Chapter 11 The Ingenious A

 

 Chapter Eleven: The Ingenious A

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

In his essay introducing Thornton's architectural drawings put on-line by the Library of Congress, C. M. Harris writes: 

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.(1)

When Harris wrote that, Thornton had long been credited with the design of the Octagon. Harris was updating Glenn Brown's take on the doctor's genius, and he soon went beyond merely crediting him for the "idea of using a curvilinear element to take an odd-angled corner." In his commentary in the Papers of William Thornton, Harris refers to "his design for Thomas Law's town residence of 1800...."(2) 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. Law and Tayloe faced the same problem and solved it with Thornton's oval rooms.

 

117. The Octagon in the 20th century

No one has suggested that Thornton was the first to design a residential building with oval rooms. They 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 would begin sending instructions on how to build Woodlands, then outside Philadelphia but now in Fairmount Park. His mansion would have two notable oval rooms, a parlor and dining room.(3)

 

Another mansion in the park, Lemon Hill, which was built in 1799-1800, also had oval rooms. An architectural historian notes "its use of ovals and circular spaces suggests a French influence." On 10th and Chestnut Streets, L'Enfant's very French mansion built for Robert Morris also had "curvilinear elements," but the architect who gave the federal city so many angled avenues had none to address in Philadelphia. L'Enfant did not use ovals.(4) 

 

123. Birch drawing of Morris's unfinished house 1800

The latest Virginia mansion of note also had a curvilinear element. The Tayloe family had long been close to the Carter family, founded by Robert "King" Carter. Some 80 miles northwest of Tayloe's Mount Airy, grandson Robert Carter began building Redlands in 1798 which would have a "lofty oval ended drawing room."(5)

Given Thornton's use of grand oval chambers to ennoble his Capitol design, it would seem that he was just the man to come up with the solution for Law and Tayloe. But none of the grand oval rooms that he had designed had yet been built, and the prospect that they would be was not assured. In 1798, Thornton was once again attacking trained architects who had mocked his Capitol design. Admittedly, with office hours from 9 to 3, Thornton had the time to design houses, but was he psychologically prepared to diminish his design concepts from the monumental to the residential? Ironically, by documenting Thornton's 1798 attack on Hadfield's work at the Capitol, Harris helps prove who actually designed Law's house. Harris provides a clue in a footnote describing what Thornton crossed out in another one of his lengthy letters defending his genius. That letter which aimed to destroy Hadfield's character as an architect was never sent, but it still informs most histories of the Capitol.

However, while looking askance at Thornton trajectory as an architect, the heights he had reached as a gentleman were impressive. Mrs. Thornton began jotting them down in a notebook:  On May 23, 1798, "General and Mrs. Washington" called on the Thorntons in the morning. On the 24th the Thorntons "dined at Mr. Law's" with the Washingtons. On June 24, the Thorntons "drank tea at Mr. Law's." On that weekend, he drafted a long letter to the secretary of state, and sent a long letter to the secretary of the navy. (1)

To be sure, that he was writing long letters to important people and not receiving them betrays an arriviste. Also, meeting Great Ones is not necessarily a measure of having gained their respect. For example, a Polish traveler disposed to celebrate America came to the city. Thomas Law was his cicerone and told Count Julian Niemcewicz who to see at the Capitol. He asked for Hadfield and found him: "He was on the summit of the building and I went there to look for him. What a view, what a sight that meets the eye from this elevated place! The great avenues cut into the forest of verdant oak, indicated the spaces destined for street, but today.... One sees nothing and hears there only the silence of the trees, where one day great houses will be built...." He did meet Thornton and wasn't impressed: [he] told me himself that it was not long since he had begun to study architecture and that it was while he was taking lessons that he made the plan of the Capitol. Should one be surprised that it is bad? In building an edifice so costly and so important could they not have brought over one of the more celebrated architects of Europe, or at least ask them for plans?"(22)

113. The Polish poet Niemcewicz in later life

Thornton seemed to better present himself in letters. He was confident and betrayed no doubts even when he wrote to dispel suspicions about his character and motives. That was the task at hand in late June.

