1799, the General came to the city, riding by Tayloe's and checking on his own houses. He also went inside Law's almost finished house. In April, Law sent a letter to Greenleaf describing the General's reaction. house and the visit. He "was so pleased with it, that he said "I would never recommend to a wife to counteract her husband's wishes but in this instance, and I advise Mrs. Law not to agree to a sale." At the end of the day, Law, another proprietor, Commissioner White and Thornton accompanied the General back to Mount Vernon and spent the night. There is no evidence that the party of gentlemen patted Thornton on the back for designing the houses then under construction that were a likely a topic of their conversation.(41)

Of the two commissioners, White seemed more interested in housing in the federal city. Ten days later after visiting Mount Vernon, Thornton and White formed the board and wrote a letter alerting President Adams that for lack of money the President's house might not be finished. If so, there were three houses that might be rented each better than what the president rented in Philadelphia. In a private letter sent in December, White revealed what houses he and Thornton had in mind: Tayloe's house, Law's house and the mansion Daniel Carroll had built in 1798 just south of Capitol Hill.(42)

 

Both commissioners wrote to the General after the Maryland legislature signaled its support for the Potomac Company as well as the Chesapeake and Delaware canal. On December 8, the General replied to both. He wrote to White about housing problems on Capitol Hill. He wrote to Thornton about canals and the future of the city: Thanks to "...the obstructions continually thrown in its way—by friends or enemies—this City has had to pass through a firey trial—Yet, I trust will, ultimately, escape the Ordeal with eclat. Instead of a firey trial it would have been more appropriate to have said, it has passed, or is on its passage through, the Ordeal of local interests, destructive Jealousies, and inveterate prejudices; as difficult, and as dangerous I conceive, as any of the other ordeals."(43)

The General died at Mount Vernon on December 14, 1799. If Thornton had been the superintendent overseeing the project, or had designed the house, the family might have relied on his assistance in finishing the house. He did help them close the books on the General's expenditures, but did so unceremoniously. With his passing, anything to do with the General became a relic of his character. Thornton sent his slave Joe Key to get receipts from Blagden. In one of the first entries in the diary she began keeping in January, his wife described him having "superintended them as a friend" but only in so far as "the money paid to the undertaker of them having all gone through my husband's." They inspected the house on the 4th and 12th, and then she never mentioned it again. Historians try to draw inferences from her diary as evidence that he designed Tayloe's and Law's houses, but, upon close examination they don't hold up. Her diary did describe the beginnings of his rivalry with Tayloe which all but proves that he didn't design the Octagon. 

 

  Go the Chapter 11

 Footnotes for Chapter 10

1. Brown,  1896, p. 63; Chernow, Ron, Washington: a Life,  p. 794;

2.  Harris, Charles M.,  William Thornton 1759-1828,  LOC; Harris, Papers of William Thornton, p. 588.

3. Pratt v. Law, No. 659, US Supreme Court, 9 Cranch 456, pp. 779ff; Clark, Greenleaf and Law p. 255.

4. Corosino, Catherine Ann, The Woodlands: Documentation of an American Interior, Thesis, U. of Penn, 1997.

5. ad in 16 December 1797 Washington Gazette; 14 November 1797, Alexandria Advertiser 

6. Bryan, p. 311; Mount Vernon Museum, "Particular description..." ;   

7. WT to Pickering 23-25 June 1798 draft; AMT papers on-line volume one, image 83.

8. Scott, Pamela, "Designing the Executive Office Buildings."

9.  Lovering to commrs., June 21, 1798; commrs. proceedings June 20, 1798; Lovering to commrs., January 9, 1798, commrs. records.; proceedings 12 January 1798; Lovering to commrs., October 4, 1798, commrs. records.

10.  Lovering to Nicholson, January 14, 1798, Nicholson papers; Lovering to Commissioners, 10 July, 4 October, 1798, Commrs. records.

11. Margaret Law Callcott, editor, Mistress of Riverdale, pp. 28-9; Law to Greenleaf, April 9, 1800, Adams Papers.

12. Lovering to Commrs. 4 October, 1798, Commrs. records.

13. Mrs. Dalton to Abigail Adams, 28 July 1798;

14.  GW to Peter 27 August 1798; Harris pp. 473-4.

15. White to GW, 8 September 1798; GW to White, 12 September 1798.

16. On GW's sense of humor see Manca, Joseph, “George Washington’s Use of Humor During the Revolutionary War.” Journal of the American Revolution, February 5, 2015; WT to Commrs 21 September 1798, Harris pp. 472, 475; footnote to John Francis to GW, 15 September 1798.

17. White's wife; WT to Commrs. 21 September 1798; Commrs. to GW, 27 September 1798. 

18. Bryan, p. 316-7; AMT notebook, vol. 1 image 121; GW's diary; WT to GW 25 October 1798;

19. Blagden to GW 18 October 1798; GW to Commrs. 22 October 1798, 27 October 1798;

20. Commrs. to GW, 3 October, 1798; GW to Commrs. 4 October 1798;Commrs to GW, 4 October 1798, 

21.  GW to WT, 18 October 1798;  WT to GW, 25 October 1798; House report 397 United States Congressional serial set. 5407.
 n. 775  lots https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3991082&view=1up&seq=775&skin=2021

