Chapter 12: Designing the Octagon
The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol
Chapter 12: Designing the Octagon
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| 132. 18th century dragoon |
In July 1798, President Adams asked the General to once again be a general, and raise a provisional army to defend the country from possible French aggression. John Tayloe III promptly volunteered and the General so informed the secretary of war who would then see that the president included Tayloe in the long list of officers sent to the Senate for confirmation. The General did not doubt that it would give the president "pleasure to find Gentlemen in his situation, and Independent fortunes, stepping forward at such a Crisis with a tender of their Services." To the secretary of war, the General described Tayloe as "among the most wealthy & respectable men in this State; active, zealous & attentive to whatever he undertakes...."
It took over five months for Adams to forward nominations to the Senate. On January 23, the General informed Tayloe that he would be a major in the dragoons "a very honorable rank for someone with no military experience." He also assured him that lack of experience would not be a handicap. He would be paired with a captain of dragoons in the regular army now raised to the rank of major. That veteran dragoon was "a man of family; genteel in his person; has given proofs of his gallant behaviour, and was wounded in General Wayne’s victory over the combined Indian force in the year 1794."
Then the General got down to business. In late 1797, Tayloe had expressed interest in buying "Jack Asses when I shd be disposed to part with any." The General offered him "three for $800, and one for $300." All three "were got by that valuable Jack Ass, Compound (who with another equally valuable, was poisoned, or died in most violent agonies, last winter) who was the descendent of Royal Gift, out of an Imported Jenny from Malta." He added that "Ready money would be very convenient to me, as my buildings in the City call for it...."
The letter relegated his Capitol Hill houses to nine words. In his reply sent on February 10, Tayloe explained "respecting the Jack" his father-in-law gave him "a very fine one—consequently my wants on that head [are] supplied—Beside this—I am anxious to appropriate every shilling I can raise—towards the improvements I contemplate putting up in the F. City.” Is it likely that almost two years after buying an expensive lot in the city that Tayloe was only thinking about building? His letter gives some credence to that. Recently, "with an infinity of fatigue," he was elected to the state senate. He thought he could win election to congress in 1801, but for now duty called him to Richmond where he could fight anti-government factions. That in turn meant he couldn't accept his appointment to the army because, by Virginia law, he would have to resign his seat in the Senate.
The
General easily solved the dilemma. He replied that
day without a word about asses or houses. Since the domestic opposition
to good government was at that moment a greater threat than the French,
he strongly encouraged the political career while reserving military duty if war actually began. In Tayloe family legend, George Washington was
credited with having much to do with the location of the Octagon. He did
in the sense that he advised Tayloe to run for congress which assured that he would build a
residence in the city.(1)
Much can be inferred from the timing of the letters between the General and Tayloe. Just before Tayloe's reply arrived, Thornton had spent two nights at Mount Vernon. Even though historians count Thornton a genius at designing houses and, in the General's case, supervising building them in a most economical way, it didn't dawn on the General to mention that to Tayloe.
Then, a month later, Tayloe may have had a design. On March 9, William Lovering wrote to John Nicholson:
“I shall not be able to get any business at this place owing to being
insolvent. I could have had a Building to do upon a contract close to
fifteen thousand dollars for a Gentleman in Virginia but could get no
security therefore have lost it and I hope and trust you will do
something for me.”
At that time, Tayloe was living in Virginia. It seems Lovering's month long process of wooing a client came up empty because his financial predicament made his assets suspect and getting security from others risky.(2) That suggests but doesn't prove that Lovering designed Tayloe's house. His contract to build Law's house shows that Lovering had drawings A. B. C. and D. before he drew up a contract. Why would the cost conscious Tayloe operate differently? Lovering wound up as the superintending architect overseeing the contractors who built the Octagon. That suggests he either eventually came up with security or Tayloe waved the need for it.
However, when dealing with Stier in 1801, Lovering readily gave up his own design to build what Stier wanted. According to a letter Thornton wrote to the General, the contract for the house was not signed until mid-April. Is it possible that after March 9, Thornton stepped up to design the house? There are no other letters or signed documents revealing the design process for the Octagon, but what distinguishes architectural history is that it gives primacy to found structures and designs that informed those structures. Two unsigned and undated floor plans that are now in the Thornton papers that are similar to the actual floor plan of the house are crucial evidence that Thornton designed the house.
As Ridout puts it: "A careful comparison of these two preliminary plans with the first-floor plan of the house as built leaves little doubt of their relationship. The jumble of conflicting and asymmetrically placed geometric forms that undermined the first plan
has largely been organized in the second,
and culminates in the final design as a balanced composition of a circle, two rectangles, and a pair of intersecting triangles."(3)
Ridout doesn't note that the first design only has 5 windows facing the streets instead of 9. The first design also shows Thornton' aversion to rectangular rooms. On the floor depicted, the only rectangular room is small and next to the staircase.
If Ridout's chronology is right, there was likely a reaction and response between Tayloe and Thornton, just as there evidently was between Tayloe and Lovering. Tayloe did not live in the city. Not only did running for office keep Tayloe in Virginia, in February, he joined his wife in her "confinement" after she gave birth to a son on January 29. He promised to go to Philadelphia after that ended and he headed north a few days before March 26, when he got sick in Spotsylvania, Virginia, and then went back to Mount Airy.(4) Lovering could have visited Tayloe during that time. He had traveled the 140 miles to Philadelphia at least twice. Mount Airy is around 100 miles from the federal city. However, there is no evidence he made the latter trip.
