Chapter 11: Rivaling Tayloe
The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol
Chapter 11: Rivaling Tayloe
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| Mrs. Thornton by Stuart 1804 |
The General's death could have been a godsend for Thornton in that he hoped it would hasten the completion of the Capitol. 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, congratulating the House for its resolution and noting that putting the body in the center of "that national temple... 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." A month later Marshall acknowledged receiving the letter but didn't react to Thornton's vision. Even Mrs. Thornton seemed unexcited by the letter. In her diary, she merely noted that her husband urged the body of Mrs. Washington also be placed in the tomb.(1)
She principally recorded her husband's activities, but not his motivations nor his opinions about the motivations of others. That lack of context has made it easier for historians to jump to conclusions. For example, on January 7, she noted: "....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)
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)
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| 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. His own mansion, Rock Hill, situated just north of the city, had been built by 1800. Andrew McDonald, the master carpenter then working on the Octagon, had also worked on his house. Scott knew that Tayloe's house would not be in a state to receive the president's furniture in June 1800. So, he likely 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)
On the 12th, a Sunday, Mrs. Thornton described their visit to Law's house without saying he designed that. In an earlier entry, she had described her husband's relationship to the Genereal's house, so one could conclude that Thornton had nothing to do with Law's house, but, how she described their visit invited inferences. The Thorntons took Thomas and Patsy Peter to see the General's houses, the Capitol, and Law's new house: "—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 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 to Dr. Fothergill about the Capitol's as yet unbuilt grand oval vestibule that was 114 feet long and "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 his oval rooms were 12 and 10 feet high. Fitting oval rooms into a five story townhouse was alien to Thornton's 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 the afternoon of Saturday January 4, after seeing the General's houses, he took his wife and mother-in-law to the Capitol. 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.
In late January, Navy secretary Stoddert sent a personal letter to Thornton castigating 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."
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| 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."(8) 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, Mrs. Thornton noted: "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." He evidently finished the design on February 2. On the 4th, Mrs. Thornton "began to
copy on a larger scale the elevation and ground plan of the house."(9)
What Thornton drew 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.
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| 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
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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 Lovering had followed the same pattern of trying to get a contract with Law and Tayloe as he would with Stier, then he made at least three specimens for each building, affording a 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? 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. A house designed for a rectangular lot 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.
A little over three weeks after drawing an elevation for the house in Square 171, one of her husband's architectural project excited Mrs. Thornton. On February 27, she 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.(12)
Two weeks later, a boy delivered 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." 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...." However, those paired houses were larger than the General's which likely pleased Thornton. They also would test 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. Carroll's houses didn't sell, which left him with the option of renting them to someone who wanted to operate a boarding house.(13)
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. He makes a good point: that Thornton designed a house for another gentleman is significant.(14) Mrs. Thornton also suggested that her husband broached the idea with Carroll, but she didn't assess Carroll's motives for asking him to actually make a design. Carroll and Law 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 that not only recounted the General's reaction, but also listed the dimensions of the oval rooms and sketched its fan-shaped kitchen. Law asked Greenleaf to see that Mrs. Adams got the letter and it wound up in the Adams Family Papers. 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.
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.(15)
Finally, Thornton undertook another project that promised to be the most rewarding but likely wasn't. After the General's death, Thornton continued to be welcomed at Mount Vernon. While there in early March 1800, he showed Lawrence Lewis where to build his house. 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 in Virginia columns of bricks were "plastered over in imitation of freestone." He did not claim credit for the process nor further described his design for Lewis. 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.(16)
There is no documentation of Thornton designing another house until 1808 when, in the calendar-like notebook that she kept, Mrs. Thornton noted that in drew a plan for "Mr. Peter." Her annual notebooks are extant for the year 1803 to 1815, and the one other mention of his making a plan occurred in 1811. His biographers excuse themselves from explaining Thornton's retreat from designing houses by explaining that upon appointment as Commissioner of Patents in June 1802, he no longer had time for great architecture.(17) A better explanation is that in reaction to the interest the General took in Law's and the Tayloe's houses, added to the General denying him the privilege of designing his Capitol Hill houses, Thornton set out to prove that he could design houses to himself, his wife, the General's family including Messrs. Law, Lewis and Peter. All three married into the Washington family. Not set on having a career doing so, what he designed in 1800 was sufficient.
