Chapter 11 The Ingenious A
The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol
Chapter Eleven: The Ingenious A
 |
| 116. Law's 1800 house became the fulcrum of the Varnum Hotel |
In 1798, Thomas Law signed a building contract with William Lovering, and George Washington signed a building contract with George Blagden. Law's house featured oval rooms. The General's duplex was boilerplate boarding house. In the late 19th century, Glenn Brown credited Thornton for designing the General's house based on his correspondence with Thornton but Brown neither cited nor quoted any letters in particular. Brown did not credit Thornton for designing Law's house, and W. B. Bryan thought it very likely that Lovering was the architect. One hundred years later, C. M. Harris discovered that Thornton designed it, and other architectural historians now agree. According to Harris, Thornton drew the designs for both Law and the General. Those contracts did not mention Thornton. Nor was he credited with the designs in the correspondence of those involved. The General made it quite clear in a letter to Commissioner White that he designed the two houses he planned to build on Capitol Hill. There remains no contemporary mention of who designed Law's house, but, as Ridout puts it when discussing the Octagon, "much can be inferred."
The collection of Thornton's architectural drawings that the Library of Congress put on-line does not include any design for the Law's house, and no design is extant. However, in his essay introducing Thornton's drawings, C. M. Harris associates Thornton's supposed Octagon with the design of Law's house. Both have oval rooms:
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...."(1) Harris champions Thornton for solving the problem of building houses facing an intersection with an acute angle in a city where a building's wall had to be parallel to the streets. According to Harris, Law and Tayloe faced the same problem and solved it with Thornton's oval rooms.
 |
| 117. The Octagon in the 20th century |
The two drawings for the Octagon in Thornton's papers are undated and not labeled. They outline a house more like the Octagon than Law's house. Contractors broke ground for Law's and the General's house in April 1799, shortly before work began on the Octagon, and just a few weeks after Tayloe signed a contract.
The planning for Law's house began first. Thanks to the agreement he signed with Greenleaf when he purchased 500 lots, he had to build houses in a timely manner. Even though when he saw it was "full of stumps of trees," he fell in love with New Jersey Avenue running southeast of the Capitol and ending at the Eastern Branch.(2) In June 1795, Law divided the square on the west side of New Jersey Avenue closest to the Capitol with Daniel Carroll of Duddington and got possession of most of the lots on the west side of the avenue. The lot that formed the lower southeast corner of the square flanked both the angling avenue and C Street. Thus he faced the difficulty of building on a lot facing an intersection with an acute angle almost two years before Tayloe did.(3)
 |
| 125. Square 689 divided by Daniel Carroll and Thomas Law with the latter owning Lots 1, 2, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 17, 19 |
Beginning in 1796, Law was the most consistent developer in the city. Lured by Greenleaf's preaching that the "New Jerusalem" would be as commercial as political, he began building near the river. But by 1798, it was apparent that there were not enough houses surrounding the Capitol to bed and board congressmen when they came to the city in December 1800. Little is known of Law's operations. He evidently avoided Greenleaf's business model. Instead relied on the remnants of Greenleaf's "people" on an ad hoc basis and got two or three brick houses built every year.
Up on Square 689, Law decided to first build on the southeast corner lot, evidently attracted by the length of the block along C Street which allowed space for an imposing row of house along C Street then curving up toward the Capitol. He would not necessarily own the neighboring houses but he did finance their construction. A court would later agree that doing so also satisfied his obligation to build houses.(4) 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, 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.
Over
a century after it was drawn, because Lovering laid out the lot, Bryan
inferred that he was the architect for Law's house.(5) But that doesn't prove that he designed the house. He could have simply been the supervising architect of Thornton's design, just as Ridout and others assume he was for the Octagon. However, on August 14, almost a month before he laid out Law's lot on September 12, Lovering bought the large lot across the street in Square 691 that formed the southwest corner of the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and C Street.(6)
In 1800, Lovering would advertise offering "specimens" of houses facing intersections with acute or obtuse angles. By specimens he meant designs as well as an accompanying building contract. By buying a lot that would need such a design in 1798, he seemed to be banking on his talent. That speaks to his trajectory. He had moved beyond town house rows and began specializing in distinctive townhouses.
