Chapter 12: Thornton v. Latrobe

Table of contents Rewriting this chapter

Thornton v. Latrobe

The North Wing in 1800

During the summer of 1801, Thornton seemed to be having the time of his life. In an August 15 letter to Madison, Thornton bragged as only he could. The mythological demi-god Cadmus also built the Greek city of Thebes: 

...like Cadmus of old, after I have presumed to invent Letters for the Americans, I was sent hither to build their great City! 

    There’s a Stroke of Vanity—

    It lives in all my Doings!———To descend, 

I who lately was nothing less than a Commissioner or Edile, am now reduced to a High-way Man. You will remember we are engaged in making Highways. The City improves rapidly.(1)

In an August 24 letter to the president, the board gave a brief and optimistic update on a project far more important to Thornton. Jefferson wanted to cut the federal debt by lessening expenses. But Thornton persuaded him that a temporary chamber for the House of Representatives could be built for only $5,000 and only $1,000 of carpentry had to be torn down to make way for the permanent South Wing. Once built in December 1801, the pro-administration press gave the “new chamber” with an  “eliptical room” a good review. It was 90 feet long east to west, and 60 feet wide north to south. The speaker’s chair along the south wall faced north and looked directly at the walkway to the North Wing. There was a gallery for 300 spectators that occupied “the longer segment of the elipsis.” The author thought it “fitted up in a neater style” than the House’s rooms in Philadelphia and New York, and had better acoustics.(2)

Then in late October 1802, while on his daily ride mounted on a "trotting horse," that a doctor deemed the best cure for his diarrhea, Jefferson saw that its roof had “sunk in the middle.” Ironically, the failure of the building clearly caused by Thornton’s hubris helped lead to his future fame. However, at the time, while Jefferson continued to admire Thornton’s floor plan, he turned to Benjamin Latrobe for architectural advice. Glenn Brown and other historians absolved Thornton from any blame for the sunken roof.(3) They also excuse Thornton for not continuing to exhibit his genius as an architect with new Octagons because in June 1802, he created the Patent Office and administered it until his death in 1828.(4) 

Actually, he had plenty of time to do all sorts of things, and to defend his design. He did it in a new way. After all, he couldn’t speak of the General’s complete confidence in him while the General still alive. His new job also opened his eyes to a more comfortable way to defend his design then by merely claiming that he corrected Hallet and Hadfield. As he reviewed patent applications, Thornton was frequently reminded that inventors were almost always ignorant of the ideas that made their inventions work. Just after getting his new job, he drafted another letter to his old master Dr. Fell and described the difficulties he had faced in 1789 while perfecting the steamboat. He had to work against "wind, tide and ignorance." He overcame the first two but "the last is an overwhelming flood." Then he had to overcome the ignorance of Hallet and Hadfield.(5) What had been built, Fitch's boat and the North Wing, would obviously be eclipsed by greater boats and buildings that were fully formed in his own mind. What endured were his ideas. Between 1804 and 1808, Thornton tried to expose the ignorance of Latrobe and failed. Both of his friends, Jefferson and Madison relied on Latrobe. Yet despite failing to convince anyone that counted, between 1809 and 1819, he railed against the cunning deceit of Robert Fulton. Since his fight against Latrobe was so similar to his vain fight against Fulton, the latter pertains to the Capitol as well as the steamboat. Other than proving that he really didn't know how to build a steamboat or a capitol, Thornton’s exaggerations prove that he readily sacrificed truth in his pursuit of fame, but historians find it convenient to believe him. Long after he was dead, he rose above a sunken roof.

On May 28, 1801, the board directed James Hoban to draw plans for a building “on the eliptic Foundation in the South wing of the Capitol” so that “the Arcades, and as much of the other work as can be done consistently with the general Plan of the Capitol may remain permanent.” The "eliptic foundation" was surrounded by the foundation walls laid in 1795, that did not fall down, upon which the outer rectangular walls of the South Wing would be built. The rectangular walls would be a few to several feet from the elliptic walls.The board had Hoban draw plans with two stories as well as one. The second story would rise above the brick arcade. On June 1, the board asked the president to approve work on the site of the South Wing to accommodate the increased representation in congress from 106 to 142 members thanks to the census of 1800. The idea and plans did not come as a surprise to the president. He replied the next day. 

Although the president expected to see his Halle au Ble ideas embodied in the chamber, he opted for one story. 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." Obviously, Thornton had persuaded his colleagues that Hoban was wrong, and the board instructed Hoban to ignore the "inconveniencies." The president put off the higher wall until Thornton was proved right. However, the president seemed confident that Thornton was right: “if before it is raised one story the prospects of money should brighten & the difficulties of proceeding with it separately from the squarewall should be found less than has been apprehended, we can then proceed to raise it’s second story.” Actually, judging from a letter that Latrobe later wrote, Thornton’s and Hoban’s idea for the permanent building was more complicated. Fourteen of the windows would be removed leaving open arches, an elliptical colonnade would top the arcade, the colonnade would hold up a domed ceiling large enough to cover galleries looking down on the elliptical floor. Through the arches one found lobby space that would extend to the rectangular external walls. The project, with its “bill of particulars” lodged in the commissioners’ office, was put out for bids on June 10, with bidding closed on June 17. Lovering and his partner won the contract.(6)

A paragraph appeared in the nation’s newspaper: “The Commissioners of Washington City have determined to build an elliptical room in the South Wing of the Capitol for the accommodation of the House of Representatives. The dimensions will be 88 by 66 feet and it is intended to construct it as to make it part of the permanent building of the Capitol and in perfect harmony with the original plan.”(7) Finally, Thornton succeeded in drawing a distinction between the adopted or general plan and his original plan. Although it borrowed ideas from Jefferson and Hallet, it promised completion of the Great Vestibule and Dome which once built would assure his fame. The president had given him reason to hope that his original plan would be the final plan.