Ridout turns to Mrs. Thornton's 1800 diary to prove that Thornton had the time and inclination to design houses "between his work routine as a commissioner."(5) But from January to April 1799, his work as a commissioner was not routine. At Thornton's insistence, the board was investigating its work force and trying to find evidence to fire Hoban. As Commissioner White put in an 1802 letter to President Jefferson, "both of the my colleagues were desirous of getting Hoban out of the way and amazing exertions were made to find something in his conduct which would justify them in dismissing him."(6) That might not have precluded a genius from meanwhile designing a house. However, during his campaign to fire Hoban, Thornton refused to make drawings for the Capitol requested by Hoban.
In February 1799, the board asked carpenters and joiners for complaints against both Hoban and Redmund Purcell who played such a large role in getting Hadfield out of the way. The board soon charged Purcell for not properly supervising men working under him during the winter. He even paid slave sawyers their shilling a day while doing little work. Purcell asked for time to prepare a defense. The board gave him two days and then fired him when he didn't appear before a board of carpenters chosen to hear his case. Commissioner White, a lawyer, didn't like that rush to judgment.(7)
Meanwhile, when Hoban heard that the board had received letters from workers impugning his conduct, he asked the board to share that evidence. The investigation centered on the complaint of an English joiner, Joseph Middleton, who claimed that Hoban did not provide the drawings and materials he needed to build shutters that the board hired him to build. On March 12, Hoban explained that he had given Middleton what he needed to make doors and doubted he had time to make shutters.
As the investigations continued, the board ordered Hoban to estimate the cost of getting the Capitol in a state to receive congress in December 1800. He had done annual estimates for work on the President's house that the board had sent to congress, but he had designed and supervised construction of that building. He replied that he could not very well estimate expenses at the Capitol for the coming season because he had no "plan or sections of the building to calculate by, nor the parts in detail, all which should be put into the hands of the superintendent." Hoban knew of that requirement because he too had been a design contest winner. He also knew that to get his prize lot, Thornton claimed he provided sections as he restored his original design.(8)
Hoban's letter was disingenuous. No one knew the Capitol design better than he did. He had seen and criticized Thornton's original design, endorsed Hallet's revision of it, and defended it against Hadfield in 1795. While he superintended it in 1795, hired slaves and masons laid the foundation; in 1798, hired slaves and carpenters covered the building with a roof that Hoban designed. The board did not react or respond to his letter, which is to say, Scott and White did not contradict Hoban's assertion that Thornton had not provided drawings.
Unlike Purcell, Hoban asked the board to begin hearing evidence at once and that process continued until April 9. Then in an April 12 letter to White, Purcell announced his determination "to pour broadsides" into the hulls of Thornton and Scott. He attacked "the fribbling quack architect who smuggled his name to the only drawing of sections for the Capitol ever delivered to the commissioners' office, made out by another man." There were also no updated plans based on the work already done, and Thornton should draw them. In his attack, Purcell mentioned Thornton's extant elevation, but it was not in the hands of the superintendent: "The original plan is hung as a trophy to science in his [Thornton's] parlor." The letter was published on April 16.(9)
On
April 15, Hoban asked the
board for "drawings necessary for carrying on the following work at the
Capitol, viz. 1st. The East entrance and staircase, 2nd. The Elliptic
staircase, 3rd. The back staircase, 4. The Representatives Chamber, 5.
The Senate Chamber."(10)This time the board reacted to Hoban's request.
White had already signaled his sympathy for Hoban, and evidently
persuaded Scott to stop the investigation. Why did Scott switch?
In 1802, congress abolished the board. President Jefferson then appointed its clerk to take over the commissioners' duties, which for the moment entailed only accommodating the government and not finishing the Capitol and President's house. To save money and because he was not needed, the new superintendent gave Hoban notice. He threatened to sue on the grounds that the board had renewed his contract in 1801 on condition that he work until the Capitol and President's house "shall be finished." That puzzled the president who then asked White about Hoban's reaction. Recalling his colleagues campaign to fire Hoban in 1799, White opined "I believe he would then have disputed their right,..." In 1799, White likely persuaded lawyer Scott that Hoban's case against Thornton for dereliction of duty was likely stronger than any case that could be made against Hoban who had built the President's house and was finishing the North Wing of the Capitol.(11)
White and Scott passed Hoban's request on to Thornton and reminded him that in 1795, he had written a letter to his colleagues assuring them that he would provide drawings to carry on the work. They also noted that doing so was an obligation of the design contest winner. Indeed, "your letter of 17th of November 1795 admits the principle." That suggests that Thornton had never practiced that principal. If he had, his colleagues could simply ask him to supply the drawings as usual.
Thornton wrote the draft of his reply to his colleagues on April 17. He began by pointing out that he had already made enough drawings and that he was on hand to give advice. He reminded them that the "late Superintendent," meaning Hadfield, was "expressly engaged to furnish the detailed drawings.…" No historian has produced an example of Thornton sketching something for Hadfield to draw. He didn’t, for example, sketch the Capitol roof and relied on forcing Hadfield to stipulate that the roof would not be higher than the balustrade.