The contract Law signed with Lovering to build his house 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.(7) However, the contract does not explicitly say that Lovering drew the designs, but it doesn't mention Thornton at all.
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.(8) However, putting oval rooms in a confined townhouse as opposed to a rambling
country house would take some skill and ingenuity.
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. However, Thornton had planned oval rooms and Law would have known about that. 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.
A final 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 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 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.(9)
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."(10)
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 early 1798, the board asked Lovering to inspect models of window sashes for the Capitol made by three contractors. One needed an extra inch here and there and with another static electricity might be a worry. As for the third, the molding was too thin. His ability to school everyone about sashes might make Lovering "ingenious" but not an "ingenious A."(11)
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. 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, 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, which is to say, the surveyor made sure the walls of the house would be parallel to the streets. The signatures in the contract aren't dated, but two pages of the document are in another handwriting, presumably Law's. That gives an idea of when the contract was made because those two pages address a change made after the lot was laid out in September. That process also established the level of the lot, and Lovering saw that a fifth floor was needed because of the slope of the ground. In the addendum to the contract, Law described and accepted the necessary changes. That means the first part of the contract was written before September.
 |
| 126. Page 3 of contract, end of first part and beginning of second made after September 12, 1798 |
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.(12)
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....” At that time, Lovering was still overseeing work at the Octagon for which he would be paid $900. Could the extra $300 have been for his plan?
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.(13)
 |
| 127. Stier's Riverdale |
However, that Stier rejected Latrobe's help and relied on Lovering attests to the latter's reputation at that time. Thornton was not even mentioned. As Lovering showed Stier his skills as a builder, he must have shown him the Octagon. If Thornton had anything to do with that house, Stier would have approached him. It is clear from Stier's letters that he did not reject Lovering's three designs because they were "conventional and unadventurous." Those were the words Harris used to dismiss the design of the house built for Greenleaf on 6th and N Streets SW that he attributed to Lovering.
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 his 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....” Obviously, he had not talk to Thornton about architecture. He had been boasting of his requisite command of architectural details since 1793.(14)
During or after construction of the house, Thornton never claimed that he had designed it. Of course, that doesn't negate inferences. In 1800, Mrs. Thornton kept a diary with long entries for every day of that memorable year when the federal government moved from Philadelphia to the City of Washington. As some historians read it, within the first two weeks, her entries proved that her husband designed both Law's and Tayloe's houses. In the case of Law's house, a mere visit is counted as proof enough, despite the Thorntons not liking its most striking feature. Here is the relevant diary entry describing the day the Thornton took Thomas and Patsy Peter to see Law's house. Mrs. Law was Patsy's sister:
Sunday [January] 12th— A very fine day, as pleasant as a Spring day. After breakfast Mr T. Peter called and mentioned that his wife was at home; we therefore sent the Carriage for her. I, and Dr T— . accompanied them to the Capitol, the General's and Mr Law's houses —the latter being locked we entered by the kitchen Window and went all over it— It is a very pleasant roomy house but the Oval drawing room is spoiled by the lowness of the Ceiling, and two Niches, which destroy the shape of the Room.— Mr and Mrs Peter dined with us and returned home early in the afternoon some of her Children not being well.(15)
C. M. Harris opines that "Thornton's role... is partially but substantially documented by his wife's diary for 1800." Certainly, that Thornton climbed through the kitchen window to get inside suggests he had some authority, though his friendship with Law and his touring with the Mrs. Law's sister might have given him sufficient license to do that. Pamela Scott puts it this way: "It was designed by William Thornton, and was 'a very pleasant roomy house' according to Anna Maria Thornton."(16)
Mrs. Thornton also criticized the house's oval drawing room for having a low ceiling. Her husband likely informed her criticism of the room. Does that suggest that his almost calling Lovering ingenious in June 1798 had nothing to do with Law's house design? It more likely speaks to Thornton's lack of experience in oval rooms. When he saw Lovering's floor plan with ovals he was likely intrigued. Of course, if Thornton had designed the house, he would have known their height of the ovals rooms. They were in the building contract that was based on drawings A, B, C and D. Thornton probably disliked Law's oval room because for years he had imagined his ovals dancing with shadows and lights under high domes. Fitting oval rooms into a five story townhouse was alien to his sensibilities. Any design of a five story building, would have to limit the floor to ceiling height of the drawing room.