Dignifying what was built as a “chamber” or the “elliptical room” didn't catch on. Everyone seemed to see it for what it was, a rather big hall. It was generally called the Hall of the House of Representatives, if not simply “the Hall.” It also hosted sermons on Sunday that could fill the floor and galleries on a pleasant day. The president and his two daughters were among the many who came to the Hall. What soon replaced it was also called the Hall of the House of Representatives. However, historians have made much of its being called the “oven” either because it was shaped like Dutch over or was overheated, stuffy and unhealthy to the point of killing members. However, Dutch ovens are round not elliptical and sickness was widespread throughout 1803 and 1804, with yellow fever in Alexandria. The stuffiness was caused by the willingness of members and the public to sit late into the night to listen to long speeches.(8)

Meanwhile, well before the board gave way to a lone superintendent on June 2, 1802, Thornton wanted to be appointed Treasurer of the United States. That office came with a salary of $3,000, almost double what Thornton made as a commissioner. The only duty of such officers situated in the city was to make sure signatures on official documents were in order and a copy properly filed away by a clerk. Officers were being rewarded for previous service. Instead, the president appointed a South Carolina M. D. who was also a Revolutionary War veteran. When Dr. Thomas Tudor Tucker died in 1828, he was 83 years old and still making $3,000 a year. However, his friends Jefferson and Madison did not forget Thornton. On June 2, 1802, Madison hired him to be his clerk in charge of patents. It wasn’t a demanding job. There were no reasons to deny a patent other than the applicant not being an American citizen or not paying the $30 fee. The number of patents rose to 40 in 1801. His salary, $1400, was very high for a clerk but, after 8 years of government service, he took a 12.5% cut in salary. The president was conscious of that, so he made Thornton one of the bankruptcy commissioners 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.(9) 

Madison and the president were not helping him start a new career. He remained a bureaucrat, and a courtier. He would soon add a feather to his cap by becoming a public intellectual. He didn’t finish an essay urging the acquisition of Puerto Rico as a home for freed slaves, but with the acquisition of the Louisiana territory, he found a better we to separate the races. The federal government should buy all slaves, put them to work on public projects for a number of years and move them all to the outer reaches of the new territory.(10) All of that did not preclude the amateur architect from continuing to give advice, and give it directly to the president without taking into account the opinions of his fellow commissioners. 

 
Then, the president saw the sorry state of the Hall. In a letter to Thomas Claxton, still doorkeeper of the House, he described the roof of the “chambers” as "sunk in the middle" and that "the walls are cracked in several places and pressing out from the perpendicular." He wanted Hadfield, Blagden and another builder, Leonard Harbaugh, to examine the problem. He did not mention Thornton, Hoban and Lovering. The next day, the experts blamed the roof "which presses the walls outward," but they were not alarmed. They believed “that no immediate bad consequnces can hapen.” They recommended that the cracks be patched and if more formed, that the walls be buttressed. A few weeks later the president moved on a project that called for a planner/architect familiar with the city’s waterfront. In April 1802, Commissioner Thornton had written to the president about plans for the waterfront. The president sent for Benjamin Latrobe, which didn’t worry Thornton. They both dined with the president and the Madisons at the President’s House.(11)

Thornton had not lost interest in the Capitol. Mrs. Thornton’s notebooks for 1801 and 1802 are missing. On February 10, 1803, she noted that he sent their slave Joe Key "with the drawings of the Capitol-.” Thornton had been at the Capitol the day before. Since no one had published his floor plan or elevations, one had to see Thornton to see the plans. Latrobe would recollect that the only plan for the Capitol that was given to him in 1803 was Thornton’s floor plan: “The President gave me a plan, and Dr. Thornton gave me another. They were copies of each other and both perfectly useless; neither of them agreed with the work as founded or carried up, and there were no details whatever.” Evidently, Thornton drew copies but nothing else, and that’s what Joe Key took to Capitol. Before it adjourned on March 3, congress appropriated $50,000 to finish building the South Wing. During a short debate, a friend of the administration assured his colleagues that an "eminent architect" vouched for that sum as sufficient. No one asked who or about its design.(12)

The president knew that Thornton still had an interest in Capitol. He had invited the Thorntons to dinner on March 6. He sent a message to F Street asking him to "come a quarter or half an hour before the company, say at three a clock & bring with you the plans of the Capitol...." He also wanted to discuss landscaping Pennsylvania Avenue. But that same day, he sent a letter to Latrobe, who had returned to Philadelphia, asking him to take charge of the construction of the Capitol. He thought the South Wing could be finished “inside & out in the year 1804" for $100,000. What conversation the president had with Thornton a half hour before dinner is not known, but a year later he expressed full confidence in his design. At some time, the president asked him to show how committee rooms would be distributed in the South Wing.(13)

Soon after his arrival, Latrobe consulted Thornton. He asked why the principal chambers were on the ground or basement floor, and Thornton told him that he was advised to lower them to allow for greater height in the chamber for the House. Since the Senate was also in the basement, Latrobe accepted that reality, but wrote a very long letter outlining the changes that had to made to Thornton’s scheme for the South Wing. He also enclosed a "packet, containing the drawings & sections of the foundation Walls of the S. Wing of the Capitol."

Of course, with congressmen back home, he dug into the wall of the Hall and rendered his verdict. The brick work above the foundation “has been forced from 2 to 6 inches out of perpendicular by the roof,—I do not hesitate in declaring it to be my opinion that the whole building ought to be pulled down to the offset…. And this must be done, not only on account of the wretched workmanship of the foundation walls, but because, with the best workmanship, no colonade carrying a heavy superstructure can be safely constructed unless its pressure be spread over the whole foundation by means of counter arches. The fissures in the walls of the south wing are entirely owing to the omission of such precaution.” Not knowing of Hoban’s warning of “inconveniecies,” Latrobe could not lay the blame where it belonged and otherwise he complimented Thornton's plan: "if justice should be done to the vestibule in the execution, Europe will not be able to exhibit a more magnificent public Saloon. It will be worthy of the intention of the building." Latrobe also attested to Thornton's "talent."(14)

Latrobe began hiring men and arranging to acquire building materials, but also had work to do in Philadelphia and on the Delaware-Chesapeake canal. He left John Lenthall in charge and Thornton knew him well from his work with Blagden on the General’s houses. However, the very busy president did not ask the rather underemployed clerk handling patent applications to help out. Instead, on April 21, he sent for Lenthall and, as he explained in a letter to Latrobe, “he assures me the foundation will be down this week, and the rebuilding begin on Monday. from that day to the end of September, by which time the stone work to the top of the basement should be compleat, we have 23. weeks. I should like to know the number of perch of stone work to be laid to the top of the basement, to divide that on the 23. weeks, and to have a weekly report from your agent of the number of perch laid each week, that, in your absence, I may be quite secure that the due progress is kept up....” Lenthall duly reported the number of bricks used to make “reversed arches” to make the walls stable. Thornton continued to periodically join the president and other invitees for dinner, but there is no evidence that they talked about the Capitol. No one ordered the Hall brought down, but Lenthall had the walls buttressed, evidently on Latrobe’s orders. The walls of the permanent South Wing began to rise and close enough to put part of the walls of the Hall in the shade. Thornton had no reason to think that his original design had been changed.(15) 