Thornton found an ingenious way to split hairs and free himself from
any principle that he should make drawings in order to get the Capitol
ready for congress. He reminded the board that it "had determined not to finish the rooms in a splendid and expensive style at present but in a plain manner...." He argued that such
"plain" expedients to get the building ready for use were not part of
his design and not his responsibility. The stairways were to be
temporary and made of wood. They were an expedient. Otherwise, he would
be anxious to make drawings. He evidently forgot that in his November 1795 letter he had written "...I promise to supply such drawings hereafter, as may be deemed sufficient for the prosecution of the Capitol, and in time to prevent any delay whatever."
Then he launched into a written description of features in each room and his descriptions were not plain nor expedient. As for the Senate chamber, he wrote: "I propose that the columns be executed in the ancient Ionic order with the volutes curved in the middle over the column and with an astragal below the volutes to form a neck to the column: the shaft of the column plain - the entablature full but plain and without modilions."
That's not exactly from Chambers who described Ionic columns with "angular volutes with an astragal and fillet below the volute." Chambers at least provided a glossary. A volute is a scroll. An astragal is "a small moulding whose profile is semi-circular."Thornton wished marble for the columns but accepted substitutes. But he offered no drawings. He also noted times when the board had asked Hoban for drawings, and suggested that doing drawings had always been Hoban's job.(12)
Thus, the First Architect of the Capitol, in the eyes of historians, stood his ground. Hoban got the North Wing ready for congress. In 1914, W. B. Bryan cited the board's proceedings and correspondence in April 1799 as proof that in 1876 Cluss was wrong to dismiss Thornton as an amateur. To do so, just as Glenn Brown did in 1896, Bryan melded Thornton's architectural triumphs. That Hoban asked for drawings from Thornton proved that Thornton designed the Capitol. Neither Bryan nor Brown mentioned Thornton's campaign to fire Hoban. Bryan found proof that Thornton did indeed make drawings. In the diary of Mrs. Thornton "are references to her husband being engaged in preparing detailed plans of the work to be done at the capitol, as well as to other architectural work he was engaged in at the time, as for example, making the plans and superintending the building of the Octagon house...." Actually, in her 1800 diary, are no references to detailed plans for the Capitol or plans for the Octagon. In 1799, when Hoban asked for drawings, Thornton refused to provide them. On April 18, White and Scott formed the board and wrote to Hoban enclosing a copy of the letter Thornton sent to them. They requested that Hoban make the necessary drawings "as conveniently you can."(13)
Meanwhile, Tayloe didn't head north until mid-April, visited the General and signed a building contract in the federal city by April 19. The contract has been lost but Thornton likely witnessed the signatures. He wasn't a party to the contract because it was made with the builder. However, Lovering was not a party either. At that time, he had still not solved his security problem.
If Thornton had made the house design, the way he shared the news demonstrated uncharacteristic humility. His April 19 letter to the General was principally about the dangers of wooden sills getting damp. Thornton mentioned the Tayloe house as the third item in a string of gossip. He briefly reported the death and internment of the Daltons' daughter, the planned visit to Mount Vernon of several gentlemen from Baltimore, as well as: "Mr J. Tayloe of Virga has contracted to build a House in the City near the President’s Square of $13,000 value."
Of course, if Thornton was a genius, it is possible that on the afternoon of the 17th, after Tayloe ended his visit at Mount Vernon and came to city, or on the 18th, Thornton drew a plan for the Octagon. On April 27, Thornton jotted down in a notebook where he occasionally kept track of his activities that he "set out Mr. Tayloe's lot." Perhaps, his gentleman's circumspection overruled Thornton's propensity to brag, but, in drafts of his letters, he had always shown a tendency to compensate for his setbacks. But in this case, even in his own mind, he couldn't right the embarrassing setback in his campaign against a rival architect with the announcement of an architectural triumph. He only set out the lot. He didn't design the house.
The official process of setting out a lot required a representative of the board in consultation with the architect and/or property owner to ascertain that the design conformed to building regulations. Whether a curvilinear front could be parallel to intersecting straight streets was a question that required special understanding from the commissioners' representative. Law's design had already gotten a pass, but Tayloe's design was different. The front wall with a protruding oval had several feet of flat wall on either side of the bow. That wall did not parallel the nearby streets. It marked an hypotenuse to the angled intersection.
Thornton was likely there, representing the commissioners, to do Tayloe a favor for the very good reason that he was in the process of importing two prize race horses from England. They would arrive in the fall of 1799. Payments from the Tortola plantation accrued to Thornton's credit at the beginning of each year. At that time it took letters 3 to 4 months get cross the Atlantic. Thornton's purchase, facilitated in England by his cousin Isaac Pickering, was likely at least 9 months in the making, time enough for Thornton to calculate the need for Tayloe's services to train or profitably breed the horses. Offering a house design is a dangerous favor to give. New houses can be costly and problematical, but bending a rule? That said, it is likely that Tayloe wasn't in the federal city on April 27. Judging from a letter he wrote to the General on the 29th, he had returned to Mount Airy to observe the crucial elections in Virginia that ended on the 25th. However, Tayloe likely spent some time with Thornton. The nation's top horse breeder had just placed an ad date April 4 offering "for sale and at a great bargain if immediately applied for the celebrated running horse Gabriel." She had been shipped from England in December and arrived in Norfolk in March, and was just the horse for a novice breeder like Thornton.(14)
Thornton may have also done the "ingenious A" a favor. Even though he wrote on March 9 that he lost a contract with a gentleman in Virginia, Lovering might have been there on April 27th, and Tayloe may have pulled strings to get him there. That raises the question, would Tayloe or his agent have gone to such lengths if Lovering had not also designed the house?
