Chapter 11: Rivaling Tayloe

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

by Bob Arnebeck

Table of contents

Chapter 11: Rivaling Tayloe

Mrs. Thornton by Stuart 1804

How to immortalize the General with a monument had been debated since 1783, and Thornton's opinion counted for little. After all he had not served during the Revolution and his association with the General occurred during the least glorious phase of the Great One's life, his second term. But Thornton thought he had the rhetorical skills to impose his ideas especially after he read that the House of Representatives resolved that the General's tomb should be in the Capitol. He wrote to the author of the resolves, General John Marshall, whom he had never met:

I doubted not they would deposit the body in the place that was long since contemplated for its reception, I accordingly requested it might be enclosed in lead. It was done, and I cannot easily express the pleasure I feel at this melancholy gratification of my hope that the Congress would place him in the center of that national temple which he approved of for a Capitol.... It will be a very great inducement to the completion of the whole building, which has been thought by some contracted minds, unacquainted with grand works, to be upon too great a scale. 

He "doubted not," and managed to come up with something overlooked: congress should pass a secret resolution authorizing that Mrs. Washington would share "the same place of deposit."

According to Mrs. Thornton's diary, he wrote and sent the letter on January 6. She began writing her diary on January 1 and would have an entry for every day of the year 1800. While she principally recorded her husband's activities, her take on them was usually more down to earth. She mentioned his letter to Marshall but only the part about consoling the widow, nothing about hurrying the completion of the Capitol.(1)

All the same, historians have managed to use her diary to glorify her husband, no matter how mundane her reporting. On January 7, a busy day, she noted: "a beautiful clear day.... After dinner we walked to take a look at Mr. Tayloe's house which begins to make a handsome appearance." C. M. Harris counts that entry and seven other less informative entries in which she mentioned walking to the house, as evidence that Thornton kept tabs on the house he designed.(2) 

Just four days before she had noted a request from Mount Vernon for information on the General's houses, and she added: "the money to the undertaker of having all gone thro' my husband's hands, he having Superintended them as a friend." She didn't mention any relationship her husband had with Tayloe's house. However, as is often the case in diaries, the sentence before describing her walk relates to the walk: "The Commissioners received a letter from the Secy of the Navy (Mr. Stoddert) mentioning that the President's time being expired in the house he now occupies that he intends removing his furniture here in June."(3)

The Octagon in 1807

In that letter, Stoddert also told the board that the president insisted on moving into the President's house. He would not be told where he might have to stay and jumped to the conclusion that the commissioners wanted to put him into George Washington's Capitol Hill houses. Commissioner White was not in the city on January 7. Evidently, he had not told his colleagues what he had written to the president. Commissioner Scott had not signed the November letter and assumed White had asked the president to choose a house to be rented. Scott dashed a letter off to Stoddert disavowing the very idea of not using the President’s house. Thornton also signed that letter.

Scott likely got Thornton to reveal what houses he and White had in mind. Scott had sold the lot to Tayloe and likely remained a friend. It bears remembering that before work began on the Octagon, in response to the president's plea that he move into the city, Scott had his own house built just north of the city. If Tayloe needed architectural advice, he probably relied on Commissioner Scott. To keep track of the work on Tayloe's house, Scott could check with Andrew McDonald, the master carpenter then working on the Octagon who had also worked on his house. Thornton had never built a house, let alone his own house. Scott likely knew that Tayloe's house would not be in a state to receive the president's furniture in June 1800. So, he challenged Thornton to see for himself what state the house was in. He wasn't taking a walk to check on a house he had designed.(4)

Harris and others cite an entry Mrs. Thornton wrote five days after their January visit to the Octagon as evidence that Thornton designed Law's house. The Thorntons took Thomas and Patsy Peter to see it, the General's houses and the Capitol. Thomas Peter was an executor of the General's will and would influence decisions about the houses and where to put the General's body. Mrs. Law was Patsy's sister, both were Martha Washington's grand daughters:

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.(5)

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."(6)

But how does one account for Mrs. Thornton's criticism of the oval drawing room's low ceiling? Her husband likely informed her criticism of the room. In 1797, Thornton had written about the yet unbuilt oval room over 100 feet long  "full of broad prominent lights and broad deep shadows." His elevation's highlight was a stately dome. He had been struck by Lovering's ingenious design, but fitting oval rooms into a five story townhouse was alien to his sensibilities.

However, while his merely looking at houses cannot prove that he designed them, there is no doubt that in early 1800, Thornton had an itch for drawing plans. On January 4, the first Saturday afternoon of the year, after seeing the General's houses, he went with his wife and mother-in-law to the Capitol and while the ladies sat by a fire in another room where glaziers were working, "Dr. T-n laid out an Oval, round which is to be the communication to the gallery of the Senate room." She did not note his doing anything like that again. The glaziers were working to close the building so work could continue inside during the winter. Hoban and his skilled workers would build the interior rooms. His drawing an oval on the floor was an exercise for his own benefit, but for what purpose; to help him visualize setting a tomb in the Capitol under the dome or oval rooms in a house?(7) As it turned out, he didn't share a sketch for a tomb until the end of February. He designed a house on February 1. 

Marshall did not reply to Thornton's January 6 letter, until February 6.  A letter Thornton received from Navy secretary Stoddert in late January did not mention the imperative of the moment, the tomb. Instead, he castigated the commissioners for not properly preparing the President's house for the reception of the president: "A private gentleman preparing a residence for a friend would have done more than has been done." Stoddert wanted an enclosed garden "at the north side of the Presidents Houses" similar to one had by the richest man in Philadelphia, William Bingham. There also should be a stable, carriage house and garden house. The latter should be in a garden that would be "an agreeable place to walk in even this summer."