In February 1804, Latrobe's plans for the upcoming building season required presidential approval. Latrobe also had to appear before a House committee in support of the appropriation for the work. The elliptical room had to be taken down, forcing the House back to the North Wing, and Latrobe had to describe what would replace it. By that time, he evidently learned of the influence the Halle au Ble had on the design. He dashed off “a sheet of sketches” for Jefferson showing how House chamber could be “lighted a la Halle de Bled.” Neither Latrobe or Thornton had spent more time in France than Jefferson. While there he looked for ways to improve America. The younger men were there as students with as yet no plans to come to America. Yet in their new country, both could talk at length about their cosmopolitan experiences. Latrobe likely also wanted to show the president that he could draw what he had never seen. He anticipated a crisis caused by the president’s regard for Thornton’s design. Latrobe later noted that “From the beginning of his discussions” the president had “hung back from any alteration.” He promised to see Thornton but hadn’t. Latrobe went to see Thornton first “to prepare the way for amicable adjustment.” They had a brief encounter outside Thornton's office in the State department.

In a letter to the president, Latrobe paraphrased Thornton's stance: "no difficulties existed in his plan, but such as those that were made by those too ignorant to remove them...."  Latrobe allowed that his first impulse was to resign, but he told the president he would make the project his "difficulte vaincue." That is to say, given the design in hand, the only boon to his reputation as architect would be that he managed to build such an impossible plan. The president responded immediately and sympathetically, but somewhat disingenuously: "On Dr. Thornton's plan of the Capitol, the North Wing has been executed, and the South raised one story. In order to get along with any public undertaking, it was necessary that some stability of plan to observed. Nothing impedes progress as much as perpetual changes of design. I yield to this principle in the present case more willingly because the plan begun for the Representative room will in my opinion be more handsome and commodious than any thing which can be proposed on the same area." He did not mention that the "handsome and commodious" room was his idea. 

Thornton’s acceptance of the modified plan as his own also relieved Jefferson from alluding to how much his original plan had embarrassed General Washington. However, he did assure Latrobe that, if circumstances arose in the building process, changes could be made. In his reply, Latrobe assured the president that changes had to be made but the "elliptical form and the colonnade, the principal features of the work will remain." But he warned the president that he would not put up with Thornton's sniping: “If I felt the slightest respect for the original author as an architect, I should be fearless as respects to myself but placed as I am on the very spot from which Hallet and Hadfield fell, attacked by the same weapons, and with the same activity, nothing but a resolute defense can save me."(16)

Then Latrobe made his unease with Thornton public in a letter to a House committee. He allowed that because Thornton's plan had the "force of law," he would build it and have it ready by 1806. Then he noted that the original design was missing, that Hallet was hired to correct it  which he did until he was sacked. Then Hadfield succeeded him and, with only imperfect sketches to work with, he tried to correct the "radical deficiencies of the design." With the loss of Hadfield, Blagden "assured the excellent execution of the freestone work of the North Wing." Latrobe obliquely referenced the role the winner of the design contest played: "The most indisputable evidence was brought before me to prove that no sections or detailed drawings of the building existed excepting those that were made from time to time by Messrs. Hallet and Hadfield for their own use in the direction of the work." He then listed ten objections to the plan, principally the need for more rooms to make the chamber convenient. He assured the committee that the changes he recommended have been "laid before the President of the United States and received his serious consideration." A little over a week later, in a letter to Lenthall, Latrobe vented his spleen: "when once erected the absurdity can never be recalled and the public explanation can only amount to this that one president was blockhead enough to adopt a plan, which another another was fool enough to retain, when he might have altered it."(17)

It took almost two months for Thornton to react. He followed the proper etiquette for a challenge: "I am sorry to be obliged to declare that your Letter to the Committee is, as it respects me, not only ungentlemanly but false." Latrobe scrambled to defuse the situation. He joked about a duel and complimented Thornton for his ideas about slavery. Thornton confirmed in a letter to Latrobe that some months ago, he had been prepared to take a dispute to the field. Ironically, in another letter to Lenthall, Latrobe fumed about a senator's proposal to save money by stopping work on the Capitol, moving congress into the President's house, and the president into a private house. Latrobe observed that "there is absolutely not a house in Washington into which he might go, excepting Mr. Tayloe's." If Thornton had designed the house, would the feud between Thornton and Latrobe have raged for almost a decade and fueled the claims Thornton made about the Capitol that are not true?(18)

On January 1, 1805, after congress returned, Thornton publicly responded to Latrobe's 1804 report to congress by publishing a letter, "To the members of the House of Representatives replying to criticisms of Benjamin H. Latrobe on the Capitol." Thornton made much about Latrobe complimenting his plan when he first saw it: "....he never saw any plan of a building beside his own that he would deign to build.... I must own that I can not easily conceive why previous to this appointment I should hear nothing but approbation of my plan and after his appointment nothing but condemnation." The witnesses that he summoned to prove that his design of South Wing could be built were anonymous: "It has been deemed practicable by very skillful and practical architects and I have never heard it disputed by other than himself." He claimed that the old board had asked him to superintend the construction of the Capitol. Instead, he trusted Hallet and then had no difficulty correcting his mistakes when laying the foundation. As for drawing sections, he mocked the idea that Hallet could have drawn one because he never superintended the building. The only section extant is attributed to Hallet. Referring to Hadfield, Thornton wrote: "the other did not make a single section that I ever heard of, but requested sections of me, which I drew, of which Mr. Munroe informs me he had informed Mr. Latrobe." However, Munroe was not the board's clerk when Hadfield made his request. Thornton verified his claim by offering evidence that someone else remembered his making the claim. He did not explain what happened to the sections he drew, let alone produce them.(19)