Evidently, Thornton did not tell Law his opinion of the house when they were together that winter. In an April 1800 letter describing his house, Law's joy was unalloyed:
Law did not reveal its designer. In that same visit to Capitol Hill when he saw Law's house, the General undoubtedly saw his own two houses. If Thornton had designed both houses, one would think somebody would have mentioned that.
In the diary entry describing their visits to Law's and the General's houses, Mrs. Thornton didn't describe the General's houses, but she had mentioned them in earlier entries. On the 4th, she and her husband visited the houses and she noted that "they are divided so as to let as one or two houses." On the 3rd, she noted that her husband "had superintended them as a friend."(18) Of course, architects superintend house building, so inferences can be drawn from that entry. However, in 1798 when the General's and Law's houses were designed, it is clear that neither the General nor Law thought of Thornton as an architect.
In early May 1798, Law tried to entice the General into building on Capitol Hill by offering him $5,000. The General refused the money but soon set his mind to the task at hand. In her 1798 almanac, Mrs. Thornton noted a visit from the General and his wife in late May as well as joining them for dinner at the Laws.(19) However, just as Law didn't ask Thornton for a design neither did the General.
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.(20) 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 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?(21)
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 surveyors to check 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 bragged that "I never require much time to execute any measure after I have resolved upon it." He told White that he enclosed a sketch of the floor plan "to convey my ideas of the size of the houses, rooms, & manner of building them;...to enable you to enter into the Contract" with a builder. He also told White: "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."(22)
 |
| The General's floor plan |
Three days after sending his letter to White, the General got a letter from John Francis, a Philadelphia landlord then in the federal city, expressing interest in renting his houses. Francis had heard the news "very lately" from Thomas Law. Thornton was the likely source of that news. In his reply, the General told Francis that "the ground work of my plan may be seen in the hands of Mr White, or Doctr Thornton." White was at Mount Vernon and would hand deliver the General's letter to Francis. Evidently, White had left the plan with Thornton.(23)
With plan in hand, Thornton did not "suggest alterations." That the General sent him what he described as "my plan," suggests that Thornton did not draw the plan. Why would the General worry about it being "radically wrong" if the supposed expert Thornton had drawn it? There is no evidence that when the General came to the city to choose lots for his houses that he asked Thornton for his opinion of his plan. The General was not without a sense of humor. Could he have been merely making fun of Thornton's propensity to cite books on architecture?
On the day the General came to choose his lot, 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. In 1793, the board had awarded Thornton the money but not the lot. Rectifying 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 two lots the General bought on September 21st. Clearly, one of Thornton's motives was to profit from one of the most significant real estate transactions in the city's short history. The General had purchased several lots over the years but not in tandem a building plan.