The most memorable battle in Commissioner White's late campaign in Philadelphia had nothing little to do with the Capitol. John Adams had known White since the First Congress met in 1789 and recognized White as a friend of his administration. That didn't spare White a painful scene that he described in a letter to George Washington. He asked Adams to endorse the board's memorial to congress, "...at this he shewed an uncommon degree of Warmth, said he should not make himself a Slave to the Federal City; that the People there had belied him, that he would do what his official duty required of him and no more...."(9)

 

112. John Adams in 1798 by William Winstanley

Among those who belied him, the president likely included Thornton. In 1799, the First Lady would sum up the president's attitude toward the commissioners and the federal city; "as he has nine plagues, he has been loath to muddle with the tenth...." In March 1797, William Cranch had shared his thoughts about the commissioners with his Uncle John. All three commissioners were polite, but Scott "appears hasty and overbearing." Thornton was also hasty, not firm, "a little genius at everything," and little respected. White was "more mild" than Scott, "more firm" than Thornton, "and more respectable than either." By "little genius at everything," Cranch was probably reacting to the patchwork of Thornton's know-it-all patter, not to his being in anyway adept at solving problems. The issue of respect likely hinged on Thornton's continued vocal support of the French Revolution even as a naval war began between the United States and France.

In December 1797, distressed by the tone of the local newspaper in the federal city, Abigail Adams asked her nephew why it was not in lockstep with the rest of the pro-government press. Cranch explained that when Greenleaf had money, Cranch had financially supported a man from New England who established the city's first newspaper on Greenleaf's Point. But it appeared he was being influenced by a cabal of doctors who had organized a potential pro-French mob. Cranch did not finger Thornton.

After the scene that White experienced, evidently word got back to Thornton to make amends with the administration. He explained away his pro-French rants to Benjamin Stoddert, then secretary of the navy who had owned the Maryland farm next to Thornton's. His rants were born out of the same principles that led America to challenge Britain. Having lived there Thornton well knew need for change. He embraced the French revolution but recent developments betrayed that hope. He then offered the navy secretary the same weapons that he offered the French Terror in 1794. (10) Stoddert's reply, if any, is not extant.

He imbued his letter to the other cabinet officer with such confidence that it has shaped all modern histories of the Capitol. He described how he walked young Hadfield through the Capitol and knew in an instant that he didn't know anything. He listed Hadfield's gaffs. For example: he "proceeded to lay off the roof but on being asked by me in what angle the lead work might be calculated, he could not tell at what angle, nor could he find it. On being asked for a protractor, he knew not what was meant." 

Thornton also burnished his own reputation by showing that he was all the while in command of the situation at the Capitol. For example: Hadfield "could do nothing without sections being made of the whole building, although one wing only was to be executed. I knew it to be unnecessary, and only intended by him to fatigue me by throwing difficulties in my way. These I stated, but by the Board attending to his representations I was under the necessity of complying with their wish to satisfy him. I drew the section of the whole accordingly."

Thornton also explained why Hadfield suggested design changes. He had explained to him that the over all plan for the Capitol was set. But at the same time, Hadfield saw that Thornton and Hoban were undoing Hallet's mistakes and restoring Thornton's original design. Hadfield mistook that as an invitation to suggest design changes. Thornton didn't describe Hadfield's trip to Philadelphia, the conference there with Hoban and the president, and the president's respect for Hadfield as an architect. Instead, Thornton told the otherwise uncorroborated story that after quitting in late June 1796, Hadfield got his job back only after apologizing for attacking Thornton's plan, admitting his envy and vicious motives and promising to follow Thornton’s orders.(14)

Thornton's draft was in effect a letter to himself. He didn't send it and that somewhat excuses his fantasies and the length he went to destroy Hadfield. And in a sense, he meant well. Hadfield's fall should not leave a hole in the history of the building when Thornton's always good intentions could fulfill that history even if, in point of fact, all did not play out the way Thornton described it. 

Perhaps because it was not really an angry letter, Thornton graciously said nice things about Hoban  and before he crossed it out, about Lovering. As he explained Hadfield's insubordination in regards to the Executive office design, he wrote 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."(17)

Why would Thornton almost write in late June 1798 that Lovering was an ingenious architect? After making the estimate of Hadfield's Executive office design, Lovering made his own design for a cheaper building. When Hadfield didn't return his design, the board asked contractors to bid on building Lovering's design. That design did not add to his future reputation as an architect. 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."(18) Poor Lovering, when he made the design, he was trying to simplify Hadfield's. But Scott has a point, and it is unlikely that Thornton thought Lovering ingenious for an ability to cheapen a superior design.

Lovering asked the board to hire him to build his design. But the board put his design out for bidding and Lovering's was the third lowest.(19) 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 necessarily 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.(20) 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 an avatar of grandeur like Thornton. That leaves a current project, Law's largest house, as the likely inspiration for Thornton's crossed out compliment of Lovering.