Neither of the rival newspapers, the pro-administration National Intelligencer nor the Washington Federalist, printed or mentioned Thornton's letter. Latrobe did not respond to it, nor did Hallet and Hadfield. The French architect had lost interest in architecture. In 1809, he would come to the city to promote a hydraulic pump he co-invented. Hadfield continued to build a career and had no reason to invite controversy. Hoban likely knew about the Capitol design process better than anyone, but he concentrated his fire on Latrobe for his impugning the design and workmanship of the roof of the President's House. The first newspaper war that would flare up involving Latrobe was initiated by Hoban, who, in the March 6, 1805, Washington Federalist, lampooned the often absent and seemingly always arrogant architect. Lovering was among those who attested to the quality of work done on its roof. Anonymous squibs in the Federalist mocking Latrobe's work at the Capitol soon followed, and Latrobe suspected that Thornton wrote them. He probably didn't.(20)

Thornton counted on his two friends in power to right the wrongs being done to his design. In the summer of 1806, just before Madison left for Montpelier, Thornton sounded an alarm for the fate of the Capitol dome and  held up an example of what must be done. He claimed that in 1794, President Washington had personally banished Hallet after he tried to change Thornton's design of the Capitol. That described something that had never happened which didn't prevent Thornton from applying that lesson to defeat a threat that didn't exist: "Mr. Latrobe, as if determined to oppose every thing previously intended has carried up a large block of building on the very foundation intended to be taken up, by which the Dome is so encroached on that the part already carried up on the north side will be useless. I am confident the President could never have permitted such a deviation from the original Intention if it had been made known to him. I think it my Duty to mention it now before it be too late to prevent its progress."

Madison sent Thornton's letter to the president and described it as "disclosing the perturbation excited in his mind, by some of the operations of Mr. la Trobe." Jefferson took Thornton's letter more seriously and replied to Madison: "If Dr. Thornton’s complaint of Latrobe’s having built inconsistently with his plan of the middle part of the capitol be correct, it is without my knolege, & against my instructions. For altho’ I consider that plan as incapable of execution, yet I determined that nothing should be done which would not leave the question of it’s execution free." That is to say, nothing should be done to preclude Thornton and congress from thinking that his plan would be carried out even though both Jefferson and Latrobe knew the plan was "incapable of execution."

 

Thanks to his organizing the North Carolina Gold Company, Thornton visited both Madison and Jefferson as he, his wife, and her mother made there way back to the federal city. But his letter and their visit didn’t inspire the president to sack Latrobe.  It is possible that Thornton’s complaint prompted Latrobe to draw a design of the middle part of the Capitol that was capable of execution. The dome remained over Thornton’s Grand Vestibule but Latrobe eliminated its interior columns and called it the Hall of the People. His more profound deviation from Thornton’ plan and L’Enfant’s small evocation of a monumental building on his plan for the city was a much more business-like West Front. It eliminated the oval Conference Room that rivaled his Hall in size and gave it a flat front with neither stairs nor a grand colonnade projecting down a slope towards the President’s House. Latrobe lined its first floor with committee rooms. On the far north end, he labeled the largest committee room, with an alcove at its south end large enough for a president to feel safe, as the “Com’e of Conference of both Houses.” However, Latrobe didn't ask the president to approve the changes. Delays in finishing the South Wing precluded inviting more scrutiny from congress. 

Latrobe's changes, which the president was likely aware of, signaled a repudiation of the modified plan that Jefferson approved in July 1793. Gone were Hallet’s courtyard and the only exterior dome would be on top of an oval that Thornton could with some justification call his own. The feud could have ended but Latrobe felt obliged to continue it, likely to lay the groundwork for better distinguishing his Hall of the People from the Grand Vestibule. He also knew that while his West Front was logical and doable, it was less visually compelling. Anyway, he gave congressmen a lesson in the realities of architectural design. In the fall of 1806, Latrobe sent a  "private letter" to congress blaming the design contest as the root of his problems. On March 3, 1807, at the end of the short session, Thornton had friends distribute a satire on Latrobe's private letter. "Index to my Private Letter & C." had Latrobe expressing contempt for General Washington who need not be entombed under the dome because "he was not higher in the scale of creation than some other great men or myself."(29)

Latrobe’s lesson did not make an impression on congress or anybody else. In the fall of 1807, as the House moved into its new chamber, the editor of the National Intelligencer asked Latrobe to describe the South Wing. He began by describing Thornton's plan as a striking combination of circumlinear rooms: two circular rooms in the middle, the semi-circular Senate chamber and the larger elliptical House chamber. But then he explained that to fit in other convenient features, he had to change the elliptical chamber into a parallelogram with two semi-circles at each end. If he had left it at that, Thornton may have had no complaint. Then Latrobe described the North Wing and lauded Hadfield. "His exquisite taste appears in many parts of the North wing, particularly in the introduction of the impost tablature which crowns the basement story and gives an harmonious character to the whole mass which it could not have otherwise possessed." Then, Latrobe added that his job building the South Wing would have been easier and the interior even better if he had not been constrained by its exterior having to match the North Wing's.(30)

Thornton found the condescension and insults intolerable. He attacked Latrobe in the April 27, 1808, Washington Federalist. He had joined the anti-administration party. He claimed that he had a drawing proving that before Hadfield was hired, he drew the elements that Latrobe lauded. At the time, Hadfield wisely ignored the controversy. In 1819, he would claim in a letter to the editor that he had designed "the impost cornices of the basement, without the Galosh ornament, that was meant to top the basement without any moulding." Thornton damned Latrobe for squeezing the elliptical room. A growing nation with ever more representatives needed more room not less. Then, he turned to Latrobe's motives. Why does he go against the wish of General Washington to have Thornton's design built? He did so to spite the General for not trusting him: "...for that great man was asked by a very respectable gentleman now living, why he did not employ Mr. Latrobe: 'because I can place no confidence in him whatever-' was the answer." Thornton also ridiculed every decoration in the South wing: an eagle looked like an Egyptian ibis, Liberty on an eagle looked like Leda and the swan, country people mistook an eagle on the frieze of an entablature "for the skin of an owl, such as they have seen nailed on their barn doors." He ridiculed the echoes in the House chamber. He dismissed Latrobe as a "carver of chimney pieces in London" who came to America a "missionary of the Moravians." Thornton attacked other buildings Latrobe had designed and his gate at the Navy Yard. 