Thornton happened to be short of money at that time so he couldn't simply buy the lot and buying it might have seemed to be taking advantage of his being a commissioner. He couched his letter to his colleagues to make it seem like he was getting his due for more than winning the design contest. He explained that his claiming the lot had been "prevented by motives of delicacy." Thornton did not want to embarrass himself after the July 1793 conference with Hallet and Hoban since the commissioners might decide that the design was no longer his. In the letter, he explained that he had "restored and accommodated [the plan] 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."(24)
In his 1914 history of the city, W. B. Bryan decided that because Thornton's statements "were not contradicted at the time," his September 21 letter proved that Thornton restored his design of the Capitol. There were reasons that Thornton's statements "were not contradicted at the time." They raised an issue that his colleagues, nor the retired president wanted to face. With the priority of getting North Wing ready for congress in December 1800 despite a tight budget, they did not want discuss what the remainder of the building would look like. That would raise issue of how much it cost. Scott and White had never seen Thornton's original design, they could only verify that Thornton had restored it by quizzing the General who in November 1795 had written to them and Thornton that "the present plan is no body's, but a compound of every body's....” As for his claims about elevations and sections. They knew of elevations and may have seen the one hanging in Thornton's parlor. Evidently in 1798 there was a section presumably of the North Wing signed by Thornton. However, in 1799, the head carpenter would accuse him of signing his name to a section drawn by somebody else. Even so, his signature could be taken as certifying the accuracy of what was drawn.(25)
His colleagues also had no interest is accusing Thornton of lying. They knew how he took passionate possession of his ideas and seemed to cherish them until they seemed to him to have been realized. Scott had the same propensity with dollar signs attached. White had been appointed to keep his colleagues in check and managed that by not attacking them. In the final analysis, with the deadline for finishing one wing pressing only Thornton cared about who designed it.The General was the best witness who could vouch for Thornton's claims. The board, both old and new, had reiterated that only the president could change the plan. But Thornton did not seem eager to discuss that with the General. Evidently after spending three nights at Mount Vernon in early October, he didn't share the news with his host.
In an October 25 letter, Thornton finally informed Washington that he owned a lot next to his. Compared to his September 21 letter to his colleagues, he couched the matter differently. He explained that in 1793 he “had not demanded [a lot] from motives of Delicacy, but which I was entitled to for my plans of Capitol." He didn't claim that he had in the meanwhile restored his plans. That might have alarmed the General because Thornton's incompetent original design had caused him embarrassment and delayed work on the Capitol.(26)
There is another way to interpret Thornton's letters and attending events. From long experience, both the General and Commissioner White understood that what Thornton understood about architecture was born of books not experience. His last correction came that past winter after the board was unable to buy mahogany for the doors of the Capitol. Rather than possibly delay progress on the building, White and Scott voted to have pine doors with a mahogany finish. Thornton dissented. It was his shortest dissent but included his usual refrain. They must do what was "recommended by the best writers in architecture...."(27)
On September 12, Thornton 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.
If Thornton was fishing for vindication in his October 25 letter, he made it difficult for the General to oblige. In it, he gave him much more to digest. 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."
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 that he had asked the board to pick.(28)The board had 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 the commissioners' reply, signed by Thornton, they 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."(29) Thornton seemed as clueless as his colleagues and obviously had not designed the houses. Blagden himself wrote to the General.
Thornton tried another way to serve the General. He persuaded him to have his slaves do more of the carpentry by preparing the floor boards and the scantling used to frame doors and windows. He promised to obtain a specimen of different moldings, "thinking your people could work better by them, than by drawings." He didn't deliver on that promise, and the General didn't use his slaves. Thornton did join White in drawing up the contract. He had been appointed a county justice of the peace and had "stamped paper" which pleased the General, but Blagden delivered the contract to Mount Vernon alone.
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."(30)
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, he suggested a 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."(31)
 |
| 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 |
When work on the General's houses began in mid-April 1799, Thornton tried to do more than merely give money to Blagden. He began to operate as if he were the superintending architect of the project. He wrote to the General "I 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.(32)
Stymied at correcting details, Thornton looked at the big picture. The General became vexed at the widespread rumor that John Francis was going to rent his houses and board congressmen. Since that rumor deterred other interested parties, he thought Francis should agree on the rent. He asked Thornton to find out what was customary. 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. I am induced to think the Houses would sell very well, because their Situation is uncommonly fine, and the Exterior of the Houses is calculated to attract notice. Many Gentlemen of Fortune will visit the City and be suddenly inclined to fix here. They will find your Houses perfectly suitable, being not only commodious but elegant.