In 1799, one of Tayloe's seven sisters married one of the General's nephews, but, of course, that is not why Thornton was interested in Tayloe. On January 24, 1800, on his way from Mount Airy to Annapolis, Tayloe summoned Thornton from Fitzhugh's seat, where they were bargaining over thoroughbreds, to the Union Tavern in Georgetown. While returning home after a tea in Georgetown, Mrs. Thornton bumped into her husband on the way to Georgetown to see Tayloe. The doctor got back home at 9 pm. Tayloe had to get an early start for Annapolis in the morning. When 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. They evidently also talked about horses. She did not note Tayloe's coming to the District again or his seeing her husband again. They were obviously not consulting about work on Tayloe's house.(18)
In late November, Thornton did go to the house to see chimney-pieces made from artificial stone that had just arrived from London. Glenn Brown fancied that Thornton designed them. Harris assumes they were Thornton's idea since they came from London. Mrs. Thornton also saw them and didn't mention her husband having anything to do with them. Harris also credits Thornton for prompting Tayloe to import two "decorative" iron stoves imported from Edinburgh. Of course, Tayloe was educated in England and no stranger to the stoves of his rich friends. Lovering, an Englishman, had worked in London.(19)
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 her March 13 entry, she reported that their slave Joe Key, an enslaved "boy" jockey named Randall borrowed from another breeder, Driver and a three year old 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 in 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.(20)
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."(21)
Early that year, no money came from Tortola as it usually did. Thornton needed a loan from Thomas Law to cover a bounced check and hefty penalty. However, he expected consideration from Tortola and didn't stint in his entertaining newcomers to the city. The Thorntons expected Driver to return ready to race and win purses. Then, in her June 18 entry, Mrs. Thornton wrote "Driver returned from Virginia in the Afternoon, lame and in bad plight."(22) Thornton waited until Tayloe moved to the city before broadcasting his reaction to Driver's bad plight.
In May 1801, 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 arranged 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. Sprigg's horse had beaten Tayloe's in the city's first open purse races in November. A reprise of the 1797 match race that had a stake of 500 Guineas had to excite gentlemen in the city.(23)
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...."(24)
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.
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 which is nestled along the Virginia shore at the wide mouth of the Potomac River. Likely Tayloe bought the horse and gave it to Thornton.(25)
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 1811, just before the jockey club races, President Madison, Thornton and Tayloe dined together the President's house. The president followed the turf and had sent his mares to Clifden. 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. Thornton thought he had been overlooked for a promotion in an ungentlemanly way, and deserved the higher rank.(26) 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. Captain Thornton had not been called to duty and fled to Georgetown. Then he returned to try to save a musical instrument he had invented that was in the Patent Office, which at that time claimed a corner of what was to have been Blodget's hotel. He persuaded British officers to spare the building. Then the British marched away and Thornton claimed command of the city because the mayor had fled and he was the only justice of the peace in the city. He and the mayor later argued over whether Thornton protected public property or collaborated with the enemy. When the president returned to the city, Thornton explained to him that its citizens wanted to capitulate if British troops then on ships off Alexandria came to the city. He 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 expressed 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 Col. William Thornton, a wounded British officer. 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.(27)
There is no evidence that Tayloe turned on Thornton. However, it wasn't a case of Thornton ever relenting in what he alone perceived as their rivalry on the turf. In 1821, he bought a horse for $3,000 that the Supreme Court in Thornton v. Wynn 25 US 183 noted was touted by the seller as "capable of beating any horse in the United States" and capable of a match with Eclipse. In 1821, Eclipse's victory over a Virginia horse made him the most talked about horse in the nation's history. While Col. Tayloe bred Rattler and Col. Wynn trained him, if Rattler won the featured Washington Jockey Club race, Thornton might have easily received the backing of Southern sportsmen to arrange a match race with Eclipse. On race day in Washington, Thornton not Tayloe was the contender vying for a place in the history of the American turf. Rattler pulled a tendon and lost.(28)
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. Stier also became vexed at Lovering because of delays in building his house. In a letter to his son, Stier called Lovering a "blockhead."(29)
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.(30) Thornton was obsessed with fame and pursued it relentlessly. That meant that he had to defend his reputation in regard to the Capitol. Plus, in 1800, as the government moved to the city, he had to convince the president and congressmen that the elevation in his parlor charted the future construction of the national temple.