White House in 1820

On January 30, Thornton wrote back that he had always been for grandeur throughout the city. His colleagues were "afraid of encouraging any expense not absolutely necessary, and seem not to think these things necessary that you and I deem indispensable." He then reflected on the mansion: "Some affect to think the house and all that relates to it are upon too extravagant a scale. I think the whole very moderate,..." He added that the president should get a salary of $100,000 to maintain it. At that time, he made $25,000. Thornton also sent a plan of the President's house to the president and noted that "the colonnade to the south is not completed at present, and temporary steps are to be put in." As a president looked south from his mansion, he would see lots Thornton owned at the east end of Square 171. Two days after he wrote that letter to Stoddert, Mrs. Thornton noted that he designed a house for Square 171 and thus in full view of the President's house.(8)

"Saturday, Feby 1st a fine day. The ground covered with the deepest snow we have ever seen here (in 5 yrs.) - river frozen over. Dr. T- engaged in drawing at his plan for a House to build one day or another on Sq. 171." On February 4, 1800, Mrs. Thornton added: "I began to copy on a larger scale the elevation and ground plan of the house."(9)

What Thornton drew on February 1 suggests that he didn't design the Octagon. Mrs. Thornton's diary told a simple story. Thornton didn't like Law's oval room. So he designed a house with better oval rooms. His wife thought Law's house roomy and Tayloe's wall handsome, so he showed her what a handsome and roomy house should look like. The large design with oval rooms in Thornton's papers, that is thought to be his first take on the Octagon design, is actually his final design for a house on Lot 17 in Square 171. Thornton designed a house to rival Tayloe's and Law's.

A slope to the south toward the river precluded building on the western half of Square 171 until the area was leveled. A house on lot 17 at the angled intersection of New York Avenue and 17th Street NW would face the President's house. That left Thornton with the same problem that the architect of the Octagon and Law's house had solved. That meant he could copy Lovering's solution and out do it with a nobler house.

from "historical map" published 1931

Thornton's design for Lot 17 in Square 171 would not have worked on Lot 8 in Square 170. An oval room in the rear of a house on Lot 8 would be hidden from view and have a view of the backs of buildings on F Street to the north that would block any view of the executive mansion. Thornton owned the lots southwest of Lot 17 and could preserve a view looking down the slope to the Potomac River. The large semi-circular portico on the front side of Thornton's design invited eyes looking down from the south portico of the President's house.

Table : Orientation of Thornton design if in lot 17 Square 171

Thornton's habit of studying floor plans and elevations in books before drawing his own suggests that he asked Lovering for one of his preliminary plans for the Octagon. If he had followed the same pattern of trying to get a contract with Law and Tayloe as he would with Stier, then Lovering made at least three specimens for each building, affording a new client a choice of six solutions to the problem faced by building in an angled lot. That explains the other floor plan in Thornton's paper that resembles the actual Octagon floor plan. 

In May 1800, Lovering placed an ad in the local newspapers: "William Lovering, Architect and General Builder – Begs leave to inform his friends and the public, that he has removed from the City of Washington to Gay Street, the next street above the Union Tavern in Georgetown, where he plans to estimate all manner of building, either with materials and labor, or labor only. Specimens of buildings suitable for the obtuse or acute angles of the streets of the City of Washington, may be seen at his home." In Building the Octagon, Ridout quotes the ad and characterizes it as a mere builder taking advantage of what he was learning while building a house designed by a genius: "Supervising architect William Lovering attempted to capitalize on his experience with the unorthodox plan of the Octagon by soliciting other commissions for the eccentrically shaped lots so common in Washington." However, Lovering's ad did not merely offer "his experience." He offered to share "specimens of buildings," that is, plans and elevations to illustrate what could be built on angled lots. Lovering was trying to get work based on his experience as a designer, not merely on his experience as a builder. That Thornton studied the plan only to design his own house would not bother Lovering. He knew Thornton might pay him for estimating the cost of the building if not actually building it. Since Thornton had a specimen of Lovering's design before he placed the ad, Thornton might have led Lovering to believe that there might be a demand for them, thus prompting him to place his ad.(10)

What Thornton drew adapts Lovering's configuration to different terrain with a house less convenient for a family but befitting his grandiose ideas to bring eclat to the city. But why didn't his wife say more about such a consequential design in her diary? Three days later she copied the floor plan and elevation without describing them, and never mentioned the house again.

She noted that he spent the day designing his house "to build one day or another." She stated the obvious which meant the opposite. This was not a project that might be done in the future, and couldn't be done at that time. W. B. Bryan offered an explanation for her lack of enthusiasm. She knew the house could not be built "owing, no doubt, to a lack of funds, which was a common experience in the life of a man who moved in a large orb, but one not within in the range of either the making or the saving money." There is something to that, but whenever Thornton sold his Lancaster property, he expected to make $40,000. The death of his mother in October 1799 might have led to some reckoning of the Tortola estate with money coming to Thornton.(11)

His wife didn't allude to a lack of funds. Money was always a factor but in this case Thornton's preposterous design or motives for building a house uncongenial to anyone who had to live in it made its realization equally unlikely no matter the day. Her lack of enthusiasm for what Thornton designed on February 1 did suggest that it was for the large corner lot of Square 171 and was unsuitable for habitation. A house designed for a rectangular square would, even if done by Thornton, likely accommodate a live in mother-in-law and frequent house guests, and not stick out like a sore thumb. Mrs. Thornton had grown up in Philadelphia, an orderly brick city on a grid.

Even though he did not live in the city, she did mention Tayloe in her diary. She also mentioned Lovering once. On August 21, 1800, she wrote: "Dr. T. waiting with Mr. Lovering to get into the parlor of which I had the key." If her husband used Lovering's specimen as a model for his house on Square 171, then he understood that Lovering designed Tayloe's house. That is something she might have mentioned in her diary. However, by August 31, she had a very low regard for Tayloe.(12)

Judging by her diary, in early 1800 Thornton and Tayloe were on the way to becoming good friends. On January 24, on his way from Mount Airy to Annapolis, Tayloe summoned Thornton to the Union Tavern in Georgetown. The former had to get an early start for Annapolis in the morning so, given the winter darkness, they had no time to see his house under construction. Then in Annapolis, Tayloe graciously helped determine the legal status of property in Georgetown owned by Thornton's sister-in-law who lived in the Virgin Islands. It would appear that the two gentlemen became friends.(13)

