Chapter 12: Thornton v. Latrobe
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| The North Wing in 1800 |
On June 1, 1801, the board asked the president to approve work on the South Wing to accommodate the increased representation in congress thanks to the census of 1800. Four days earlier the board had directed Hoban to draw plans for a temporary 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 board had Hoban draw plans with two stories as well as one. 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."
Of course, Hoban was warning that Thornton's stricture that the elliptical chamber must stand alone on the elliptical foundation wouldn't work. The president put off the higher chamber until Thornton was proved right. 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.” The room would cost $5,000 but only $1,000 of it would have to be torn down when the South Wing was built. Hoban hired Lovering as the contractor. The Seventh Congress convened on December 7, 1801, in the elliptical room.
Evidently, Thornton and Hoban had come to an understanding. Hoban would not challenge Thornton's claim to fame and the board would pay Hoban until the buildings were finished. That’s what an 1802 letter President Jefferson wrote to White suggested: “mr Hobens has set up an extraordinary claim…. it is that he continues in his office at 300. guineas a year until the buildings shall be finished, and independent of any body & every body. this he founds on a written appointment of the Commissioners, or perhaps an entry in their journals, which expressing no definite time of continuance,...” All that puzzled White who replied that he had talked to Hoban at the end of 1800, and he seemed resigned to being dismissed when congress took charge of the Capitol. Evidently, Thornton persuaded Scott’s replacement to join him in accommodating Hoban.
However, in 1802, Hoban was out on limb. Congress abolished the board in April 1802 effective June 1. That didn’t necessarily jeopardize the deal with Thornton because congress assigned the boards duties to a Superintendent to be appointed by the president. Thornton assumed that he was the only qualified candidate, and, to remind the president of that, he sent him a long letter addressing the problem of a Water Street running along the entire waterfront of the city. Commissioner White had already written to the president doubting the "propriety" of Thornton's grand ideas. The president agreed with White. Still, Thornton and his ladies could delightfully fill out a table. A few days later, he invited all three to dinner. On June 1, the president made Thomas Munroe, the board's clerk, the new Superintendent. It is said that Mrs. Thornton asked him why he didn't appoint her husband. The president assured her that the job was temporary. Munroe held the job until 1815.
No one else regretted Thornton’s loss of power. The head surveyor wrote a long letter to the president describing the mess made of surveys because of the board. However, the president, his friend after all, didn’t let the surveyor’s letter diminish his confidence in Thornton. He told Munroe to seek his advice. But Thornton seemed more excited by his new job. On June 2, 1802, Madison hired him to be his clerk in charge of patents. In 1793, congress delegated its authority to grant patents to the State department, and at the same time gave it no authority to deny a patent for any reason other than the applicant not being an American citizen or not paying the $30 fee. The number of applications had been increasing each year, topping 40 in 1801. All Thornton had to do was collect the fee and send it to the Treasury, file each application and fill out each patent to be signed by the secretary of state and president. There was one problem with his new position. 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.
Then the debacle of 1795, that darkened his relationship with President Washington, almost repeated itself. In October, just before congress returned for its second session in the city, the president, who got his exercise by riding around on horseback, became alarmed. He wrote to Claxton: "Observing that the roof of the Representatives chambers has sunk in the middle, that the walls are cracked in several places and pressing out from the perpendicular, I think it necessary that the cause should be examined into by good & experienced persons...." He mentioned Hadfield and Blagden, but not Thornton, Hoban and Lovering. The next day, the experts blamed the roof "which presses the walls outward," and recommended buttressing the walls. No one in the city had yet built an oval roof.(17)
OnNovember 2, 1802, a week after the experts made their report, Jefferson asked Benjamin Latrobe to come the city. He had become Philadelphia's most prominent architect and engineer, an active fellow in the Philosophical Society, and an ardent Republican, as supporters of Jefferson were called. The president wanted to put most of the US Navy's frigates in dry docks along the Eastern Branch and wanted Latrobe to design and build the dry docks. That was a cost-cutting measure. With ships on land and captains getting half pay, money saved could pay down the national debt. Latrobe drew elaborate plans but congress tabled the idea.(19)
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 about its design. On March 6, the president, who had invited the Thorntons to dinner, 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 sent two letters to Latrobe who was back in Philadelphia. One offered him the position of "Surveyor of the Public Buildings," and asked him to get to the city as soon as possible and get to work. In a "private letter" sent the same day, he admitted that $50,000 was not enough money. "I think it will raise the external walls to the uppermost window-sills, being those of the entresols; and I have no doubt Congress at their next session will give another 50,000. D. which will compleat that wing inside & out in the year 1804." The president likely had previously discussed the South Wing with Latrobe. A word like entresols, a French variant on mezzanine, does not pop up in a letter out of the blue. He sent a "private letter" because of his devious way of financing the project. He did not mention consulting with Thornton.(20)