In her 1800 diary Mrs. Thornton wrote "Capitol" 83 times. Usually, she mentioned it as a landmark as in Capitol Hill or as a sight to show visitors. She mentioned her husband's Capitol plans in 16 entries. For example, the same week in February that he drew the design for Lot 17, Mrs. Thornton noted: "Dr. T- at work all day on the East Elevation of the Capitol. I assisted a little 'till evening then worked on my netting."(31) She noted 6 other days that year, divided between February and the fall, when he or she worked on the plans. She never said why they worked on the plans or whether they were merely copying them or making changes. She only noted 8 days when visitors came to see the plans. She noted 13 days when her husband went to Capitol and possibly consulted with those finishing the building. However, on February 15, 1800, a Saturday, she wrote that Hoban called on her husband after dinner to "consult about the Capitals...."
In a footnote to the Papers of William Thornton, Harris highlights the commissioners' proceedings he thinks that made clear that Thornton was directing Hoban. On February 10, the plasterer John Kearney asked for a drawing and "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 without distinguishing between the ancient and modern styles. 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. However, this was a rare occasion when Thornton actually described what he drew but evidently neither the drawing or description made plain to Hoban what the commissioners intended.(32)
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. 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: "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...." In his April 17, 1799, letter to the board, he declined making drawings for temporary arrangements for a room upstairs for the House to meet in, but suggested what "ought" to be done to walls, timbers, and studding.(33)
A month after sending his letter to Jefferson, Thornton met with Thomas Claxton, who, Mrs. Thornton wrote, "is empowered to procure the necessary furniture for the Capitol." He was the Doorkeeper of the House of the Representatives sent by its Speaker to make arrangements both for the Senate and House. She noted that: "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.(34)
Thornton did not want to change his plan to suit others. He simply wanted it endorsed as the plan. 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. 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.(35)
On June 18,1800, after the president left, Thornton invited his cabinet to dinner. In 1794, Thornton had written to Lettsom that as a commissioners 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."(36)
Thornton thought of another way to acquaint the president with his genius. 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. 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. Adams' ire was not personally directed against Thornton. Mrs. Adams returned a visit by Mrs. Thornton and saw the plan. Advised by Cranch, he appointed Thornton one of the 28 justices of the peace for the District of Columbia which allowed to continuing adjudicating petty crimes and small debts and notarize deeds as he had been doing as a county magistrate.(37)
Meanwhile, Thornton lobbied the House to put the General's tomb under the future dome. In early December, the Intelligencer printed Thornton's description of a tomb in a monument that he had sent to Blodget in February. Thornton offered a "massy rock," inspired by the monument to Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, with the General ascending to heaven on top, and, among other figures, 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, once it was built. Thornton came up with an estimate of how much it would cost, around $15,000, but with no estimate for the dome. Congress was not moved.(38)
Then, before adjourning after Jefferson's Inauguration on March 4, 1801, the House authorized a chamber of its own as soon as possible. Commissioner Scott died on Christmas Day, making Thornton the senior member of the board. Commissioner White bowed to Thornton's leadership in architectural matters. 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.(39)
What was likely more gratifying to Thornton, was how easily decisions were made with the president living in the city. He saw the problem, recognized that Thornton's prize winning plan had the solution and that Thornton and Hoban worked well together. Before the president moved to the city, Thornton did not enunciate what was clearly on his mind. He thought he could fulfill the obligations of the design contest winner without also being a commissioner. His agency in the on-going process of building the approved design derived from the prospectus giving the rules of the design contest, which Jefferson had written. When Jefferson did give him another job, he would indeed consult with him about the Capitol design even though he was no longer a commissioner. Thus, Thornton set his sights on other federal offices that paid more money, and in March applied to the president to fill any vacancy.
Congress did not pass the bill abolishing the board of commissioners until April 1802 and that relieved the president from having to find another job for Thornton. At the same time, much to the chagrin of his partisans, the president did not dismiss all current office holders. However, Thornton had befriended the Treasurer of the United States, with a $3,000 a year salary, and had accompanied him to the Alexandria races in November 1800. He knew that Samuel Meredith planned to retire, and when clued into the official date, in September, he wrote to his old friend Madison to send his application for the job to the president with his own endorsement. The request came at the culmination of Thornton's doing a service for Madison. He had first offered the incoming secretary of state accommodation in his F Street house. Then he learned that the president was trying to find a rental for Madison. Thornton took over that task and in August advanced rent for a house being built next to his in return for an agreement that the builder would pay $1,000 if the house wasn't ready on October 1.