At the Union Tavern, they evidently also talked about horses. In her February 16 entry, Mrs. Thornton took a census of the 23 horses they owned including Driver "now at the farm to be sent to Mr. Tayloe's in Virginia to run." In a March 13 entry, she reported that their slave Joe Key, Randall, an enslaved "boy" jockey borrowed from another breeder, Driver and a three year Sorrel filly, "which Dr. T has exchanged with Mr. Tayloe" set off for Virginia. "Joe took a letter from Mr. Tayloe to the manager of his iron works an Neabsco directing him to send a man with Randall to his seat. Took with them cornbread and meat to save tavern expenses." Key would return to F Street; Driver and Randall would be trained to win races.(14)

In the spring 1800, Thornton entered the informal Maryland brotherhood of breeders. Page 4 of the April 7, 1800, Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertisers was full of its doings. An advertisement offered the stud services of "The Celebrated Running Horse Clifden, imported from England last autumn by William Thornton, esquire, of the city of Washington...." On the same page, a notice from the commissioners was signed by Thornton. But Tayloe dominated the page. There was a longer ad offering the services of Mufti, "imported last August by John Tayloe, esquire, of Mount Airy;" a long ad about Ranger noted that he had beaten Ridgely's Medley who "ran a dead heat with Major Tayloe's Leviathan, who is thought the best horse in Virginia;" and, most interesting to Thornton, a letter from Tayloe certified the pedigree of Dunganon and that he was sold "out of training for 500 Guineas."(15) 

As it turned out, training in Mount Airy didn't increase Driver's value. In her June 18 entry, Mrs. Thornton wrote "Driver returned from Virginia in the Afternoon, lame and in bad plight." She wrote little more in her diary about horses. Her husband would publicly call Tayloe to account in the spring of 1802.(16)

With such spring time excitement in 1800, that she did not also note that meanwhile Tayloe's house was driving architectural innovation and prompting her husband to try to match it is understandable. However, on the morning of the day before Joe Key set off with Driver for Mount Airy, an enslaved messenger boy delivered a note that Ridout thinks helps prove that Thornton designed the Octagon:  "while we were at breakfast a boy brought a note from Mr. Carroll of Duddington, (living in the City an original and large proprietor) requesting Dr. T- as he had promised, to give him some ideas for the plan of two houses he and his brother are going to begin immediately on Sq. 686 on the Capitol Hill." Thornton spent the afternoon "drawing the plans for Mr. Carroll."(17) 

In Building the Octagon, Ridout ignores Thornton's design for his own house and cites Thornton's design for Carroll as evidence that he designed a house for Tayloe in 1797, 1798 or 1799.(18) He makes a good point: that Thornton designed a house for another gentleman is significant. But even given the choppy flow of Mrs. Thornton's diary, wouldn't she have tied his designing houses for Carroll to a previous design for Tayloe, if he had indeed made one?

Then again, maybe Carroll learned that Thornton designed Tayloe's house and that inspired him to see the doctor. More likely he heard about Thornton's drawing a design for Law's stables. On February 27, Mrs. Thornton wrote that "Dr. T. received a note from Mr. Law enclosing a rough Sketch of a plan for a Stables & c. behind his House which is five Stories behind and three before which Dr. T. promised to lay down for him, as he had suggested the ideas - The Stables & Carriage House are to be built at the bottom of the lot & the whole yard to be covered over at one story height & graveled over, so as to have a flat terrass from the Kitchen Story all over the extremity of the lot." That was her most elaborate description of her husband's architectural designs.(19)

Carroll had a reason to make sure that the Commissioner thought more highly of him than of Law. In 1800, Mrs. Thornton didn't note the obvious reason why Law and Carroll involved her husband in their projects. They were flattering him in hopes that as a commissioner he would help them. Through her nephew William Cranch, who was then Law's lawyer, they 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. Cranch thought Carroll's mansion better suited and Carroll sent a letter to Cranch describing his house, and Cranch sent it to his aunt. Having Thornton on their side could do neither Law nor Carroll any harm, if the First Family needed a house. Coincidentally, through Notley Young, another member of the Carroll clan, 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.(20)

Latrobe's Baltimore Cathedral

Then the First Lady leaned toward not coming to the city at all. Congress gave the cabinet money and power to prepare the city for the government. Everyone knew that congress would soon abolish the board of commissioners. The Constitution gave congress exclusive jurisdiction over the city and its public buildings. 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.(21)

Carroll's Row

Mrs. Thornton's diary should dispel any notion that Thornton had blossomed as a residential architect. The best that can be said is that just as Hoban had surrounded his President's house with residences and a hotel that he designed, so Thornton designed two boarding houses surrounding his Capitol. His design was likely an expansion of the General's design. Carroll offered the houses for sale in January 1801 and made more of the size of the lot than the character of the houses: "two three story brick houses adjoining each other, 28 feet front each, by  forty feet deep - a fine commodious lot 61 feet front, by 196 feet deep, running back to an alley 30 feet wide, and may be occupied as one or two tenements, they are finished in a plain but substantial manner, and built of the best materials...." These paired houses were larger than the General's which likely pleased Thornton. They also tested Thornton's assumption that the General could have methodically sold his houses to finance the construction of more until a row of houses filled the street. The houses didn't sell, which left Carroll with the option to rent them to someone who wanted to operate a boarding house.(22)

Could the author of the Capitol have been much satisfied with such a project? Mrs. Thornton notes only one visit to see the work on the houses. Then her husband undertook a project that promised to be more rewarding but likely wasn't. In March, he showed Lawrence Lewis where to build his house, and on August 4, 1800, while they were at Mount Vernon, Mrs. Thornton described a pleasing day: "Dr. T. and Mr. Lewis played at backgammon till tea. After breakfast - Mrs. Lewis, the young Ladies and I went in Mrs. Washington's carriage ( a coachee and four) and Mr. Lewis and Dr. T. in ours, to see Mr. Lewis's hill where he is going to build his farm, mill and distillery. Dr. T. has given him a plan for his house. He has a fine situation, all in woods, from which he will have an extensive and beautiful view." She described the scene but not her husband's plan, but she did mention it. Evidently, the money the General set aside for Lewis was slow to become available. Two wings went up first, the building connecting them which likely bore the brunt of Thornton's genius was delayed until 1804 and the builder thought it too close to the down slope. In an 1817 letter to Jefferson, Thornton described how columns of bricks were "plastered over in imitation of freestone." He did not claim credit for the process nor further described his design. Lacking oval rooms, C. M. Harris has no interest in it: "the house as it appears today has no resemblance to Thornton's other designs." The peevish greed of "legatees" after Mrs. Washington's death in 1802 appalled Thornton and Mount Vernon lost its attraction.(23)