22.  GW to WT 28 October 1798,

23.   GW to WT, 20 December 1798, WT to GW 21 December, 1798; GW to WT 30 December 1798, 

24. Adams to GW  22 June 1798; GW to McHenry 22 July 1798; GW to Tayloe  21 July 1798; GW to Tayloe, 23 January 1799, for GW's interest in asses see 23 January 1799 to Robert Lewis.; Tayloe to GW, 10 February 1799, and footnotes; 

25. GW to Tayloe 12 February 1799;   GW's diary 7 February 1799; Tayloe to GW  10 February 1799, & 26 March 1799.

26. Ridout, p. 61; Federal Gazette 8 May 1799; AMT notebooks vol. 1 image 122;

27. Lovering to Nicholson 9 March 1799. 

25. Lovering to Nicholson, December 4, 1798, Nicholson papers; on Dorsey see Ridout p. 71, and Papenfuse, Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature , vol. 426, p. 279 

26.Lovering to Nicholson, 27 December 1798 and 4 January 1799.

27. Lovering to Nicholson, 22 January 1799.

28. Ridout pp.62-5.

29. Jefferson to White, 2 July 1802; White to Jefferson, 13 July 1802.

30. Commrs. Proceedings, 2 and 15 January 1799; Proceedings 18 March 1799; Hoban to Commrs. 12 March 1799; Middleton to Commrs 22 March 1799; Centinel of Liberty 16 April 1799 p. 1.

31. Hoban to Commrs. 15 April 1799; WT to Commrs. 17 April 1799; Chambers, Treatise, vol. II, pp. 368. 408, 425;  Commrs to Hoban, 18 April 1799, Commrs. records.

32.  WT to GW, 19 April 1799;

33. April 27, 1799 entry in notebook or Almanac in Thornton's papers in Library of Congress, reel 7; for problems the board's surveyors faced see Robert King, Sr., to Jefferson 5 June 1802; Tayloe to GW 29 April 1799; on horse purchase see Pickering letter in "Clifden" ad in Maryland Advertiser 10 April 1800, also.

34. Lovering to Nicholson 26 March, 10 & 17 April 1799. For another view of Lovering’s debt problems see Tunnicliff to Nicholson, 9 April 1799; Lovering to Nicholson 22 April 1799; Sarson, Steven,  The Tobacco-Plantation South in the Early American Atlantic World, pp. 11-2. 

35. Law to GW, 25 April 1799, Law's April letter to Washington was undated, but marked received April 5. However, the modern editors of Washington's papers cite internal evidence for dating the letter as sent on April 25; Commrs to Lovering 9 May 1799 Commrs. records.

36. Harris, p. 585.

37. GW to Lear 31 March 1799; WT to GW 19 April 1799; GW to WT 21 April 1799; Mary Carr, Thomas Wilkinson: A Friend of Wordsworth, p. 11. In 1896, Glenn Brown wrote "Dr. Thornton was the architect and superintendent, as shown by letters of Washington," but Brown neither quoted nor cited any letters. Future historians found no reason to disagree with Brown. Ron Chernow, George Washington's 2010 biographer, credits Thornton as the houses' designer. GW to WT, 30 January, 29 September, 1 October, 1 December 1799; WT to GW, 5 December 1799, Founders online, Harris, p. 515;   .

38. WT to GW 19 July 1799; GW to WT, 1 August, 1799;

39. WT to GW 1 September 1799; GW to WT 5 September 1799; Lear to WT, 12 September 1799, Harris, pp. 508-9.  

40. GW to Lewis, 20 September 1799 ; Diary p. 115; Harris, p.582  

41. Law to Greenleaf, 9 April 1800, Adams papers; GW diary

42. Commrs to Adams, 21 November 1799; White to Adams 13 December 1799 ( the editors of these on-line papers transcribed "Taylor" but the letter clearly reads "Tayloe;")

43. GW to White 8 December 1799; GW to WT 8 December 1799,

44. Lear Journal, Clements Library. Harris, p. 528; Thornton did not date his brief recollection of his patron’s death. However, in it he described Thomas Law as the brother of Lord Ellenborough. The latter Law became a Lord in  April 1802 and died in 1818; Thompson, Mary V. "Death Defied" Mount Vernon Museum; Jefferson's weather observations , page 25.

45.  WT to Adams, 3 August 1822,

 

 

 

3. Surdocs Image View (XII p. 187)

6. House report 397 United States Congressional serial set. 5407 Page 803.

15.  The Diary of Mrs. William Thornton, p. 94.

16. Harris p. 586 ; Scott, Pamela in Creating Capitol Hill;

18.  The Diary of Mrs. William Thornton, p. 90.

19. Law to GW, 4 May 1798, .GW to Law, 7 May 1798.  AMT papers on-line volume one, image 83.

25. Latrobe Correspondence, p. 376; Washington Federalist 16 April 1799; Bryan p. 317.

27. WT to Commrs. 10 May 1798, Harris p. 453.

28. AMT notebook, vol. 1 image 121; GW's diary 6 July 1798; GW to WT, 18 October 1798; 

36. Ridout, pp. 68-9.

38.  The Diary of Mrs. William Thornton, pp. 103-112; Natl. Intelligencer 5 January 1801

39.  Scott et al, Creating Capitol Hill

40. Mrs. J. Q. Adams to John Adams, 22 November1820; A. Adams to Cranch, 4 February 1800 footnote 3; Law to Greenleaf 9 April 1800; see also Abigail Adams to Anna Greenleaf Cranch, 17 April 1800.

41.;