Just as in his letter to the General describing how he directed Blagden's workers to replace wooden sills with stone, so he gave directions to the builder next door, telling Madison 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...." On the basis of Thornton's letter, C. M. Harris claims that Thornton "supervised the construction" of Madison's rental. Thornton certainly made a rhetorical show of it but there is evidence that Madison was disappointed in what he found in October. In August, he had emphasized to Thornton that he needed a good stable. In June 1802, Madison finally signed a rental agreement with the builder on condition that he build a brick stable and "what remains to be done to the dwelling house shall also be finished." Back in September, Madison had not endorsed Thornton's application, but sent it on to the president. 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.(40)
Thornton was left to assume that the president simply wanted him to continue what he had been doing. When congress abolished the board it assigned its duties to a 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 be made. 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 reported 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.(41)
After he got the letter, he invited Dr. and Mrs. Thornton and Mrs. Brodeau to dinner, but he did not reply to the 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. Before its second session in the city ended in 1802, congress delegated its authority to grant patents to the State department. On June 2, 1802, the president and Madison hired Thornton as the clerk to process patents. He held the job until he died in 1828. There was one problem with his new position. The salary was very high for a clerk but not for a federal officer, only $1400. After 8 years of government service, he took a 12.5% cut in salary. The president was conscious of his slighting Thornton so he also appointed him a Commissioner of Bankruptcy for the District of Columbia and calculated that Thornton would make $600 a year in fees. Thornton later claimed that out of pity for bankrupts, he never asked for fees. But with friends in high office, he trusted there would be more honors and emoluments. There wasn't, and by 1812, he was a rather bitter bureaucrat, and more bitter still because in the meantime he lost control over his Capitol design despite Jefferson's continued respect for it.(42)
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| Latrobe's Baltimore Cathedral |
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| Carroll's Row |
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| Thornton's "massy" tomb |
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| Chimney piece in 1896 |
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. 112.
13. Diary p. 116; National Intelligencer 5 January 1801, p. 4 & 1 February 1802.
14. Ridout p. 29.
15. 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.
16. Diary pp. 176-7; Harris pp. 582, 591; WT to Jefferson 17 June 1802, 27 May 1817.
17. Harris, Liii; Gordon Brown p.
18. Diary pp. 99, 107;
19. Diary p. 223
20. Diary pp. 107, 116-7.
21. Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertisers, 7 April 1800, p. 4.
22. Diary p. 106; on timing of Tortola payments see Mrs. Thornton's diary 17 February p. 108, 14 April p. 129; Diary p. 157.
23. Tayloe ad Washington Federalist 22 December 1801; Sprigg ad 16 & 29 January 1802;
24. National Intelligencer 5 April 1802 p. 3.
25. AMT notebook Vol. 1 image 133; Washington Federalist 29 April 1803.
26. WT to Madison, 19 Nov. 1804; Clark, Dr. and Mrs. Thornton, p. 182; Tayloe to Madison, 25 July 1807 ; Thornton to Tayloe, 8 June 1813
27. AMT Notebook, Vol. 3 Image ; 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.
28. Thornton v. Wynn ; Rattler broadside
29. John Tayloe letterbook, quoted in Kamoie dissertation p. 200 footnote; Callcott, Margaret, editor, ...Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, p.29.
30. 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.
31. Diary p. 102.
32. Diary p. 107; Harris, p. 490.
33. Jefferson to WT 23 April 1800; WT to Jefferson 7 May 1800;
34. Diary p. 134.
35. Diary pp. 151ff
36. dinner Diary pp. 156-7; Wolcott p. 378.
37. Commissioners to Andrews, 1 November 1800; Thornton then arranged for Andrews to show Jefferson his samples, Diary pp. 208, 214, 222. Cranch to Adams ;
38. WT to Blodget 23 February 1800 pp.535-7; Diary p. 218; National Intelligencer 8 December 1800.
39. Jefferson to Commrs., 2 June 1801
40. 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.
41. WT to Jefferson 17 April 1802; Jefferson enclosure 14 April 1802; White to Jefferson 13 April 1802;
42. Jefferson to WT 23 April 1802: Clark, "Dr. and Mrs. Thornton" p. ; Thornton deposition, 1812 American State Papers Misc, vol.1 p. 193; Munroe to Jefferson 15 June 1802.
23. Diary p. 116.
24. Ridout p. 29.
21. Scott, p. 116.
24. WT to Blodget 23 February 1800.
28. Diary p. 152.
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.
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.
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.
15.
23. 30 November 1788, GW to Henry Lee, GW to William Fitzhugh 5 August 1798
24.
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.
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