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 Francis
approached Commissioner Thornton to see if, as well as renting the
houses, he could buy a lot next door. He needed more room for boarders.
Since Francis also wanted to build back buildings behind the houses,
Thornton wrote to the General that he “refused to name any price,” and
Francis lost interest.(33)
As the work progressed, the General schooled contractors as well as 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.(34)
Historians who don't credit Thornton for designing the houses credit him for overseeing their construction. In her diary, Mrs. Thornton said he superintended the houses. The best evidence that he didn't comes from Thornton himself. 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) If he had had anything else to do with the houses, he would have bragged about that.
When he wrote to Wilkinson, Law's and Tayloe's houses were also "now building." Law's family was well known in England and rich Virginians who had gone to Eton and Cambridge were not unknowns. There would seem to be no reason not to tell his old friend about designing their houses. The simple reason why he didn't is because he hadn't. However, Harris suggests that Thornton was careful not to alarm the American gentry by practicing a trade, even one as rare as architecture. As Ridout puts it, Thornton sought the opportunity to the design Tayloe's house in part "to solidify his position in Tayloe's social circle...." Still, if he asked for no fee, and deflected any word of thanks with a "don't mention it," that's hardly a satisfying explanation for why his contemporaries never mentioned it.(36)
In November 1799, the General came to the city to see his houses. Law's description of the General's reaction to his house on the day has already been quoted. Tayloe's son would recollect stories of the General's frequent visits to the their father's house as it was being built. Between work beginning on that house in May and his death in December, the General only visited the city twice, in August and November, so he very likely visited the building site in November. At the end of the day, Law, another proprietor James Barry, Commissioners 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 mansions then under construction that were a likely a topic of their conversations.
Later that month, 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 house Daniel Carroll had built in 1798 just south of Capitol Hill. Here again the curious fact, discovered by historians, that Thornton had designed two of those houses did not leak out in an aside in anybody's letters or diaries.(37)
Mrs. Thornton's diary was a venue for her husband's fame. In a March 1 entry she allowed that "this little journal is rather account of my husband's transactions than mine...."(p.113) In late February, she gave full coverage to a visit by Law in which her husband capped an on-going discussion they had been having regarding a stables to accommodate the horses of boarders soon to arrive when congress convened. The doctor had suggested a design and Law put him to it. Mrs. Thornton briefly described it. Then in March, Daniel Carroll sent a slave over with a note encouraging Thornton to go ahead with a design he suggested for a conjoined boarding house much like the General's. Two afternoons later he finished the design, Carroll approved and a week later the Thorntons took a house guest to see it under construction. When Carroll put the houses up for sale, the advertisement described them as "finished in a plain but substantial manner, and built of the best materials."(38)
Entries describing either project were likely places for Mrs. Thornton to add that her husband designed the new house behind which Law would put the stable, or that her husband designed the General's house which provided a model for Carroll's but she didn't mention that. At the same time, she didn't mention that her husband was being buttered up. But that's hard to admit in a diary even when it was fairly obvious what was going on.