During the summer of 1798, ever worried that he might be arrested, the arrival of his adult son from his first marriage added to Lovering's burdens. He began to plan a return to England. At the end of August, a friend of Nicholson's warned the speculator of the possible loss of “a man of abilities." Laying out Law's lot two weeks later likely gave Lovering more confidence. He had Law's sympathy. For building a house valued at $5800, Law accepted Lovering's lot across the street as security. For his houses, the General would ask for a $4000 security.
In the fall of 1798, while Lovering waited for the Maryland legislature to convene, he had to advertise his intention to declare bankruptcy. His advertisement excited his creditors, who then leaned on the sheriff to arrest him. On December 4, Lovering wrote to Nicholson that “the advertisement of my intentions has been a great injury to me for I should have had several buildings...."
In that same letter, he told Nicholson that he had conferred with William Hammond Dorsey, the agent for the trustees who were trying to extract money from the bankrupt speculators. Dorsey would become Tayloe's agent in the city handling the finances for the Octagon project. He was also selected as Georgetown’s senator in the Maryland legislature. Lovering mentioned to Nicholson that several legislators were helping him get bankruptcy protection. (15)
In December, Lovering went to Annapolis where he found that other legislators questioned whether he was a citizen of Maryland, a requisite for getting protection. (Until congress moved to the District of Columbia, all who lived in the federal city lived in Maryland.) Just before adjourning in January, the legislature passed a bill granting him protection, provided he could prove his citizenship to the Chancellor, who was the highest legal officer in the state. When he appeared before the Chancellor for a final decision, creditors complained about the inadequacy of Lovering's bookkeeping, and his case was put off until February.(16)
Lovering viewed the snag as a mere formality. On January 22, 1799, he appealed to Nicholson and Morris on their honor not to use his bankruptcy petition as a pretext for withholding what they owed him. Lovering understood that they were short of cash so he asked for Tennessee lands as compensation, and claimed that he planned to go to London in the spring where he could easily sell it. Soon after he wrote that letter, he learned of Tayloe's project and tried to land a contract. The likely way that he heard about Tayloe's project was through Dorsey who had helped him in Annapolis. Given that he had been making plans to take his family back to London, he may have been able to afford a trip to Mount Airy to see Tayloe.
Then in his March 9 letter to Nicholson, he underscored his woes by reporting that due to having no security, he failed to get a contract with a gentleman in Virginia. In a March 26 letter, he explained to Nicholson that he couldn't go to Baltimore to
do some business for him because "the Sherriff has taken every Shilling
that I could raise and borrow to the amount of $69 for sundry fees
&c. I will thank you for that 100 ac. of land in Georgia and wish
them conveyed to my son Richard Lovering who is now at Washington." Unfortunately, when writing to Nicholson, Lovering had to be on his guard. In the friendly confines of Tunnicliff's hotel, he had entertained Nicholson with the idea of building 166 two story houses with dormer windows. But in early 1799, both Morris and Nicholson were in Philadelphia's Prune Street debtors prison. It made sense for Lovering to admit his failures in order to make his plight as dire as theirs. But he had to conceal his successes. He didn't mention the work he did for Law for fear that it would inspire the speculators to dun him.(17)
After March 26, Lovering entered the surreal world of debt where making money would only benefit his tormentors. Any money he made would go directly to his creditors. That explains why there is no evidence that he at least asked to be paid for his design for Tayloe's house.
On April 10, the new sheriff notified Lovering that his creditors had writs that would force the sheriff to seize all of Lovering's property the following day. He would also put a notice in the newspaper warning people not to do business with him. Because court was in session at the county seat in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, there were no lawyers in town to help Lovering. Someone advised him to hurry to Annapolis and see the Chancellor.
Lovering lacked money for the trip. He got it from Thomas Law. In Annapolis, Lovering saw the Chancellor, who quashed the sheriff's writs. This is such a fairy tale ending to Lovering's crisis that one has to suspect the fine hand of a superior power. Indeed, in November, the legislature had elected Benjamin Ogle governor. He was Tayloe's father-in-law. Lovering had the joy of writing to Nicholson about the reaction of their creditors when Lovering gave them the Chancellor's order: “You would have been pleased to see their chagrin."(18)
However, Lovering evidently didn't sign the contract Thornton mentioned in his April 19 letter. In an April 22 letter to Nicholson, Lovering sounded like a man with no hope: “I have nothing to do here and shall be soon be on my way to Philadelphia, as I now am down to the last shilling without any hope of getting any relief,...”(19) Then suddenly, Lovering landed on his feet. During its session the Maryland legislature had authorized a tax levy for repairs to or replacement of the Prince George's County Courthouse in Upper Marlboro. On April 26, the justices of the Levy Court opted for a new courthouse and asked "William Lovering of the City of Washington Architect, to draft a plan thereof...." He would receive $400 for his design and construction of the building would be under his "Direction and Inspection."(20)
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| 139A.
What had been built under Lovering was later added to throughout the
19th century. The porch and back buildings were not his design. The
secular steeple was likely within the $12,000 budget for the project. |
On April 25, 1799, Thomas Law wrote to George Washington that “your corner stone is to be laid today and I am to attend” and that same day Law would sign a building contract. Presumably, thanks to the Chancellor's order Lovering signed that contract to build Law’s house just three days after his morose letter to Nicholson. Lovering could now also sign Tayloe's contract. That contract has not been found. Work began in early May.