Then he defended his own standing as an architect, not by revealing other buildings that he had designed, but by striking grand chords:

I travelled in many parts of Europe, and saw several of the masterpieces of the ancients. I have studied the works of the best masters, and my long attention to drawing and painting would enable me to form some judgment of the difference of proportions. An acquaintance with some of the grandest of the ancient structures, a knowledge of the orders of Architecture, and also of the genuine effects of proportion furnish the requisites of the great outlines of composition. The minutiae are attainable by a more attentive study of what is necessary to the execution of such works, and the whole must be subservient to the conveniences required. Architecture embraces many subordinate studies, and it must be admitted is a profession which requires great talents, great taste, great memory. I do not pretend to any thing great, but must take the liberty of reminding Mr. Latrobe, that physicians study a greater variety of sciences than gentlemen of any other profession.... The Louvre in Paris was erected after the architectural designs of a physician, Claude Perrault, whose plan was adopted in preference to the designs of Bernini, though the latter was called from Italy by Louis the14th.

Recall that Thornton landed on continental Europe at the end of December 1783 at the earliest and returned to Britain by mid-August 1784. Based on a watercolor, biographers also credit him with a trip to the Alps during that 8 month period. At the time, he seemed to have ended his medical studies and embraced mineralogy. In his reply, Latrobe didn't bother to probe into Thornton's background. He explained that his parents were Moravians, and described his relations with George Washington. But he couldn't resist smearing Thornton as "a calumniator who is the subject of ridicule, of pity, or of contempt to all who know him..... a man too feeble for personal chastisement, and too ignorant, despicable and vain for argumentative refutation."

Thornton's response came a few days later. He credited Ferdinando Fairfax for the General's assessment of Latrobe. Then he further smeared Latrobe in a style reminiscent of British farces: "The late Moll Turner who lived between Havre de Grace and Baltimore, a woman so infamous in character, that the Poissardes of Paris would have appeared as vestals in comparison, was never outmatched in blackguardism, except by Mr. Latrobe, and it is suspected that this broke her heart,--" Then he ascended the heights: "if I had been so reprehensible a character as he represents, I should hardly have been appointed to the honorable office I had under General Washington, and have received letter of approbation on his retiring from public life, nor should I have been appointed and continued in other respectable offices by his two successors...." He closed by revealing that he challenged Latrobe to a duel in 1804 but received no answer. He put a belligerent couplet under his name: "Only five feet eight; limbs straight;/ and about one hundred and sixty weight." Latrobe was six feet two. In a letter to a friend, Latrobe declared victory and blamed Thornton’s being a “madman” on his “vanity” and “poverty.” Then he sued him for a libel.(31)

The saga of Thornton and Capitol effectively ended, but not with architecture. On May 8, 1808, when the feud with Latrobe reached a climax, Mrs. Thornton noted: "Dr. T. working on a plan for Mr. Peter." Since his floor plan for Tudor Place featured two elliptical rooms, it is taken as more proof that he designed the Octagon. As it turned out, the elliptical rooms he designed for Tudor Place were not built, only his “Temple Portico.” He was that rare architect who became famous even though what he designed was rarely built as he designed it. But that’s not how a writer in the November 22, 1908, Evening Star saw it: “It is not surprising that the house is well built, and that it stands a veritable monument of American memories, for all the skill of Dr. William Thornton was employed in its design and building. Dr. Thornton was the architect of the Old Capitol, the one that was burned, and he also designed the Octagon House in Washington. It seems fitting that the work of a man whose hand is seen in these other buildings of such close association with American history should be seen in Tudor Place, for not only is it quaint and beautiful, but it is full of the memories and even the household gods and belongings of the great Washington.” That was not written by Glenn Brown. While he gloried finding a floor plan for the house in Thornton’s hand, he lamented that “alterations in the plan, probably to save money, are decidedly inferior to the original.”     

That Thornton meanwhile had lost any influence on the Capitol was unmistakable. With the South Wing finished, Jefferson had Latrobe work again on the North Wing. In 1804, he had told Latrobe that it properly fulfilled Thornton's design. In 1808, he allowed Latrobe to make changes, and everyone soon knew that was what Latrobe was doing. In September, Lenthall was crushed to death when a brick arch in the North Wing gave way. Initially, Latrobe suspected foul play. Hoban renewed his attacks, but then Latrobe restrained himself. In the press at least, Thornton was silent, perhaps because of the libel suit or because he realized he had lost the Capitol. Work on the North Wing continued after Madison succeeded Jefferson. Madison continued to like Thornton, but preferred to flatter the sportsman. He invited both Thornton and Tayloe to dinner before the 1811 Jockey Club races. But President Madison had no interest in the "ideas of Dr. Thornton." By 1811, Latrobe had moved the Senate chamber up from the basement to the first floor. Thornton made no public comment. After Congress did not appropriate money to continue work on the Capitol, Latrobe moved to Pittsburgh intending to build a steamboat. The libel case dragged on until June 1813. In April of that year, Thornton advertised all his property for sale. The jury found for Latrobe and awarded him one cent in damages with costs. Claiming that Latrobe had sued him for $10,000 in damages, Thornton declared victory. Latrobe would later claim that he didn't ask for damages.(33)

In a May 28, 1808, letter to a friend, he observed that Thornton "has miserably fallen in public estimation of late, but I think the worst that can be said of him is that he is a Madman from vanity, incorrect impecuniary conduct, and official intrigue from Poverty." Latrobe’s cryptic reference to “official intrigue” referred to Thornton’s growing reputation for shaking down patent applicants. He shocked applicants by claiming prior invention and magnanimously offered to take only a share of their future profits. On August 6, in her 1808 notebook, Mrs. Thornton didn't describe his grift but did register the pain it caused: "The Hawkins won't stand to their agreement and are very angry at not getting their patent." As his feud with Latrobe ended, his feud with Robert Fulton began. Thornton calculated that Fulton’s steamboats would make a fortune. Thornton did not immediately react to his steamboat’s round-trip between Manhattan and Albany in the summer of 1807. He waited until December 1808 to send a patent application to his boss. In a letter sent 8 days later, he explained to Madison that there had been no payments from Tortola for two years. He had secured Blodget’s $10,000 bail to give him freedom in the city until he raised the money to finish the hotel, and then Blodget broke his bounds leaving Thornton liable. That was the year that after proclaiming that he would never sell a slave, he sold Joe Key to a North Carolina congressman for $350. In January 1809, Thornton in effect gave himself a patent for steamboat improvements based on what he did with John Fitch in 1789-90. A day later Robert Fulton applied for a patent for his steamboat improvements. Despite their having met each other in late 1806 and socializing when Fulton was in the city, Thornton later claimed that Fulton’s application came as complete surprise. In May 1809, Thornton pressed Fulton for a share of his profits.