According to the commissioners' records, on September 12, 1798, Lovering was Law's agent when the commissioners' surveyor laid out Law's lot on Square 689. Based on that, in his 1914 history of the city, Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan suggested that Lovering was probably the architect of the house built on the lot.(21)

125. Square 689 divided by Daniel Carroll and Thomas Law with the latter owning Lots 1, 2, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 17, 19

Bryan's attributing the house to Lovering did not stick. Access to the Thomas Peter Papers would have helped confirm Lovering's role. It contains the contract Law, Peter's brother-in-law, made with Lovering for building the house. The contract is 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 building 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 the walls were to be framed by wood scantling.

126. Page 3 of contract, end of first part and beginning of second made after September 12, 1798

Unfortunately, drawings A.B.C.D. have not been found but they were likely Lovering's designs. In a letter written just after the house was built, Law described the compact complexity of the townhouse:

On the ground floor there is a handsome oval room 32 by 24 and a room adjoining 20 by 28 - the oval room is so handsomely furnished that I wish to leave the eagle round glasses, carpet and couches in them as they are suited to the room - above stairs is a dressing room and a bedroom 21 by 20 - a center room with a fireplace about 17 by thirteen, an oval room 30 by 25 - and a room 20 by 11 with a fireplace - the same upstairs - say 8 bedrooms or 7 bedrooms and an oval sitting room... 

There is no mention of Thornton in the contract or Law's letter. Unfortunately, the signatures in the document aren't dated. However, 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.(22)

But could Lovering have made his design of Law's house before Thornton crossed out "ingenious A" in late June 1798? Lovering's 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.(23)

In the summer 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, on the southwest corner of the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and C Streets SE. He likely made the request because he knew Law was going to build across the street. That suggests that Law had accepted his design by July 10, but that date is two weeks after Thornton crossed out "ingenious A" in his draft letter to Pickering.(24)

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 lauding his new house, Law mentioned that “Steer” was staying in one of his other 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.

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.(25)

127. Stier's Riverdale

However, that Stier rejected Latrobe's help and relied on Lovering attests to the latter's preeminence as an American architect. 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 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.

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 before June 24. 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 who then noted that Lovering was "ingenious."

The letter Lovering wrote to the board in October also makes it clear that Thornton had nothing to do with Lovering's design of Law's house. Ever worried that he might be arrested, the arrival of his adult son from his first marriage added to the burden or providing for his 5 year old daughter. Lovering 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"(26) Laying out Law's lot two weeks later likely gave Lovering more confidence. He had Law's sympathy. For building a house valued at $5800, Law accepted Lovering's lot across the street as security. However, Lovering still had two more payments to make on the lot. He asked the board that future payments for his Executive office design be used to cover two more annual payments on that lot. 

Lovering 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. On October 4, 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....” He would not have said that if he had just "particularized" Thornton's design for Law's house.(27)

Indeed, he would not have written that if he had known just half of the claims Thornton had made since 1794 about his contributions to the Capitol. Ironically, Thornton had just written a letter crafted to prove that he had done all that he had claimed. In 1896, Glenn Brown recognized that the best way to prove that Thornton was then the nation's foremost designer was to associate his Capitol design with the design of the Octagon. A hundred years later, C. M. Harris credited him with designing Law's house. Both also credited Thornton with designing and supervising two house George Washington had built on Capitol Hill. That design was not notable, but his doing that project certified the General's respect for Thornton's architectural talents. 

However, to certify his genius, designing a gentleman's residence or a boarding house evidently never crossed his mind. A few weeks before the Thorntons dined with the Washingtons and the Laws in May 1798, Law had offered a building lot and an advance of $5,000 to the General and challenged him to build a house on Capitol Hill to accommodate the congressmen coming to city in 1800. A few days later, the General replied and refused the money.(30)

With money from congress in hand and work on both the Capitol's roof and the Executive office going smoothly, the commissioners parted way. Scott went to medicinal springs for his health. White retired to his farm. Thornton likely spent more time at his farm. He visited Mount Vernon in early July. In August, he passed his plans for the National University to Thomas Peter and the General.(XX) If anyone needed Thornton's architectural advice, the doctor was not otherwise busy. But when the General began, without Laws helps, to plan his houses on Capitol Hill. He didn't ask for Thornton's help, indeed, in a joking way, he made it seem like he was fearful of getting his advice.

In 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,  Washington revealed his project in a letter 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." 

White immediately tested that assumption. 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. Either he had left the floor plan with Thornton or had let him copy it. 