Meanwhile in 1800, Thornton seemed to get a measure of satisfaction as a designer of composition ornaments for both the Capitol and President's house. But before he found that outlet for his genius, he at least sketched and wrote about his plans for the General's tomb and monument. The day after Thornton received General Marshall's reply, his friend and  landlord Blodget wrote asking about a house being built next door and what his thoughts were about the monument. Thornton didn't reply until February 26. That he didn't mention Marshall suggests that nothing that General wrote inspired Thornton. To Blodget, he confessed that it was ever in his mind. In the letter, he  sketched a "massy rock," inspired by the monument to Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, 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.(24)

Thornton's "massy" tomb

Blodget had no say in the matter, but he was in Philadelphia where congress began debating what to do. Thornton shared his letter with his wife, who settled the matter quickly in her own mind. It was about "a monument to be erected some future day in the Capitol."

The same week in February that he drew the design for Lot 17, she described his working on his Capitol elevation, and that she helped him. As for details, on February 15, 1800, Mrs. Thornton wrote that Hoban called on her husband after dinner to "consult about  the Capitals of the pillars...." In a footnote to the Papers of William Thornton, Harris highlights the commissioners' proceedings that make clear that Thornton was directing Hoban. On February 10, "Letters received from John Kearney, making application for a drawing at large of the capital of the columns, for the Senate room; which the Board direct James Hoban to furnish him with, in conformity to the drawing given to John Kearney by Wm. Thornton - in the ancient Ionic stile, but with volutes like the modern Ionic.'" He had described such a capital in his April 17, 1799, letter to the commissioners. He also wrote the proceedings that described them again. Harris offers this as proof, as Thornton claimed in various letters, that he did indeed inform working drawings for the Capitol.(25)

Thornton exhibited a fascination with the process of making ornaments. Stoddert had asked him to improve the outside of the President' house. During the summer, he met a better ornament maker from Baltimore named George Andrews. Thornton confessed to Stoddert that he couldn't muster enough of the board's hired slaves to beautify the grounds of the President's house. Instead he worked with Andrews to put composition ornaments on the interior walls of the house. Thornton came up with the designs.(26)

Of course, refining details was not Thornton's fundamental problem. He had a floor plan for the Capitol which, while not the same as his original plan, better captured his ideas by simplifying the relationship of the Grand Vestibule and Conference Room. And whether the House chamber resembled the Irish Parliament or Halle aux Bles, it utilized arcades which were essential elements of his original design. He also had redrawn his East elevation that had struck so many as a work of genius. In the process of redrawing, he had the walls of North Wing as actually built as a model for his elevation. Only doubts about financing the building kept what he had drawn from being accepted as the adopted plan for the remainder of the Capitol. Thus, it behooved him to insist that the design of the remainder of the Capitol was not an open question. If the congress and  president realized the true wealth of the country and wanted even a greater Capitol, then he could unveil his West Elevation depicting a Roman Temple of Liberty.

In late April 1800, Vice President Jefferson wrote to Thornton sharing ideas about the Senate chamber, especially the position of the seat for the presiding officer, i.e. the vice president. One would think Thornton would jump at the opportunity to go back and forth with the man he hoped would be the next president. But with an eye to his legacy, rather than making the building more convenient for those obliged to use it, he jumped at the opportunity to confirm the supremacy of his plans: "I am much obliged by your kindness in suggesting several important considerations respecting the Arrangements in the Capitol & I have the satisfaction of informing you that they are so nearly consonant to my Plans that what I had directed will I flatter myself meet with your approbation...." Then Thornton wrote at length about the treatment and prevention of yellow fever. Doing so was quite in order. Jefferson was then president of the American Philosophical Society. By the way, Thornton's prescriptions were somewhat dated. Philadelphia had been cleaning residents' necessaries for almost two years.

Jefferson asked one direct question: "Are the rooms for the two houses so far advanced as that their interior arrangements are fixed & begun?" Thornton didn't directly answer other than saying "that what I had directed will I flatter myself meet with your approbation." In his April 17, 1799, letter to the board, he declined to making drawings for temporary arrangements which included a room upstairs for the House.

Thornton likely felt free to somewhat dodge the question because Jefferson wrote primarily to introduce a merchant coming to size up the city as a place to do business. The Capitol was of secondary importance, but that Jefferson inquired flattered Thornton. The House of the Representatives had sent its Doorkeeper, Thomas Claxton, to make arrangements both for the Senate and House. The vice president could written to Claxton. Thornton appreciated his confidence and what better way show that then by assuring him that there was no problem. Thornton also invited Jefferson to call on him: "It will give me very great pleasure to have the honor of your Company when you return from Philaa. & if you make any stay I solicit that favor, at which time you will be so good as to aid by further Advice. Though much has been done here we still appear in the infancy of our operations & your improved Mind would suggest many things worthy of our attention."

A month after sending his letter to Jefferson, Thornton met with Claxton, who, Mrs. Thornton wrote, "is empowered to procure the necessary furniture for the Capitol." She added: "they sent for Mr. Hoban and were consulting respecting the seat for the President of the Senate." She left it unclear if Thornton and Claxton sent for Hoban to receive Thornton's orders or Claxton's, or perhaps Hoban, to whom Thornton had passed on the responsibility of making drawings to make expedient arrangements to get the Senate chamber ready, would explain to both where the seat had to be. What is clear is that Thornton did not carry on a consultation about the chair with the first man who would sit in it. It is not clear if Thornton ever made a plan showing the internal arrangements of the Senate chamber.(27)

In June, President Adams visited the city, Georgetown and Alexandria and attended all public dinners in his honor. So did Thornton, who managed to corner him, and Adams promised to drop in and see his design for the Capitol. Whether he sensed that Thornton would seek his official approval for the design is unknown, but at the appointed hour, his chariot and four roared by the F Street house without stopping.(28)

While it cannot be said that Thornton worked as hard as Claxton and Hoban did to prepare North Wing and President's house, he did go out of his way greet and assist the officers of the government as they moved to the city. He offered General Marshall, who by June became Adams' secretary of state room in his house. At the same time, he got the measure of the public servants who made more than he, especially those who while doing less work were making twice his salary. He set his eyes on becoming the next Treasurer of the United States making $3,000 a year. Looking for new sources of income relieved the Thorntons of a nagging worry. No money had yet come from Tortola that year and Thornton needed a loan from Thomas Law to cover a bounced check and hefty penalty.