At first, Fulton did not take Thornton seriously, and discounted his “embrio and useless ideas.” Thornton insisted that his ideas for Fitch’s boat that was never built were sufficient. Fulton argued back “Was she ever under Sail, Wind and Steam? Or is this not another Thought or Project never proved but being dormant for 20 years proves clearly that it did not present a hope or prospect of Utility, and cannot now in Justice be called up among a thousand Thoughts that pass through the minds of ingenious men.” 

Of course, Fulton complained to Secretary of State Monroe, but no avail. Thornton had made himself and the Patent Office famous. Congress never gave him a raise, but it did give him a clerk and answered his plea for a place to display patent models just as the French government did in Paris. Congress bought Blodget's hotel and Latrobe refashioned it to house the Post Office and Patent Office. The National Intelligencer crowed "as the apartments in this building are spacious and lofty, we may soon expect to see the numerous evidences of the ingenuity of our countrymen in this institution arranged  and displayed to advantage." Thornton turned it into a notable tourist destination. In March 1811, Thornton sent a long notice to newspapers throughout the country explaining the patent process and expressed his "astonishment" when viewing the "inventions of his countrymen,... no nation on earth surpasses them in genius." Fulton tried to get Thornton fired for giving himself patents and attacking inventors and their inventions. Thornton struck the right chords when he defended himself. Because of low pay, he had to give himself patents. When criticizing inventors, he exercised his first amendment right of free speech to battle monopolies to save the American people money.

But, Thornton did not turn to lawyers to defend his patent. He wrote a pamphlet with a curious title: "Short Account of the Origin of Steamboats Written in 1810 and Now Committed to the Press, 1814." That Thornton waited until 1814 to make his case public may have reflected his desire to keep open private negotiations with Fulton. Also, it wasn't until 1814 that two crucial witnesses who could challenge his claims died. He had found a prominent inventor who attested that Henry Voigt, Fitch's partner, told him that Thornton suggested using a paddle wheel for the boat that they never built. Voigt died in early 1814.  A fellow federal bureaucrat attested that while in Paris, he was told by the American consul, Aaron Vail, who was Fitch's agent, that in 1793 he had given Fulton a complete set of Fitch's drawings and specifications. Vail died in 1813.

To claim victory in his dispute with Latrobe, Thornton cited the jury's only awarding Latrobe one cent in damages. To prove his vindication in his dispute with Fulton, he credited his 1814 pamphlet for killing Fulton, a consumptive who died after getting pneumonia in February 1815. However, his pamphlet did not satisfy Thornton. It gave too much credit to Fitch. A Washington newspaper filled two pages with it and then thanked Thornton for bringing Fitch's achievement to light. Meanwhile, Fulton’s steamboats plied more rivers, including the Potomac. Other inventors challenged Fulton by building their steamboats. Thornton banked on his idea, and what he evidently thought was a compelling story. 

In April 1819, a week before former State Department chief clerk John Graham left for a diplomaice mission to Rio Di Janero, Thornton drafted a letter to be forwarded to a long time American resident of St. Salvador, Bahia. It was “the largest slave port in the history of the Atlantic” but Thornton was interest it getting exclusive rights to license the steamboats that would soon play the Bay of All Saints. His letter began by describing Fitch’s first boat as too slow and described Fitch as "a poor ignorant and illiterate man." Then he described how he "engaged to make it go at the rate of eight miles an hour within 18 months.... In one year I succeeded." He described the boat designed to ply the Mississippi, but “I went to see my Mother in the West Indies….” When he returned two years later the boat was unfinished and the company sold its “whole apparatus” cover debts. Thornton was “then obliged to wait until the Patent expired” and he got a patent for “his invention and improvements.” Meanwhile, Fulton, "had seen my papers describing the steam boat in the hands of one of Fitch's partners in France to whom I had sent them to take out a patent there.... [Fulton] of course succeeded but without having invented a single improvement. Success however give him not only all the profits but the eclat of the Invention, with those who are not acquainted with the circumstances." Actually, Fitch was a prolific writer and his papers remain in several libraries from New York City to Washington. In a 1794 letter to Thornton, Fitch referred him to "my manuscripts" that he wanted Thornton to revise. He used Thornton and other directors only to improve his prose. Thornton certainly didn’t write anything to forward Fitch’s mission to France. In 1791, a fellow director described to Thornton how he wrote the contract for the agent in France and couldn't resist a taunt: "You still condemn the French scheme." Fitch’s patent expired in 1805 and Thornton didn’t bother getting his until 1809.

Because he talked with inventors, read their applications and examined their inventions or models, he knew a great deal about the state of the mechanical arts in America. Jefferson, for one, frequently asked him for information and Thornton obliged with long letters and sometimes a drawing of his modification of an apparatus. Fortunately for Thornton's posthumous reputation as an architect, in 1817, Jefferson asked Thornton for his ideas for what would become the University of Virginia. Jefferson sent a sketch of a large quadrangle formed by "a range" of one story dormitories. He wanted several two story pavilions, with a classroom below and an apartment for a professor above, to break the monotony of the range. He wanted the pavilions to "be models of taste & good architecture, & of a variety of appearance, no two alike, so as to serve as specimens for the Architectural lectures." 

In reply, Thornton corrected Jefferson's sketch of the campus by absurdly taking "the liberty of advising that the two buildings next the Angles be joined together, & be placed in the angles."

He also sent a drawing of "a Pavilion for the Centre, with Corinthian Columns, and a Pediment." However, when attacking Hallet and Hadfield, Thornton had made a virtue out of thin columns and that was what he drew. To Jefferson, they must have seemed anemic. A bold presentation of the Classical orders was the whole point of his project. Jefferson also wrote to Latrobe who was then changing the design of the Capitol while supervising its restoration. He asked him for ideas. In his notebook, Jefferson attributed the design of the Corinthian pavilion to Latrobe, and didn’t mention Thornton in any regard.

