William Thornton Re-examined by Bob Arnebeck

He shared his ideas about the Senate chamber, especially the position of the seat for the presiding officer, i.e. the vice president. He assured Thornton that he wasn't pulling rank on him and that he recognized that Thornton alone made final decisions about arrangements in the Capitol: "I pray you to consider these hints as written privately to yourself, and as meant to have no other weight than your own judgment may give them."      Jefferson asked one direct question: "Are the rooms for the two houses so far advanced as that their interior arrangements are fixed & begun?" 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. He simply thanked Jefferson  for his "kindness in suggesting several important con...

  The contract Lovering signed with Law called for a parapet. Tayloe's house would also have a parapet. Law, Lovering, Tayloe and Thornton were familiar with London standards. Of course, that the Octagon has a parapet is cited as proof that Thornton designed the house. A more informing inference is that since Thornton didn’t mention Tayloe’s or Law’s pediments in his December 1798 exchange with the General, then he clearly hadn’t designed those houses. Then again, Tayloe probably didn’t have a design from his house by December 1798. Also, given what the General and Tayloe wrote to each other in January and February, neither gentleman burdened the other with design ideas. The only concern they shared was raising money to pay for their houses. In January 1799, the General broke the ice in that regard. He tried to get cash from Tayloe, not as a loan, but in return for a prize mule. However, the General was in no way crass. They had been corresponding about far more impor...

  While Tayloe’s house makes Thornton’s reputation as a great architect, it had almost nothing to do with his life. It is possible that in August 1800, he took the first step to build a house in Square 171 to rival Tayloe’s house. On Thursday August 21, Mrs. Thornton wrote that she “returned at two o’clock found Dr. T. waiting with Mr. Lovering to get into the parlor of which I had the key.” Perhaps he wanted Lovering to estimate the cost of building the house. There is no other mention of Lovering or the never built house in her diary. His rivalry with Tayloe centered on horses. That the General didn’t ask Thornton to design his house hurt. To certify his fame, Thornton had to make it generally understood that the General realized that his accepting modifications to Thornton’s original Capitol design was a mistake and that he then allowed Thornton to restore his design. The General had never changed his view that the design was the work of a committee and efforts to make design ch...