Thornton did not react with his usual critical references to Sir William Chambers or the Vitruvius Britannicus. 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...."Thornton never animadverted upon the General's design. Instead he used the occasion of finding lots for the General's house to start a process to vindicate his claim that he had restored his original design of the Capitol.

128. The floor-plan Washington sent to White

On September 21, the General chose two lots just northeast of the Capitol. On the same day, Thornton handed his colleagues a letter in which he asked for a building lot that, along with $500, was the prize for winning the Capitol design contest. The board at that time, 1793, had awarded Thornton the money but not the lot. 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. Nobody mentioned that to the General.

It was a simple matter and caused no controversy. However, Thornton freighted his September 21 letter to his colleagues in a way that reverberated in histories of the Capitol. He began his letter by explaining why it took him so long to claim his award: "I have been prevented by motives of delicacy from requesting your attention to a claim I derive from my drawing of the Capitol of United States being approved of by the late President of the United States, and the Commissioners, our predecessors;..." The phrase "motives of delicacy" was a cliché generally meaning that one did not want to embarrass someone else. Although in 1793 no one suggested he return the $500 prize, Thornton did not want to embarrass himself by giving the commissioners a reason to discuss whether he should get the prize lot in light of changes made to his design.

In the letter, he explained that he finally brought up the matter because his winning plan "though deviated from 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."

Thornton wanted more than his prize lot. He wanted to make the prize lot a reward for his restoring his winning design. His colleagues immediately arranged for him to be awarded a lot. But they didn't reply to his letter. They never explained why they didn't. Perhaps it was because they had never seen his award winning design. They also had no reason to dispute an issue that seemed to matter only to Thornton. To challenge Thornton's claim, they would have to quiz the retired president. In a November 1795 letter to the board, Washington wrote that "the present plan is no body's, but a compound of every body's....” Furthermore, why would taking inventory of drawings Thornton had subsequently provided, if any, matter? Since he had been awarded the $500, he obviously should also get the prize lot.

However, in historian Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan's view because Thornton's statements "were not contradicted at the time," they form a solid link in the chain of evidence proving that Thornton restored his design of the Capitol. That said, his colleagues didn't endorse his claim. The president's 1795 characterization of the design was also not contradicted at the time, not even by Thornton who was one of the recipients of the letter which gave credit to "every body."(34)

Of course, the General was the best witness who could vouch for Thornton's claim. But Thornton did not seem eager to discuss his new lot. Evidently after spending three nights at Mount Vernon in early October, he didn't share the news with his host. They may not have talked about the houses. The General was dealing with the board as a whole as he tried to make a contract to build the house, not with Thornton alone. 

The board arranged for George Blagden, who with the stone work ending was no longer needed at the Capitol, to build the houses. The General sent checks for his two lots and thanked the board for all they did and 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."(35) Thornton seemed as clueless as his colleagues and obviously had not designed the houses. Blagden himself wrote to the General.

Thornton tried another a 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. As a county magistrate he had "stamped paper" which pleased the General, but Blagden delivered the contract to Mount Vernon alone. 

Finally, in an October 25 letter, Thornton 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 also restored his plans. In his discussion of the importance of Thornton's letter to his colleagues, Bryan didn't mention the letter to the retired president. Of course, the reason why Thornton might not have explained the situation to the General in the same way as he did to his colleagues was because he knew that the General would know better.

129. Hallet's section of Capitol

Also, if Thornton was fishing for vindication, he made it difficult for the General to oblige. In his letter, 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 confer with Blagden about its specifications. 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." And that is the only service that the General asked for and received from Thornton. They never became neighbors. Thornton never built a house in the city.(36)

Rather than ask Thornton for advice, the General seemed to tease him for his reliance on the books on architecture that he had so often cited. In a December 20 letter, he alerted Thornton to 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."(37)

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 cills to be stone. But Thornton never again mentioned correcting Blagden's workers. He was careful not to cross that line again.(38)

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.(39) 

Thornton did relay ideas from the General to the workers. 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.(40)

Historians who don't credit Thornton for designing the houses credit him for overseeing their construction. 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...."(41) 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 a 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...." Thus, he asked for no fee, and deflected any word of thanks with a "don't mention it." But that's hardly a satisfying explanation for why his contemporaries never did mention it.(42)

  Go the Chapter 12

 Footnotes for Chapter 11

1. Harris, Charles M.,  William Thornton 1759-1828,  LOC.

2. Harris, Papers of William Thornton, p. 588

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

4. Ibid., p. Smith, Morris's Folly, pp. 93, 169.

5.  Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Redlands

6. 1790 Federal Census for Charleston; GW to Commrs. 29 January 1797

7.  Hadfield to Commrs., 10 March 1798, Commrs. records;  Purcell to Commrs. 7, 12, and 20 March 1798; Commrs Proceedings 13 March 1799.