Despite being pinched for money, on June 18 the Thorntons hosted a dinner for three of the four cabinet officers and other worthies. In 1794, Thornton had written to Lettsom that as a commissioner he was almost as powerful the secretaries of War and Treasury. However, the cabinet was not unanimously impressed with Thornton. Treasury secretary Oliver Wolcott missed the dinner but soon met Thornton. He wrote to his wife that Thornton assured him that the city would have "a population of 160,000, as a matter of course, in a few years." Then Wolcott added "No stranger can be here a day, and converse with the proprietors, without conceiving himself in the company of crazy people. Their ignorance of the rest of the world, and their delusion with respect to their own prospects, are without parallel."(29)

But surely the author of the Capitol was an exception. That fall, in newspapers in New York City and to the north, anonymous celebrated the Capitol as "the most elegant building in the world" and gave credit to "Mr. Thornton's taste." Then anonymous described the unfinished hotel at length and suggested it as headquarters for the Bank of the United States. Evidently, south of New York, the knowing recognized that anonymous was Blodget. In October, when Thornton worked on his Capitol design, likely to fit in the "massy rock," he complained of a headache.(30) 

Mrs. Thornton had no delusions of grandeur. On the 10th anniversary of their marriage she wondered where they would be for their 11th anniversary. That reflected her perception of her husband's loss of power as well as money. On November 1, President Adams arrived to occupy his house. That same day, the commissioners received a note directing that all the ornaments depicting men or beasts at the President's house be removed and replaced with ornamental urns. Thornton did not take it personally and trotted Andrews off to show Jefferson his samples.(31) 

That fall, at least in her own private diary, it would have been a good time to brag on her husband's design for the Octagon. She had the perfect opportunity to do so.  In late November, Tayloe's imported chimney pieces also arrived. Harris assumes they were Thornton's idea. Harris credits him for two "decorative" iron stoves imported from Edinburgh, and a roof with a parapet London-style just as Thornton wanted on the General's houses. Harris argues that Thornton must have been involved since he had been in London and Edinburgh. Of course, Tayloe was educated in England and no stranger to the stoves of his rich friends. Lovering had worked in London.

Chimney piece in 1896

In her diary, Mrs. Thornton gave a curt report on Tayloe's chimney pieces. On November 27, she wrote "Dr. T. came at one o'clock for us to go to see the chimney pieces at Mr. Tayloe's house - we could not go our Servant woman is sick" Then on December 2, with friends but not her husband, she briefly noted that they went to "Mr. Tayloe's house to see the Chimney Pieces of artificial stone."(32)

In December 1800, the city's new newspaper, the National Intelligencer, printed the letter about the General's tomb that Thornton wrote to another gentleman in February. By the way, Blodget, who had a knack for promotion, had just come to the city and moved into the Thornton's house. Thomas Law also lobbied for the tomb; Thornton provided an estimate of its cost; but while authorizing a tomb in the building, congress did not authorize a building to surround it.(33)

Commissioner Scott died on Christmas Day, making Thornton the senior member of the board. Before adjourning after Jefferson's Inauguration on March 4, 1801, the House authorized a chamber of its own as soon as possible. Commissioner White bowed to Thornton's leadership. The board decided to build a chamber for the House on the site of the South Wing. While it would be temporary, its foundation and walls would be incorporated into the permanent South Wing. Once again Thornton didn't mind Hoban making the design, with the caveat that he follow Thornton's plan and make a building elliptical in shape on the foundation already laid. Hoban drew a three plans and estimated that the cheapest temporary "elliptical room" would cost $5,000 but only $1,000 of it would have to be torn down when the South Wing was built.

President Jefferson, who might very well have seen his ideas embodied in Thornton's room agreed with that approach with a caveat offered by Hoban. He wrote to the commissioners: "mr Hobens observes there will be considerable inconveniencies in carrying up the elliptical wall now without the square one, & the square one in future without the elliptical wall, and that these difficulties increase as the walls get higher." For that reason, the president only approved one story for the moment. The board hired Lovering as the contractor. He had designed and supervised construction of oval rooms in Law's and Tayloe's houses. The Seventh Congress convened on December 7, 1801, in what Thornton called "the elliptical room." Even though it was 90 by 72 feet, members soon called it the "oven," either because it was stuffy or its contours resembled a Dutch oven. Now treated as an amusing sidelight, the elliptical room was a second step, after laying the foundation in 1795, in the fulfillment of Thornton's plan for the South Wing.(34)

Fortunately for Thornton's reputation, his orders to Hoban were not clearly spelled out, even though the latter's reluctance before building the chamber proves Thornton's role. At the same time during the summer of 1801, Thornton relished giving orders for a house design, which Harris accounts as more evidence of his genius in that regard. Thornton arranged for James Madison to rent the just built house next door to his. In an August 15 letter, he told Madison that by agreement, the builder would pay $1,000 if the house wasn't ready on October 1. He added that: "I have directed the third Story to be divided into four Rooms, two very good Bed-chambers, & the other two smaller Bed chambers. The Cellar I have directed to be divided, that one may serve for wine &c, the other for Coals &c—and for security against Fire a Cupola on the roof, which will add to the convenience of the House in other respects. There will be two Dormer Windows in front, & two behind. Our house has only one." In a letter to Thornton, Madison had mentioned the need for a good stable and good plastering. Thornton responded by telling Madison "I shall urge the Plaistering as soon as possible, and every thing shall be done to give you satisfaction." 