Lovering certainly didn't leave town. On May 9, the commissioners asked him to inspect the slating on the roof of the President's house.(21) Then he began working as superintending architect at the Octagon for which he was paid $900. As he began working again, Lovering stopped writing to Nicholson. He died while in prison in December 1800.
That Lovering was able to get to work, presumably fulfilling the contract he first presented to Tayloe or his representative Dorsey in March, doesn't prove that he began building a house that he designed. Harris claims that "Thornton's work on his design for Tayloe can be dated to the period between April and September 1799 on the basis of letters he wrote to George Washington."(22) That suggests that there is written evidence that Thornton designed Tayloe's house, but there isn't. It's a matter of inferences, pairing a mention of Tayloe's contract as the third item of gossip in Thornton's April 19 letter to the General with the only mention of Tayloe that summer. On September 1, Thornton wrote to the General to explain why he and Mrs. Thornton did not go to Mount Vernon as planned: "We meant to have paid our respects to you and Mrs Washington Yesterday, but Mr Tayloe of Mount Airy spent the Day with us,..."
He didn't say how he and Mrs. Thornton spent the day with Tayloe, but the proximity of Thornton, Tayloe and Tayloe's house is suggestive. However, his letter to General suggests that he and Mrs. Thornton played hosts to Tayloe. He "spent the day" with them. They all likely inspected Thornton's stable in town and at his farm. In 1800, Mrs. Thornton would count 23 horses that they owned, so even before the two came from England, the doctor had some to show Tayloe.
Unfortunately, in their correspondence Thornton and the General did not talk about thoroughbreds. In 1788, the General traded his last thoroughbred for land and vowed to only breed mules. Instead, in his September 1 letter to the General, Thornton didn't say anything more about Tayloe. He wrote about the future of the city. The General had forwarded a letter from Secretary of State Pickering offering a plan for the federal city's docks that would prevent yellow fever. Thornton reacted to that: "it is a highly interesting subject and one I have urged, for three years to the board." Then he noted continuing lot sales and added that "the Trustees, of Morris & Nicholson, are going to finish the Houses at the Point." [They didn't.] Then, as he often did, he projected into the future of the city's public spaces. He noted that "the navy-yard will be fixed... where I recommended it." He had prevented it from being placed on the square designated for the Marine Hospital. He also had preserved the reservation for "a military academy, for parade-ground, for the exercise of the great guns, for magazines, etc., etc." Evidently, Harris found evidence that Thornton designed the Octagon solely in the fact that in August he and Tayloe spent the day together.(23)
Another letter written at the time gave an idea of the table talk at Mount Vernon when Thornton was there. On September 12, 1799, the General's secretary, Tobias Lear, wrote to Thornton thanking him for some recent medical advice about treatment of a lame leg. He also revealed what was likely the drift of Thornton's conversation at Mount Vernon: "I am very happy to learn that the prospects in the city are brightening fast. You will become every day more and more important, and I have not a doubt but the improvements will be rapid beyond example." That was the perfect segue for congratulating Thornton for the work being done on Law's, Tayloe's and the General's houses. Instead, Lear gloried in the Big Picture as produced by Thornton: "I hope the grand and magnificent will be combined with the useful in all the new public undertakings. We are not working for our selves or our children; but for ages to come, and the works should be admired as well as used. Your wharves and the introduction of running water are among the first objects. Let no little mindedness or contracted views of private interest prevent their being accomplished upon the most extensive and beautiful plan that the nature of things will admit of - and - But hold, I am talking to one who has considered and understands these subjects much better than myself, and who, I trust, will exert himself to have everything done in the best manner.(24)
As was the case with Law's house, Harris cites Mrs. Thornton's diary as evidence that Thornton designed Tayloe's house. Construction continued throughout 1800, but Mrs. Thornton's only description of the house came on January 7: "Tuesday [January] 7th, a beautiful clear day.... After dinner we walked to take a look at Mr. Tayloe's house which begins to make a handsome appearance." Harris counts that and the other seven walks in which they saw the house as evidence that Thornton kept tabs on the house he designed. However, he had a reason to check on Tayloe's house on January 7.(25)
On that day, the board received a letter from Navy Secretary Stoddert reporting that the president planned to ship his furniture to the city in June. He told Stoddert to tell the board that he insisted on moving into the President's house. He was reacting to a November 21 letter from White and Thornton and a December 13 letter from White reporting that there might not be enough money to get the President's house ready in time. Adams bristled at being told where he might have to stay and jumped to the conclusion that the commissioners wanted to park him in George Washington's Capitol Hill houses.