The demand for Thornton's architectural talents was short lived. Both Law and Carroll continued to build houses in a vain effort to profit off their many building lots in the city. Other men, including Hoban, designed their houses. There is no evidence that they again asked Thornton for building plans.(39)
In February and March 1800, both Law and Carroll had a reason to flatter Thornton. Through her nephew William Cranch, who was then Law's lawyer, they likely learned that Mrs. Adams had doubts about moving into the President's house. She feared the building would be too green. Law wrote the letter to James Greenleaf already quoted that described his house and asked him to see that Mrs. Adams got the letter. Carroll sent a letter to Cranch describing his house, and Cranch sent it to her. Having Thornton on their side could do neither Law nor Carroll any harm. Coincidentally, Bishop John Carroll asked Thornton to submit a design for a new cathedral in Baltimore. He also asked other architects and eventually chose Latrobe's design.(40)
There was another reason to flatter Thornton. Law and Carroll had long been promoting the eastern side of the city. Despite his design of the Capitol, Thornton never became a familiar face on Capitol Hill. What better way to keep him focused on Capitol Hill than by involving him in other projects there. Then congress gave cabinet officers money and power to prepare the city with improvements such as stone footpaths. The cabinet let navy secretary Stoddert disburse the money. Then the federal government began moving into the city in June. The president inspected the President's house and found it habitable. His wife would join him in November. The Constitution gave congress exclusive jurisdiction over the city and its public buildings. Commissioner Thornton became less important and it was widely thought that the board's days were numbered.
Left unanswered is why Thornton accommodated Law and Carroll? Neither project added to his fame. Tayloe asked Lovering to design the stable for the back of his house. No one thought of asking Thornton to design the stable next to the president's house. The catalyst for Thornton's sudden interest in designing houses and a stable could have been the death of the General on December 14, 1799.
In September 1798, his friend denied Thornton the opportunity to design his Capitol Hill houses. On September 1799, just after Thornton had visited 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 the General's unmarried grand daughters. But the General didn't mention the house to Thornton. In March 1800, Mrs. Thornton noted that while at Mount Vernon, her husband prepared a site for a house. In August, while they were both there, her husband gave Lewis a plan for a house. That house was a country house playing off the design of Mount Vernon. Thornton likely gave it a curvilinear colonnaded entrance, but his point in doing it was to show what he could have done as a friend if the General had only asked. The project for Carroll proved that he could design townhouses suitable for boarders. The project for Law again proved what he could do for another member of the General's family.(41)
Thornton had anticipated the General's death and the need to memorialize the Great Man. In his 1793 design of the Capitol, he designated the site for a memorial under the dome. In January 1800, he recognized that the imperative to do that could hurry completion of the Capitol and he raised the issue within a month of the General's death. In a February letter to Blodget, Thornton sketched a "massy rock" with the general ascending to heaven on top, and a woman with a snake coiled around her body, symbolizing eternity, on the bottom; the bodies of the General and his wife would be entombed in the middle and all that would be under the Capitol's dome.(42)
The climax of Thornton's mourning came years later. He convinced himself that not only could he have designed the General's house, he could have restored him to life. Thornton had joined the Laws as they hurried to Mount Vernon at the news of the General's decline, but they arrived a day late. Sometime after 1802 and likely before 1815, Thornton wrote down a curious twist to his grieving. He claimed that he urged the family to take advantage of a winter cold spell which preserved the corpse and let him thaw the body and bring the General back to life with a tracheotomy and blood transfusion. "But," as he put it, "I was not seconded in this proposal..."
Not a few biographers and historians record that Thornton did indeed suggest a variation of a theme made popular by a 1776 lecture given by Dr. John Hunter in London. However, Thornton's premise is false. Thornton recalled that the weather was "very cold, and he [the body] remained in a frozen state for many days." Judging by Thomas Jefferson's temperature readings at Monticello in the almost always colder Virginia foothills, the weather at Mount Vernon was not that cold. On December 15 at Monticello, it was 41 at 4 pm, 36 on the 16th and 41 on the 17th. It was cold the day he was buried on the 18th, only 22 at 4pm at Monticello.