Perhaps the best opportunity for Thornton to make another stand against changes to his original design was in February 1819 when the City of Washington Gazette printed a “vignette” of what the Capitol would look like when completed. The Gazette’s editor claimed it was Hadfield’s design as approved by General Washington. It had Thornton’s wings but not as Latrobe restored them with a canopy on top. The center of the building boldly raised a dome atop a squared attic half the height of the wings. The dome swelled higher than the height of the attic. Hadfield did not make the design for the president. He made it for $50 bills printed by the city’s Bank of the Metropolis just after the war. Hadfield corrected the editor’s claim and also allowed that Thornton was acknowledged as the designer of the wings. But Hadfield did tout his dome as “more consistent with good architecture,"and thus better than Thornton’s as depicted in his East Elevation that was finally published as a small engraving on a map in 1818. Thornton did not respond.(36)

Congress returned to the Capitol in December 1819. President Monroe replaced Latrobe with Charles Bulfinch, a Boston architect that he met while on a long northern tour while the President’s House was rebuilt. But before leaving, Latrobe saw that the Jefferson/Thornton elliptical hall was halved, but it still had an echo. The commissioner in charge  asked Thornton and others to suggest a remedy. In a draft of letter found in his papers, Thornton recommended curtains soaked in arsenic so they wouldn't be eaten by moths. Then he attacked Latrobe for changing his ellipse into a semi-circle and attacked whatever his replacement, Charles Bulfinch, had done or planned to do. In his history of the Capitol, William Allen strung together "Thornton’s gifts of sarcasm and exaggeration:" Skylights were “borrowed from some carpenter’s shop, for there never was so mean a window exhibited before in any public building on the face of the globe.” Dwarf columns belonged in London’s Newgate prison “where the convicts are executed wholesale, for never were such galleries seen in any building of dignity and national grandeur.” As for the whole, it recalled “the old fashioned Tea Canisters, Bohea at one end, Green Tea at the other, and in the center the large sugar dish.” Allen concluded that "Thornton’s letter made it clear that his bitterness had not been soothed by time, and his pretensions to architectural authority were as delusional as ever."(37)

But Thornton had moved on to something even greater: revolutions in Spanish America. But, again, contemporaries did not accord him the fame he thought he deserved. Thornton became a thorn in the side of new boss at the Patent Office and the architect of American foreign policy. John Quincy Adams kept a very detailed diary which records how he caught Thornton lying.

Go to Epilogue

1. WT to Madison 15 August 1801.

2. Commrs to Jefferson 24 August 1801; General Advertiser 10 December 1801.

3. Architect of the Capitol “Constructing the Capitol: The Oven”; Allen, p. 46.

4. Glenn Brown       ; Gordon Brown       .

5.  WT to Fell, XX June 1802, Harris, pp. 573-4.

6.  Commrs. to Jefferson 1 June 1802 and reply 2 June 1802; Allen op. cit.; Latrobe to Jefferson         .

7. Philadelphia Gazette 18 June 1801

8. Architect of the Capitol “Constructing the Capitol: The Oven”; Allen, p. 46.

9. on Patent Office appointment see Dobyns History of the Patent Office, Chapter 7 and Preston, Daniel, "Administration of Patent Office...." Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 331-353; Thornton deposition, 1812 American State Papers Misc, vol.1 p. 193 

10. W. T., "Political Economy: Founded in Justice and Humanity, in a letter to a friend;" 

11. Jefferson to Claxton, 26 October 1802, Harbaugh et al to Jefferson 27 October 1802; Jefferson to Latrobe, 2 November 1802; Latrobe to Mary Elizabeth Latrobe, 24 November 1802, Correspondence p. 232

12.

13. Annals of Congress, House, 28 February 1803; Jefferson to WT 6 March 1803; Jefferson to Latrobe 6 March 1803.

14. Latrobe to Jefferson, 4 April 1803 Enclosure,"Report on the Public Buildings:" Latrobe, Benjamin, The Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of, p. 278; fn.; Latrobe to Jefferson 19 April 1803. 

15. Jefferson to Latrobe 23 April 1803; Lenthall to Jefferson, 21, 28 May & 11 June 1803.

16. Latrobe to Jefferson, 27 & 28 February 1804, Jefferson to Latrobe 28 February 1804;  Op. Cit. pp. 437ff 

17. "The Report of the Surveyor of Public Buildings," Latrobe Correspondence pp. 444-5; Latrobe to Lenthall, 8 March 1804, Correspondence p. 458.

18. In his memoir B. O. Tayloe described the duel as arising from Thornton's "ludicrous account" in verse of another duel settled without a shot. p. 99; Latrobe to WT 28 April 1804, Correspondence pp. 481-2; Latrobe to Lenthall 28 March 1804 p. 463; 

19. Harris, Papers of William Thornton. p. 257-8; Brown, History of Capitol, new edition,  pp. 113ff. 

20. Hallet to Madison 9 September 1809; Washington Federalist 6 March 1805.

29. Latrobe's Private Letter is in Correspondence vol. 2 pp. 305ff where quotes from Thornton's Index can be found in footnotes.

30. WT to Madison 6 August 1806, Madison to Jefferson 15 August 1806; Jefferson to Madison, 28 August 1806; National Intelligencer 30 November 1807p. 1.

31. Washington Federalist, 20 April 1808; Latrobe Correspondence vol. 2 pp. 600ff; Ibid., 30 April 1808, p 2; 7 May 1808, p. 3; The Gazette, 8 February 1819 p. 1. 

32. AMT notebook vol. 3 image 121; Ridout p. 122.

33. Washington Expositor September 24, 1808;  Washington Federalist 15 November 1808 p. 3; Latrobe to Madison 8 September 1809; AMT notebook vol. 3 image 130; Latrobe to Gilmore, 24 May 1808: "The worst that can be said of him is that he is a Madman from vanity, incorrect impecuniary conduct, and official intrigue from Poverty;.” Latrobe, Correspondence p. 628.

22. Latrobe to Lenthall, 5 May 1803, Ibid. p. 289; Latrobe Journal p. 207  ; 

23. Latrobe to Thornton 28 April 1804; John Quincy Adams diary 12 March 1805; Latrobe Journal p. 206;

  

34. WT to Jefferson 11 December 1814 ; Latrobe to Jefferson 12 July 1815; Latrobe to Madison 25 February 1815;

35. Harris, Charles M, Library of Congress web article "William Thornton 1759-1828:",  Jefferson to WT 9 May 1817; WT to Jefferson 27 May 1817; Latrobe to Jefferson, 24 July 1817; Jefferson to Latrobe, 9 May 1817; Jefferson to Latrobe, 19 May 1818,  Latrobe to Jefferson, 30 March 1818, enclosure; Carter, Edward C., Benjamin Henry Latrobe: Growth and Development of Washington. RCHS vot 71/72, p 142.