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. He knew the master carpenter then working on the Octagon. In 1807, 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..." Thornton had never built a house, let alone his own house. In January 1800, Scott likely knew that Tayloe's house would not be in a state to receive the president's furniture in June 1800. So, Thornton took a walk to see what state the house was in.(26)
In only one of his several walks to the house did his wife note that he took any particular interest in what he saw. In November, 1800, he saw chimney pieces imported from London. Harris assumes they were Thornton's idea. Harris also credits him for two "decorative" iron stoves imported from Edinburgh, and a parapet. Thornton must have been involved since he had been in both cities. Of course, Tayloe was educated in England and Lovering had worked there for many years.(27)
Ridout also tries to wring proof out of Mrs. Thornton's diary. The entry he cites to prove that Thornton designed the Octagon presents a cozy picture of Thornton the house designer, but Tayloe's house is not mentioned. Ridout holds out the mere fact that Thornton designed another house in March 1800 as evidence that he did a design for Tayloe in 1797, 1798 or 1799: "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."(28)
What she wrote in 1800 can be taken as an indication of what Thornton did in 1798 or 1799. But the "plain" house he designed for Carroll bore no resemblance to Tayloe's house. Ridout excuses that by looking to the future. Plans Thornton drew for his friend Thomas Peter in 1808 also count as evidence that he designed the Octagon. Ridout writes: "Thornton experimented further with geometric forms and other elements of neo-classicism years later on the equally grand Tudor Place in Georgetown."
Ridout
doesn't mention another house Thornton designed five weeks before his
design for Carroll: "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 noted: "I began to
copy on a larger scale the elevation and ground plan of the house."
Why treat the future as prologue or as proof when the diary actually tells a simple story. He 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 does have something to do with the Octagon. Thornton designed a house to rival Tayloe's. What he designed in February 1800 also has something to do with his design for Tudor Place. Both have a design element that fascinated Thornton more than mere ovals -- a grand, house-high, colonnaded oval making temple-like entrance reminiscent of his Capitol West Front. The entrance to the Octagon is not at all pretentious. By the way, the oval rooms Thornton drew for Tudor Place became rectangular. He was rare architect who became famous for designs that were never actually built.
Mrs. Thornon did not give any clue as to why Thornton designed the house on Square 171, nor why he waited so long to design it. He had bought lots in that square in May 1797, a month after Tayloe bought his lot on Square 170. Thornton had bought several lots, 1 to 8 and 13 to 21. He didn't own lots 10 and 11 that were opposite Tayloe's lots on New York Avenue. Judging from the topographical shading of an 1800 map of the city that shows the lot sloping down toward the Potomac River, the only sensible place to build was on lot 17 facing the President's house at the angled intersection of New York Avenue and 17th Street NW. 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.
Because the ground south of the President's house sloped down toward the Potomac River with the grade of the slope steeper to the southwest, Thornton's design for Lot 17 in Square 171 would not have worked on Lot 8 in Square 170. The oval room forming the rear of his design overlooked that slope. Thornton owned the lots southwest of Lot 17 and could preserve a view of the Potomac from his rear oval room. The rear of the Octagon faces the slope up to the President's house. An oval room there 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. The large semi-circular porch on the other side of Thornton's design invited eyes looking down from the President's house.
But why didn't Thornton or his wife say more about such a consequential design? W. B. Bryan offers an interpretation 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. Still, Mrs. Thornton likely didn't relish the idea of that money, if it came, being wasted in that way. To bring some order to their finances she would soon begin keeping notebooks recording every household expense.(29)
As for Thornton, in effect, he did write a justification for his never built mansion. On January 20, Benjamin Stoddert wrote 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 wrote and he 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."
On January 30, Thornton wrote back that he had always been for grandeur throughout the city. His colleagues had always dragged their feet: "They are however 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. The day after he wrote that letter to Stoddert, he finished his design for Lot 17.(30)
That leaves one more piece of evidence to evaluate, the floor plan in Thornton's paper that better resembles the actual Octagon floor plan. In May 1800, three months after Thornton finished his design for Lot 17, 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. If he 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 new client a choice of six solutions to the problem faced by building in an angled lot. Lovering was trying to get work based on his experience as a designer, not merely on his experience as a builder.(31)
However, in 1807, master carpenter McDonald boasted of finishing "that elegant building belonging to Colonel John Tayloe." So, why didn't Lovering associate his name with Tayloe's house? It wasn't a question of waiting to finish the house. 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 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.
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."(32)
Such scorn evidently didn't faze Lovering: 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 of fame.
If $300 was the fee for designing an office building, Thornton rightly sensed that for him there was no money to be made designing houses. As for superintending, he had no skill in estimating the cost of men and materials or dealing with workers. But his grandiose design for Lot 17 suggests that he understood, as Glenn Brown would understand, that a notable design for a house would add to the luster of his Capitol design, his claim to fame, especially if it exploited the same design elements.
There is no evidence in Mrs. Thornton's 1800 diary or her subsequent jottings in notebooks that she kept at least through 1815 that the Thorntons ever socialized with the Loverings. A 1799 marriage with a Georgetown widow merited a notice in the newspaper but that did not make an English carpenter a gentleman no matter the prestige of the houses he designed and built. But in the middle of the summer of 1800, she came home and she found "Dr. T. waiting with Mr. Lovering to get into the parlor of which I had the key." Since that was where he kept his elevation of Capitol, it is likely he also kept his design for Lot 17. That Lovering had a loaned a specimen of design for Tayloe and that Thornton invited him to see the design to estimate its cost is plausible. No other man in the city could have done that as well as Lovering. After Thornton's brief enthusiasm for making designs in the winter of 1800, his wife only noted him drawing house plans in 1808 and 1811. The day before working on the latter, Lovering, who was visiting the city, dropped off a book.