On the basis of that letter, Harris claims that Thornton "supervised the construction" of Madison's rental. Of course, superintending architects usually work on behalf of the property owner by seeing that building and supply contracts are fulfilled and the building matched contracted specifications.  It seems Thornton exaggerated his role in finishing the house. Madison signed a rental agreement with the builder in June 1802 on condition that he build a brick stable and "what remains to be done to the dwelling house shall also be finished." Seeing that all the work is done before occupancy is the superintending architect's principal job. In his letter to Thornton, Madison made having a good stable his highest priority.

For a friendship that began in a Philadelphia boarding house in 1787, very few letters that passed between Thornton and Madison are extant. However, assuming that even when one writes letters to an old friend imparting new information, one still touches old chords then Thornton ever charmed Madison with his humor, whirlwind of activity, and air of confidence bordering on vanity

In his August  letter to Madison, he closed by declining an invitation to visit Madison in Virginia because he was too busy. Thornton explained: "like Cadmus of old, after I have presumed to invent Letters for the Americans, I was sent hither to build their great City!

There’s a Stroke of Vanity—

It lives in all my Doings!———

To descend, I who lately was nothing less than a Commissioner or Edile, am now reduced to a High-way Man. You will remember we are engaged in making Highways. The City improves rapidly. 

An edile was the equivalent to a city commissioner in Roman times. Cadmus, the hero in Greek mythology responsible for the alphabet also founded the city of Thebes. Thornton said nothing about the "elliptical room" then being built under the supervision of the ediles. Nor did he say anything about the houses being built in the city. If he had indeed been Tayloe's friend, he would have likely known that due to their mutual interest in Virginia thoroughbreds, Madison was also Tayloe's friend.(35)

That said, Thornton was not cultivating Madison in order to put a shine on his talents as an architect or city planner. In a September 8 letter he informed Madison that the Treasurer of the United States announced his retirement. Thornton asked his old friend to help him get the job. When congressmen returned to the city in the fall of 1801, President Jefferson appointed a Virginia M. D. who was also a Revolutionary War veteran.

Thornton likely assumed that the president simply wanted him to continue what he had been doing. In April, toward the end of its session, congress finally got around to doing what every critic of the board thought it would have done once it convened in the city, it abolished the board as of June 1, 1802. Its duties would be assumed by the new Superintendent of the City, to be appointed by the president. With Scott dead, his replacement a Federalist, and White anxious for a judgeship, Thornton had to expect that he would be asked to become the superintendent, certainly his wife did.

Before disbanding, the board advised the president about decisions he had to make in regards to surveying and selling building lots in a way that would finance completion of the Capitol. On April 17, Thornton sent a long letter to the president addressing the problem of a Water Street running along the entire waterfront of the city. Commissioner White had already opined to the president that Thornton's ideas would "carry a Water Street 80 feet wide through the whole extent of the Potowmac and Eastern Branch, one hundred feet distant from the Channel, leaving all the space between that and the shore which in some instances I am inclined to believe is not less than one thousand feet, under water until it shall be filled up. I do not see the propriety of this,..." Before he got Thornton's letter, the president drafted a resolution to only require Water Street to be adjacent to the high water mark. Thus, Thornton's grand ideas, for which he pointed to the Bordeaux waterfront as a good example, may have wearied the president. After he got the letter, he invited Dr. and Mrs. Thornton and Mrs. Brodeau to one of his famous dinners, but he did not reply to his letter. The president made Thomas Munroe, the board's clerk, the new Superintendent on June 1. Mrs. Thornton asked him why he didn't appoint her husband. The president assured her that the job was temporary. Munroe held the job until 1815. But Thornton was not forgotten. Madison hired him as the State department clerk in charge of the new Patent Office. He held that office until 1828 when he died.(36) 

Meanwhile, Tayloe lost his election for a congressional seat by 307 votes, but it wasn't close. There were only 1107 voters. Defeat must have stung because he felt compelled to contrive another way to add eclat to his making the federal city his family's winter home.  In December 1801, he announced in a newspaper ad that "on or about" January 10, 1802, he would become a resident of the City of Washington. That meant his house was effectively finished, but that was not the point of the ad. In it, he announced that he invited a match race with anyone and "can be accommodated, for his own sum, not less than $1500." William O. Sprigg responded and a match race for $3000 was scheduled for May 13. A reprise of the 1797 match race that had a stake of 500 Guineas had to excite gentlemen in the city.(37)

Thornton could not accept the challenge. Driver was in no shape to race. Thornton blamed Tayloe. Beginning in early April and continuing through June, a long newspaper announcement  offered Driver as a stud and suggested that Tayloe ruined a horse that would surely have been one of the greatest racers:

Driver was never tried but once, by John Tayloe, esq., at Tappanoe in Virginia when the bets were in favor of the winner (Yaricot) distancing the field; but Driver lost one heat by only a few feet, and the other heat by only four inches, in three mile heats, distancing the other horses; which as Driver, like his celebrated sire, is a four mile horse, was thought a great race, especially as he was much out of order in consequence of a bad cough. Col. Holmes [probably Hoomes] told me he was thought by those who saw him run, one of the best bottomed horses in America, or perhaps in the world. Driver was put into training the last autumn, but met with an accident that prevented his starting; however, he proved one of the fleetest horses Mr. Duvall ever trained, and of ever lasting bottom.

By "bottom" was meant staying power and stamina. While the ad didn't blame Tayloe for sending Driver home in "bad plight," later in the ad, Thornton quoted Charles Duvall as saying: "if I had trained him at four years old, I think he would have made the best horse on the continent...."(38)

Tayloe was new to the city and disposed to make friends with all local rivals on the turf. For years, he had offered to improve blood lines in America and train and race horses ultimately for every sportsman's benefit. He founded the Washington Jockey Club. Thornton's advertisement undermined all of that. That he held fire until Tayloe moved into the Octagon and solicited a match race proves that Thornton did not have anything to do with the Octagon. He aimed to embarrass Tayloe. Their friendship had ended on June 18, 1800.(39)