36. The Gazette, 8 February 1819 p. 1; Bryan, History of National Capital volume one, pp. 317-8; Hunsberger,  The Architecture of George Hadfield, p. 61; King, Julia, Hadfield, p. 95. 

37. Allen, William, "The Bulfinch Years 1818-1829" History of the United States Capitol, p. 143; Latrobe, Benjamin,  Vindication, 1819

 

11. Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City, p. 250.

ad in National Intelligencer 23 April 1806; Thornton v. Carson's Executor, Google Books;

AMT notebook vol. 2 image 137ff; Madison Papers "Account with William Thornton" 5 December 1809.   

6. AMT notebook vol. 3 page 6; Fulton to Jefferson 9 January and 28 July 1807 ; Jefferson to Fulton, 16 August 1807,   

7.  WT to Madison, 9 December 1808; Dobyns, pp. 52-53,; for WT letter to Virginia legislature see appendix #2 Thornton, “Short Account of the Origin of Steamboats...” 1814; see a photostat of Fulton's patent specifications at (Mostly) IP History blog. See also WT to Fell 21 June 1802, Harris pp. 573-4. 

8.  Alice Crary Sutcliffe, Robert Fulton Google Books;  Century Magazine, vol. 78, 1909 pp. 815ff;  Century Magazine vol. 70, 1909 pp. 832-3;   Clark pp. 186-7; AMT papers, vol. 3, 10 July 1811 image 125ff ; WT to Madison, 3 August 1811; Fulton to WT 12 July 1811; AMT vol. 3 image 181; Thornton to Steele, 18 April 1812, Papers of John Steele NC Digital Collection page 219.

9. Thornton's circular letter to newspapers dated 5 March 1811 is in National Intelligencer 12 March 1811; 12. Dobyns, Kenneth, History of the Patent Office, chapter 9.  

10. Thornton, Short Account of the Origin of Steamboats Written in 1810 and Now Committee to the Press, 1814; on Voigt see  Westcott, Life of John Fitch (google books); on Vail see his Geni profile;

11. 15. Dobyns; Tayloe, B.O., In Memoriam p. 98; WT to Henry Hill 20 April 1818, in Clark, "Dr. and Mrs. Thornton" pp. 187-8;  Adams' diary 26 April 1819; Richard Stockton to WT, 8 December 1791, Harris p. 172; for evidence that he was not illiterate see Fitch, John, and Frank D. Prager. “An Early Steamboat Plan of John Fitch.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 79, no. 1 (1955): 63–80;

 

15. AMT notebook vol. 4 image 10; WT’s financial woes were complicated by his securing a $10,000 bail for Blodget in 1803 for which he was responsible after Blodget broke bounds in 1806 by returning to Philadelphia. He sold his Lancaster property for pounds sterling which gave him leverage with banks and cachet with friends addicted to British luxuries but it didn’t prevent his almost drowning in debt even though his friends on the Supreme Court preserved the North Carolina Gold Company. Unfortunately, it never paid out any money during his lifetime. See WT to Madison 17 December 1808; Bickley v. Blodget; Thornton v. Carson's Executor, Google Books; and Keeping Philadelphia, the historic nomination documents for Blodget's Greenville Mansion.

; AMT Notebook, 10 April 1808; runaway ad dated May 16, 1808. Key escaped in Alexandria, then, in 1812 was found on the farm next to Thornton’s and sold again 

Burlington Advertiser 15 June 1790;

WT to Jefferson, 9 January 1821; AMT papers vol. 3 image 234; Rush to Madison 2 September 1815;

1. Brown, 1796 p. 68. 

1. "No. 9 Report of James Hoban...November 13, 1799" in New York Gazette 17 December 1799 p. 3. 

3. Harris p. 528, in his memoir of GW's death, WT refers to Law's brother as Lord Ellenborough. He became a lord in 1802; Diary pp. 90-1.

 Stoddert to WT 23 January 1800 Harris pp. 532-3.

6. Harris p. 523; Diary pp. 89-90, 115, 174-5; Harris pp. 582, 591; WT to Jefferson 27 May 1817; to see floor plan; National Park Service "Historic Landmark Nomination, Woodlawn," March 1998.

7. Diary p. 102, 107; Harris, p. 490

8.  Jefferson to WT  23 April 1800; WT to Jefferson 7 May 1800,  

9. Diary p. 146; Genius of Liberty 1 January 1801.

10. WT to Adams 19 February 1798, Harris p. 437;  Commissioners to Andrews, 1 November 1800; Diary pp. 151-2,  208, 222;

11. Tristram Dalton to Adams 21 June 1798, Adams Papers;  WT to Stoddert 28 June 1798; WT to Jefferson 30 December 1800;; Marbury v. Madison 5 U.S. 137 (1803); Mrs. Thornton’s diary p. 153.

12. WT to Madison 8 September 1801; Madison to Jefferson 16 September 1801; ; Madison to WT 8 August 1801; Harris pp. 560-1, 581; “Agreement with Voss 26 June 1802” Madison Paper, Founder online ; National Intelligencer 8 December 1800;

13. Norwich Courier 8 October 1800; National Intelligencer 8 & 31 December 1800;  Harris p. 523; Diary p. 223.

14. Diary p. 223; The Kennebec Gazette 6 March 1801; the War office caught fire on November 8, 1800, and the Treasury Building on January 20, 1801, Bryan, pp. 384-5; on problems with speculators see John Thomson Mason to Jefferson 31 March 1801; on problems with Maryland loan see Commrs. to Jefferson 28 March 1801; on $10,000 appropriated for local improvements see Inhabitants (Thomas Law) to Jefferson 21 March 1801.

15. Commrs. to Jefferson 1 June 1801; Jefferson to Commrs., 2 June 1801; Philadelphia Gazette 18 June 1801.

16. WT to Jefferson 17 April 1802; Jefferson enclosure 14 April 1802;  White to Jefferson 13 April 1802; Jefferson to WT 23 April 1802: Munroe to Jefferson  15 June 1802;  On termination of board see Commrs. to Jefferson 1 June 1802; Clark, "Dr. and Mrs. Thornton" p. 189. 

17. Robert King, Sr., to Jefferson 5 June 1802; On Patent Office appointment see Dobyns History of the Patent Office, Chapter 7 and Preston, Daniel, "Administration of Patent Office...." Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 331-353; Thornton deposition, American State Papers vol   p. 193

19. Latrobe to Jefferson, 27 March 1802;  Latrobe to Jefferson, 9 November 1802, 28 November 1802.