Evidently, the Ingenious A was one architect that did not raise Thornton's hackles. The supposition that Thornton asked him to estimate the cost of the Lot 17 design suggests that, as his ad showed, Lovering didn't mind sharing his architectural ideas even if doing so spawned designs that rivaled his. But by building on Lot 17, Thornton was clearly trying to rival Tayloe, not Lovering, and he found another way to do it.(33)
To be sure, Brown, Harris, Ridout and others sense no rivalry at all. But Harris and Ridout don't mention references to Tayloe in Mrs. Thornton's diary that didn't have anything to do with houses. Back in January 1800, Thornton met Tayloe one evening at the Union Tavern in Georgetown. The latter 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. 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.
Then on March 12, the day her husband got the note about designing a house for Daniel Carroll, Mrs. Thornton put more portentous news in her diary: "a boy came from the farm with a 3 yr old Sorrel filly which Dr. T- has exchanged with Mr. Tayloe - He then wrote a note to Mr. O'Reilly to know when he can have his boy to go with Driver to Mr. Tayloe's." "His boy" was a slave named Randall who was a jockey. Tayloe preferred slaves because they didn't ask for more money if they won a race. Then Randall and Joe Key, Thornton's slave, took Driver and the filly to Neabsco near Dumfries, Virginia, where they gave the manager of the iron works a letter from Tayloe directing him to send a man to take Randall and Driver to Mount Airy. By the following evening, Joe returned and "said they had liked to be lost in Pohick run on the other side of Alexandria - Saw a horse near the Shore that had been drowned there."(34) (Certainly at that time, Thornton relied on and trusted Key, but in 1808, he sold him for $120 in cash and $350 in notes to a North Carolina congressman. In Alexandria, he ran away. The congressman placed an ad offering a $40 reward for his return. Thornton probably wrote the description of Key: "Joe is about 5 feet 6 inches high, very active and strong, a little bow legged and combs his wool very high before." The congressman got his money back. Four years later, Key was captured on a neighboring farm and Thornton sold him again.)(35)
In her diary, Mrs. Thornton seemed far more interested in horses than houses. Then, on June 18, after hosting a dinner for three of the four cabinet officers, she noted that Driver returned "in bad plight." She only made cursory references to horses after that. While she mentioned "Tayloe's house" again, she didn't mention Tayloe. Did he avoid coming to the city while his house was being built? Or, did he avoid Thornton when he did come?
Work on the Octagon largely ended in December 1801. With furnishing yet to do, the city's social season ended before the house could be opened. Dorsey paid off Lovering and contractors in April and after almost three years that job was over. Ironically, given history's subsequent take on the Octagon, that's when Thornton published an attack on Tayloe.
In her 1800 diary, Mrs. Thornton did not mention her husband's reaction to Driver's bad plight. Almost two years after Driver's return, Thornton made his reaction public. On April 5, 1802, a very long ad in the National Intelligencer offering Driver as stud blamed Tayloe for the horse's failing to become the great racer he was bred to be:
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...."
The rest of the ad also put Tayloe in his place. It celebrated Thornton's English connection when everyone knew that Tayloe's connections were unparalleled. Driver was got by "Lord Edgmont's famous running horse Driver" after he was sold to the Earl of Egremont. Thornton's relation, "Isaac Pickering, esq., of Foxlease, Hampshire, England,... sent the dam of Driver... to the Earl of Egremont's by one of his own grooms." Cousin Pickering owned six plantations on Tortola and so was someone the earl would not slight, but Tayloe knew the earl well. He would soon buy a farm outside the City of Washington and name it Petworth after the earl's seat in England. Thanks to Driver's pedigree, Thornton could drop the names of two lords and a duke. No reader would mistake mere name dropping as indicating a personal acquaintance, but the ad gave the impression that only the Atlantic Ocean kept Thornton and the earl from being best of friends. Thornton added that Driver's pedigree was certified by Governor Ogle, who was Tayloe's father-in-law.(36)
Tayloe did react to what he must have taken as bizarre attack. After all, it was evident to everyone else that, as breeders, Tayloe and Thornton weren't equals. They were poles apart. Tayloe relied on an enormous stable to find the horse to cross the finish line first. Thornton propelled his chosen horse with rhetoric. In the spring of 1803, Tayloe seemed to make a peace offering for what Thornton supposed he did to Driver. An ad offering the services of Wild Medley ran in the Washington Federalist. It noted that the horse was bought in Virginia by "W. Thornton." That was the only mention of the owner. The ad included a testimony signed by John Tayloe certifying the wonders of a filly got by Wild Medley that handily beat Tayloe's horse. Thornton owned Wild Medley until he died in 1810.(37)
Thornton never had enough money to rival Tayloe's operation, and he sent his horses away to be trained for races. He never had a celebrated winner. In 1821, he thought he bought one, Rattler, bred by Tayloe and trained by Col. Wynn, Virginia's top trainer. Thanks to testimony related in Wynn v. Thornton, which was decided by the Supreme Court in 1827, Thornton bought the horse because the
seller "declared" the horse to be "capable of beating any horse in the
United States" and "recommended the purchasers to match him against a
celebrated race horse in New-York called Eclipse." Because he came up lame, Rattler lost a
race in Washington the day after Tayloe's Lady Lightfoot lost to Eclipse at the
Union Course on Long Island. Since Rattler would not meet Eclipse, Thornton didn't pay Wynn for the horse. The latter won in District court but the Justices vacated the verdict because the lower court judge had told the jury that the condition of the horse was immaterial to the case. In 1830, the heirs of the colonel and doctor settled out of court.