8.  White to WT, 17 March 1798, Papers of William Thornton

9.  White to GW, 8 January 1798; Arnebeck, Fiery Trial pp. 457;  Adams to White 6 August 1800, White to GW, 20 February 1798.

10.  WT to Stoddert 28 June 1798, Harris, Papers of William Thornton, pp. 464-9.

11. White to GW, 10 March 1798; Scott and Thornton to Forrest, 30 January 1798, Commrs records. White had a point. The letter asked Forrest to hurry to the city and expedite White's mission "by every means in your power."; White to Commrs., 11 March 1798, Harris p. 443, in American State Papers, Misc. II, p. 482; Commrs to White, 16 March 1798, Harris p. 448, 27 March 1798, Commrs. records;  American State Papers  pp. 482-3; White to GW 18 April 1798; Annals of Congress, 5th congress, 2nd session, appendix p. 3722.

12. Commrs to Adams 8 June 1798, Commrs. records.

13. Commrs to Pickering 25 June 1798,

14. WT to Pickering 23-25 June 1798 draft.

15. Niemcewicz, Julian Ursyn, Under Their Vine and Fig Tree: Travels through America in 1797–1799, . pp 77-8; see Townsend, Washington Outside and Inside, p 63 for Hadfield's similar thoughts.

16. Arnebeck, Through a Fiery Trial, pp. 378-9.

17. Harris p. 461, footnote 17.

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

19. Lovering to commrs., June 21, 1798; commrs. proceedings June 20, 1798.

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

21. Bryan, p. 311 "If Mr. Lovering was the principal in this enterprise, and not merely the architect,...."

22. Mount Vernon Museum, "Particular description..." 

23. Lovering to Nicholson, January 14, 1798, Nicholson papers.

24. Lovering to Commissioners, 10 July, 4 October, 1798, Commrs. records.

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

26. Samuel Ward to Nicholson, August 31, 1798, Nicholson papers

27. 4 October, 1798, Commrs. records.

XX.  Mrs. Dalton to Abigail Adams, 28 July 1798; Both the editors of Washington's and Thornton's papers suggest the plan was WT's design for GW. On August 27, 1798, GW sent Thomas Peter, who he had seen at Mount Vernon the day before, a brief letter about a monetary transaction and then added: "Doctr Thorntons plan is returned with thanks; our love to Patsy." Patsy was Martha Washington's grand daughter and Peter's wife. Two days later, Peter acknowledge his receipt of "Doctr Thorntons Plan." However, that plan was likely not a design for a house. It was likely Thornton's plan for the National University. GW and Peter as well as WT owned lots around the public reservation slated to be its site. 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. (32)

28. Law to Greenleaf, 9 April 1800, Adams Papers. 

29. Mrs. Thornton's Diary, p. 102.

30. Law to GW, 4 May 1798, .GW to Law, 7 May 1798.

31.  White to GW, 8 September 1798; GW's diary 6 July 1798;  Chernow, Ron, Washington: a Life,  p. 794; Brown,  1896, p. 63. 

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

33. GW to White, 12 September 1798;  Manca, Joseph, “George Washington’s Use of Humor During the Revolutionary War.” Journal of the American Revolution, February 5, 2015; Harris, p. 453; Dunlap, p. 336; footnote to John Francis to GW, 15 September 1798.

34. WT to Commrs 21 September 1798, Harris pp. 472, 475; Bryan p. 317; AMT notebook, vol. image 121; GW's diary; WT to GW 25 October 1798, Founders online.

35. Commrs. to GW, 27 September, 3, 4, 15, 25, October 1798; GW to Commrs. 28 September 4, 17, 22, 27 October 1798.

36. 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. 

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

38. WT to GW 19 April 1799; GW to WT 21 April 1799.

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

40. GW to WT, 30 January, 29 September, 1 October, 1 December 1799; WT to GW, 5 December 1799, Founders online, Harris, p. 515; 

41. Mary Carr, Thomas Wilkinson: A Friend of Wordsworth, p. 11.

42. Ridout, pp. 68-9.

 Anna Maria Thornton  papers on-line volume one, image 83

As it turned out, Thornton did not especially like the house designed by the Ingenious A. In November 1799, the General came to the city and saw the interior of Law's house. In a letter Law wrote five months later, he described the General's reaction to it:

(28)

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.(31)