Thornton's story contradicts what he actually said to the mourners. Tobias Lear wrote in his diary that he wanted to delay the burial so more members of the family could attend, but Drs. Craik and Thornton insisted that because of the inflammatory nature of Washington's illness, there could be no delay in his burial. In that day, it was thought that death did not still the corrupting powers of some diseases.(43)
If the General had asked him to design his houses, would Thornton have gone to such lengths in his own fantasies to prove his devotion and power to serve his patron? However, his condescending to design residential houses did not arise solely from the General's death. Once Thornton saw what Law and Tayloe were building, or, to be more precise, once his wife reacted favorably to them, Thornton designed a house for himself. Its ovals have been confused for an early take on a design for the Octagon.
Footnotes for Chapter 11
1. Brown, 1896, p. 63; Chernow, Ron, Washington: a Life, p. 794; Harris, Charles M., William Thornton 1759-1828, LOC; Harris, Papers of William Thornton, p. 588.
2. Clark, Greenleaf and Law p. 255.
3. Surdocs Image View (XII p. 187)
4. Pratt v. Law, No. 659, US Supreme Court, 9 Cranch 456, pp. 779ff.
5. Bryan, p. 311 "If Mr. Lovering was the principal in this enterprise, and not merely the architect,...."
6. House report 397 United States Congressional serial set. 5407 Page 803.
7. Mount Vernon Museum, "Particular description..." ;
8. Corosino, Catherine Ann, The Woodlands: Documentation of an American Interior, Thesis, U. of Penn, 1997.
9. WT to Pickering 23-25 June 1798 draft; AMT papers on-line volume one, image 83.
10. Scott, Pamela, "Designing the Executive Office Buildings."
11. 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.
12. Lovering to Nicholson, January 14, 1798, Nicholson papers; Lovering to Commissioners, 10 July, 4 October, 1798, Commrs. records.
13. Margaret Law Callcott, editor, Mistress of Riverdale, pp. 28-9; Law to Greenleaf, April 9, 1800, Adams Papers.
14. 4 October, 1798, Commrs. records.
15. The Diary of Mrs. William Thornton, p. 94.
16. Harris p. 586 ; Scott, Pamela in Creating Capitol Hill;
17. Law to Greenleaf, April 9, 1800, Adams Papers.
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.
20. Mrs. Dalton to Abigail Adams, 28 July 1798;
21. GW to Peter 27 August 1798; Harris pp. 473-4.
22. White to GW, 8 September 1798; GW to White, 12 September 1798;
23. footnote to John Francis to GW, 15 September 1798;
24. 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;
25. Latrobe Correspondence, p. 376; Washington Federalist 16 April 1799; Bryan p. 317.
26.
AMT notebook, vol. image 121; GW's diary; WT to GW 25 October 1798;
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; GW to WT 28 October 1798; On the balance sheet he kept in his own mind, perhaps he thought his inability to mortgage his share of the plantation or his Lancashire property after his grandmother's death in 1797 was a loss carried over year to year. All to say, bankers did not have enough confidence in him to loan him a six thousand dollars.
29. Commrs. to GW, 27 September, 3, 4, 15, 25, October 1798; GW to Commrs. 28 September 4, 17, 22, 27 October 1798.
30. Op. Cit.
31. GW to WT, 20 December 1798, WT to GW 21 December, 1798; GW to WT 30 December 1798.
32. WT to GW 19 April 1799; GW to WT 21 April 1799.
33. WT to GW 19 July 1799; GW to WT, 1 August, 1799.
34. GW to WT, 30 January, 29 September, 1 October, 1 December 1799; WT to GW, 5 December 1799, Founders online, Harris, p. 515;
34. 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.
36. Ridout, pp. 68-9.
37. 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.")
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. GW to WT 5 September 1799; GW to Lewis, 20 September 1799 ; Diary p. 115; Harris, p.582
42. WT to Marshall, 6 January1800, Harris p. 526-7; WT to Blodget 21 February 1800, Harris pp. 535ff;
43. GW to WT 8 December 1799, Jefferson's weather observations , page 25; 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
.
Comments
Post a Comment