Meanwhile, unable to beat Tayloe on the turf, Thornton set out to rival him in the pasture. In 1822, a broadside advertised "Rattler belonging to Dr. Thornton" as a stud. The broadside described the horse "as the best on the continent," equaling Tayloe's Sir Archy. Not only was Rattler got by Sir Archy but Rattler's dam Robin Red-Breast traced her pedigree back to old Highflyer just as Sir Archy did. Ergo, Rattler's pedigree was better that Sir Archy's because of a "double cross... Rattler is doubly descended from old Highflyer."(38)
Tayloe died in the Octagon on February 29, 1828; Thornton died in his F Street house on March 28. The younger man, only 57 years old, had been plagued with a stomach ailment since 1821. Thornton, 68 years old, had been in very poor health since 1825. Despite their rivalry on the turf, after 1802, there is no reason to assess their friendship as other than pleasurable and beneficial to both. Before the 1811 Washington Jockey Club races, President Madison had Thornton and Tayloe join him for dinner. Tayloe had founded the Jockey Club and presided. Thornton inspected the track, verified the time of notable heats, and always expected to win and always had a reason why he didn't. It happened so often no one seemed to mind. However, Thornton's habitual indebtedness likely made Tayloe uncomfortable. He was a president of Washington's Metropolis Bank. In the local horse militia, Colonel Tayloe did not appreciate Captain Thornton's scheme to coax President Madison to make him a Colonel. Tayloe exposed the scheme to Madison. For his architectural problems, including a new roof for the Octagon in 1810, Tayloe used Hadfield. From his front door, he could see the small Neo-classical mansion Hadfield designed and slowly built across the Potomac on Arlington Heights for Martha Washington's grandson. However, there is no evidence that Thornton was at all upset that Tayloe used Hadfield.
Since Thornton didn't design the Octagon, what he didn't do in that regard didn't diminish his reputation as an architect. But as the city found its purpose, thanks to Benjamin Latrobe, a four year long dispute in the city's newspapers raised questions as to what he actually did to facilitate building the North Wing of the Capitol.
Footnotes for Chapter 12
1. Adams to GW 22 June 1798; GW to McHenry 22 July 1798; GW to Tayloe 21 July 1798, GW to Tayloe, 23 January 1799, for GW's interest in asses see 23 January 1799 to Robert Lewis.; Tayloe to GW, 10 February 1799, and footnotes; GW to Tayloe 12 February 1799.
2. GW's diary 7 February 1799; 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. Tayloe to GW 10 February 1799, & 26 March 1799.
5. Ridout, p. 61.
6. Jefferson to White, 2 July 1802; White to Jefferson, 13 July 1802; Commrs. Proceedings, 2 and 15 January 1799.
7. Proceedings, 2 and 4 April 1799;
8. Proceedings 18 March 1799; Hoban to Commrs. 12 March 1799; Middleton to Commrs 22 March 1799.
9. Centinel of Liberty 16 April 1799 p. 1
10. Hoban to Commrs. 15 April 1799; 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. Jefferson to White, 2 July 1802; White to Jefferson, 13 July 1802
12.WT to Commrs. 17 April 1799; Chambers, Treatise, vol. II, pp. 368. 408, 425;
13. Bryan, pp. 316-6; Commrs to Hoban, 18 April 1799, Commrs. records.
14. WT to GW, 19 April 1799; 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, on timing of Tortola payments see Mrs. Thornton's diary 17 February p. 108, 14 April p. 129; Baltimore Advertiser 13 April 1799.
15. Lovering to Nicholson, December 4, 1798, Nicholson papers; on Dorsey see Ridout p. 71, and Papenfuse, Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature , vol. 426, p. 279
16. Lovering to Nicholson, 27 December 1798 and 4 January 1799.
17. Lovering to Nicholson, 22 January 1799.
18. Lovering to Nicholson 26 March, 10 & 17 April 1799. For another view of Lovering’s debt problems see Tunnicliff to Nicholson, 9 April 1799.
19. Lovering to Nicholson 22 April 1799.
20. Sarson, Steven, The Tobacco-Plantation South in the Early American Atlantic World, pp. 11-2.
21. Law to GW, 25 April 1799, Law's April letter to Washington was undated, but marked received April 5. However, the modern editors of Washington's papers cite internal evidence for dating the letter as sent on April 25; Commrs to Lovering 9 May 1799 Commrs. records.
22. Harris, p. 585.
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. Mrs. Thornton’s Diary p. 92; Harris p. 585
26. 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.
27. Harris p. 585; Diary p. 215.
28. Ridout, Building the Octagon, pp. 29-30, 61.
29. Mrs. Thornton’s Diary, p. 102; Bryan, History of National Capital, vol. 1, p. 346; WT to Madison, 2 September 1823.
30. Stoddert to WT, 20 January 1800, WT to Stoddert, 30 January 1800, Harris p. 532-3.
31. National Intelligencer, ad dated 1 May 1800; Alexandria Advertiser 1804; National Intelligencer 1801.
32. John Tayloe letterbook, quoted in Kamoie dissertation p. 200 footnote; Callcott, Margaret, editor, ...Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, p.29
33. 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
34. Diary, pp. 116-7; Cohen pp. 117-8, already cited in Chapter Ten.
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. National Intelligencer 5 April 1802 p. 3.
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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