Tayloe made amends in 1803. On March 7, Mrs. Thornton noted that "Joe returned in the evening with a horse called Wild Medley." Then an ad offering the services of Wild Medley ran in the Washington Federalist, but it was not written by Thornton. It noted that the horse was bought in Virginia by "W. Thornton." The ad included a testimony signed by Tayloe certifying the wonders of a filly got by Wild Medley that handily beat Tayloe's horse. Another worthy attested that Tayloe bought two foals got by Wild Medley for $1200. Another lamented that its greatest horse had left Gloucester County. Nestled along the Virginia shore at the wide mouth of the Potomac River, it is certain that Thornton did not ride down there; he likely was not acquainted with any gentlemen there. Tayloe probably bought the horse and gave it to Thornton.(40)

Thornton's long friendship with Tayloe began. Of course, their rivalry on the turf continued. That's the nature of the sport. A decade later, the pettiness Thornton brought to their rivalry, once again tested their friendship in a way that proved he didn't design the Octagon. In 1813, when both were in the horse militia, Col. Tayloe balked at trying to persuade President Madison to make Capt. Thornton his aide with the rank of colonel to liaison with the local militia. After the British capture the city in August 1814, Tayloe lay ill and exhausted in a local hotel after hurrying military messages down and up the Virginia bank of the Potomac. Major Thornton had not been called to duty but claimed command of the burned out and exhausted city by virtue of his being the only justice of the peace in the city. When the president returned to the city, Thornton still acted as though he were in charge. He urged capitulation if the British returned to the city and argued that the people had the right to surrender the city even though the government had returned. Col. James Monroe, who was at the president's side, threatened any citizen who stepped forward with a bayonet in the back. Mrs. Thornton had resumed her diary and noted her alarm as her husband grabbed a sword and tried to rally citizens to defend the city. During the crisis, the First Family, who briefly stayed next door to the Thorntons, moved into the Octagon. Mrs. Thornton did not mention that and when she went to the house when Mrs. Madison resumed her famous "drawing rooms," she didn't mention the house let alone that her husband designed it. Meanwhile, her husband showed little concern for his ill friend Col. Tayloe and much interest in a wounded British colonel named William Thornton. He soon coined a mot. Referring to his preventing the burning of the Patent Office which allowed it to serve as a temporary meeting place for congress, he bragged that "One William Thornton took the city and another preserved it by that single act." Without a place to meet, congress might have moved to another city. Thornton couldn't add that the the president moved into a house he had designed because he hadn't. When the Madisons left the city at the end of his second term in March 1817, Mrs. Madison visited all her friends but not her old neighbor Mrs. Thornton. The doctor called the retiring president's attention to that and allowed that he also had noticed "a marked distance to coldness" in their relations.(41)

The only reason that almost 70 years later one of Tayloe's sons credited Thornton for "drawing the plan" of the house is that his father never gave credit to anyone else leaving Thornton as the architect most flattering to the family. Save for his May 1800 ad offering specimens, Lovering did not allude to his work for Tayloe, let alone publicize it. No one in that day bruited about who designed houses. 

However, in 1807, master carpenter Andrew McDonald advertised his services with this reminder. He had "finished the buildings on Rock Hill, near Georgetown, for the late Gustavus Scott, esq...; and also finished that elegant building belonging to Colonel John Tayloe..." So, why didn't Lovering associate his name with Tayloe's house? Lovering probably decided that he could not publicly claim his design because that would diminish the glory of house owners like Tayloe, Law and Stier. Instead, he had to rely on their good word, which he probably never heard. On June 14, 1801, Tayloe wrote to Lovering: "my Object is to be done with the building as quickly as I can with the least trouble and vexation - for the expense of it already alarms me to death when I think of it." Dorsey calculated that the house cost $10,000 over the contract estimate. By the way, in that letter Tayloe demanded that the head carpenter McDonald be fired. That the carpenter bought the lot next door and build a small frame house had to smart. Stier also became vexed at Lovering because of delays in building his house. In a letter to his son, Stier called Lovering a "blockhead."(42)

In his future advertisements, Lovering he did not reveal what he had designed or built. In an 1801 ad, he claimed that he had "been in the practice of drawing for and superintending great part of the buildings in the City of Washington and vicinity." But he didn't say which ones. In 1804, he placed an ad in Alexandria, Virginia, "where he Draws, Designs, and makes estimates of all manner of Buildings and also MEASURES AND VALUES all the different work connected to the building art." He was ready to "contract for any building and complete the same, from a palace to a cottage, which will be executed in the most masterly and economic style." He claimed he had "long experience" but didn't list any houses he designed or built. In 1809, he placed an ad in Baltimore, which exuded a complete command of his profession: "Begs leave to inform the gentlemen of Baltimore and its environs, that they may be supplied with plans, elevations and sections of any building intended to be erected, with the estimates of the different work particularized in a manner in which it is impossible for any dispute to arise, and gives instructions to the different workmen that they have no occasion to make any inquiry during the execution of the building."

Lovering had mastered his profession, but even in booming cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia, he did not leave his mark. His moving from Georgetown to Alexandria to Baltimore to Philadelphia and back to Baltimore where he died in 1813 suggests a struggle to earn a living, not a march to fame.  Thornton was obsessed with fame and pursued it relentlessly.(43)

 

  Chapter 12

1. WT to Marshall 6 January 1800, Harris p. 526; Mrs. Thornton's diary p. 92. 

2. Harris p. 585; Diary p. 92.

3. Diary pp. 90, 92.

4. Commrs to Adams, 21 November 1799, Commrs. records; White to Adams 13 December 1799 (the editors of the on-line papers transcribed "Taylor" but the letter clearly reads "Tayloe;") Stoddert to Commrs., 3 January 1800, Commrs to Adams, 7 January 1800, Commrs. records; White to Adams, 15 January 1800; Washington Federalist, 28 February 1807 p. 3.

5. Diary p. 94.

6. Harris    ; Scott, Creating Capitol Hill  p. 129. 

7. Diary p. 91.

8. Stoddert to WT 20 January 1800; reply 30 January 1800, Harris p. 532-3.

9. Diary p. 102.

10. National Intelligencer, ad dated 1 May 1800; Ridout p. 123.

11. Bryan, History of National Capital, vol. 1, p. 346; WT to Madison, 2 September 1823.

12. Diary p. 181.

13. Diary pp. 99, 107; 

14. Diary pp. 107, 116-7.

15. Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertisers, 7 April 1800, p. 4.

16. Diary p. 157.

17. Diary p. 116.

18. Ridout p. 29.

19. Diary p. 112.

20.  A. Adams to Cranch 4 February 1800, footnote 3, Founders online; Law to Greenleaf 9 April 1800, Adams papers; Cranch to A. Adams 24 April 1800; A. Adams to Anna Greenleaf Cranch 17 April 1800, Adams Family Papers.

21. Scott, p. 116.

22. Diary p. 116; National Intelligencer 5 January 1801, p. 4 & 1 February 1802.

23. Diary pp. 176-7; Harris pp. 582, 591; WT to Jefferson 17 June 1802, 27 May 1817.

24. WT to Blodget 23 February 1800.

25. Harris, p. 490.

26. Andrews

27. Jefferson to WT  23 April 1800;  WT to Jefferson 7 May 1800;  Mrs. Thornton's diary p. 134.

28. Diary p. 152.

29. Diary p. 106; on timing of Tortola payments see Mrs. Thornton's diary 17 February p. 108, 14 April p. 129; dinner Diary pp. 156-7; Wolcott p. 378.

30. E.g., Norwich Courier 8 October 1800; Diary p. 200.

31. Commissioners to Andrews, 1 November 1800; Diary pp. 208, 222.

32. Harris p. 585; Diary p. 215.

33. Diary p. 223

34. Jefferson to Commissioners

35.  Madison to WT 8 August 1801; WT to Madison 16 March 1801, 15 August 1801, 8 September 1801 , Madison to Jefferson 16 September 1801 Founders online;  Harris pp. 560-1, 581, National Intelligencer 8 December 1800; agreement with Voss 26 June 1802. Judging by what impact he had on the newspapers at the time, the builder Nicholas Voss had at least built houses in Alexandria and one on Capitol Hill that he still owned. He sold building materials, owned many acres in Virginia, was comfortable with slavery, and in 1802 held the rank of captain in the Washington militia. There is no reason to think he would be awed by Thornton and his eventually pressing Madison to pay back rent suggests that he was not awed by the secretary of state.

36.  WT to Jefferson 17 April 1802; Jefferson enclosure 14 April 1802;  White to Jefferson 13 April 1802; Jefferson to WT 23 April 1802: Clark, "Dr. and Mrs. Thornton" p.    ; Munroe to Jefferson  15 June 1802.

37. Tayloe ad Washington Federalist 22 December 1801; Sprigg ad 16 & 29 January 1802;

38. National Intelligencer 5 April 1802 p. 3.

39.

40. AMT notebook Vol. 1 image 133  

41. National Intelligencer 7 September 1814; on-line copy of Thornton's letter to the newspaper at http://www.myoutbox.net/poni1814.htm; Journal of Columbia Historical Society, 1916, "Mrs. Thorntos Diary Capture of Washington" pp. 177, 181; Monroe to Hay, 7 September 1814 ; National Intelligencer, September 8, 1814, on-line copy at Dobyns http://www.myoutbox.net/poni1814.htm; Op. cit. September 10, 1814 on-line copy at Dobyns http://www.myoutbox.net/poblake.htm ; AMT papers, Box 4 reel 1 Image 7; WT to Col. WT, 24 June 1815, Gilder Lehrman Institute, (no longer available without registered log-in); WT to Madison 3 March 1817.

42. John Tayloe letterbook, quoted in Kamoie dissertation p. 200 footnote; Callcott, Margaret, editor, ...Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, p.29. 

43. Natl. Intelligencer 8 May 1801; Alexandria Daily Advertiser, vol. 4, no. 1060, page 4, 11 August 1804 ; American Commer. Adv. 17 June 1809; Poulson's Amer. Daily 23 September1809; Diary p. 181; Baltimore City Directory. 1810, p. 117; AMT notebook vol. 3 image 124

27.  Baltimore Advertiser 13 April 1799.

42

 

 

1.  

2. Lovering to Nicholson 9 March 1799, Nicholson Papers; In his contract with Blagden, the General required $4,000 security which the contractor established thanks to Hoban backing him, see footnotes to GW to commrs., 27 October 1798.

3. Ridout, p. 65

4.

5.

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

7. Proceedings, 2 and 4 April 1799;

10.; C. M. Harris tries to make the case that Thornton did make drawings. But he quotes from the commissioners' proceedings several months after Hoban called his bluff. The board directed Hoban to "furnish him, in conformity to drawing given to John Kearney by Wm. Thornton - in the ancient Ionic stile, but with volutes like the modern ionic." That hardly proves that anyone previously relied on Thornton for drawings. That passage in the proceedings was written by Thornton himself, Harris pp. 488-90.

11.

12.

13. Bryan, pp. 316-6;

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

15.

23. WT to GW 1 September 1799; 30 November 1788, GW to Henry Lee, GW to William Fitzhugh 5 August 1798

24. Lear to WT, 12 September 1799, Harris, pp. 508-9.

25. 

28. Ridout, Building the Octagon, pp. 29-30, 61.

DD Intellencer 

31.  Alexandria Advertiser 1804; National Intelligencer 1801.

34. Diary, pp. 116-7; Cohen pp. 117-8, already cited in Chapter Ten.

EE, Madison account with WT 5 December 1809

35. lots Mrs. Thornton's notebooks vol 3 Image 38, 75, 141 (for sale of another slave); National Intelligencer. ad dated 16 May 1808;

36.

37. Washington Federalist, 29 April 1803 p. 4; Mrs. Thornton's n notebook 1807 vol. 3, image 2 

38. Thornton v. Wynn 25 US 183; Thornton v. The Bank of Washington; Rattler Broadside, downloaded but unsourced.

39. On Tayloe's health see JQA diary 8 November 1821; Clark, "Dr. and Mrs. Thornton", p. 182; in AMT papers, Mrs. Thornton noted WT's activities during racing weeks which usually occurred in the fall; on Tayloe's importance to banks see JQA diary 17 February 1819; on Thornton's debts see Chapter 13 footnote 22; on militia rank see Thornton to Tayloe, 8 June 1813 Madison Papers LOC; on Hadfield see Julia King, George Hadfield: Architect of the Federal City.