What conversation the president had with Thornton a half hour before dinner is not known. At some time, the president asked him to show how committee rooms would be distributed in the South Wing, but there was no immediate follow-up. On March 7, the president left for three weeks vacation at Monticello. Latrobe left Philadelphia as soon as he could and soon after his arrival, he consulted Thornton. He asked why the principal chambers were on the basement floor, and Thornton told him that he was advised to lower them to allow for greater height in the chamber for the House. He did not mention Jefferson’s enthusiasm for the Halle au Ble. Latrobe inspected what had been built and in a long report to the president, he noted that the elliptical room seemed to be "intended for the permanent basement of the elliptical colonnade." He found its foundation poorly laid and "wholly unfit to carry the weight of the colonnade." The surrounding foundation walls of the rectangular building also had to be pulled down. Then he criticized the workmanship and design of North Wing and, not knowing Jefferson's role in its design, ridiculed the South Wing at length. But he stopped short of demeaning the Capitol: "The Senate chamber independent of its slight construction and badness of workmanship is otherwise a handsome room, and 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."(21)
Latrobe began hiring men and arranging to acquire building material, but also had work to do in Philadelphia and on the Delaware-Chesapeake canal. There is no evidence that the president replied to his report in writing or in person. Although Latrobe was seldom on the scene, faulty foundation walls were brought down and the permanent South Wing began to arise around the buttressed temporary House chamber. John Lenthall, Latrobe's assistant, sent the president a copy of the weekly, largely statistical, report he sent to Latrobe. When Lenthall shared a drawing of a curious building technique in the old wall, Latrobe described it as more evidence of "Thornton's stupid genius." While in the city at a social gathering, Latrobe did mock battle with Thornton over their competing designs for a monument for the General. Thornton held up Latrobe's design as done by an engineer with no artistic sensibilities. Then to the amusement of the gathered, Latrobe mocked Thornton's Eternity with a snake around her neck. Thornton seemed offended but Latrobe thought they remained friends.(22) Latrobe and his new wife enjoyed being entertained by the Thorntons. There was always more to talk about then the Capitol. Latrobe was taken by Thornton’s publication of a 24 page letter that proposed buying all the country's slaves, putting them to work on canals and roads, and then freeing them in the outer reaches of the newly acquired Louisiana territory, thus keeping the races separated forever.(23)
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. He anticipated a crisis. The president offered to talk to Thornton about difficulties with the plan. Latrobe went to see Thornton first and 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 to the design. 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 his run in with Thornton had clouded their relationship and he warned the president that he would not put up with his 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."(24)
Then Latrobe made his unease with Thornton public in his oral and written testimony before 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."(25)
Of course, Latrobe proved the greater fool. After uncovering evidence that the North Wing had been built by professionals as uncomfortable as he was with Thornton’s pretensions as its designer, he invested Thornton with power to limit his options even though the president promised to work around whatever objections Thornton might have. Latrobe had no reason to challenge Thornton before a House committee. Thornton was a government employee and Latrobe knew he had a yen to become a public intellectual positioned to advise congress on any number of matters. Thornton had no choice but to defend his reputation. Then again, Latrobe might have understood matters better if Jefferson had not waited until 1811 reveal to Latrobe how much he was invested in Thornton's design of the South Wing.
Thornton 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?(26)
On January 1, 1805, 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." In it, 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.(27)
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 the city and evidently architecture, too. 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.(28)
In the fall of 1806, Latrobe sent a "private letter" to congress giving more details of problems he faced that delayed completion of the building. The initial problem was the design contest that Thornton won. While popular, contests attract amateurs who know nothing about building. 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 making light of his own mistakes, and 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)
Otherwise, 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." In 1806, Latrobe redesigned the central part of the building that eliminated the Conference Room and put a grand stairway up to a portico with a much longer colonnade. The dome remained over Thornton’s grand vestibule. However, Latrobe didn't ask the president to approve the changes. Delays in finishing the South Wing precluded inviting more scrutiny from congress.
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 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, who was six feet two, countered with a libel suit.(31)
On May 8, 1808, a little over a week after Thornton's attack, Mrs. Thornton noted that her husband drew a plan for their good friend Thomas Peter. In archives, there are several undated floor plans with two large elliptical rooms and a circular colonnaded entrance. As built in upper Georgetown, Tudor Place would only have the Roman temple-like entrance. In 1811, Peter began describing himself as a resident of Tudor Place, Georgetown, which suggests that his mansion connecting two houses previously built there was effectively finished. Ridout and others consider it as another manifestation of Thornton's innovative use ovals. Indeed, his floor plans made transparent how he drew the elliptical rooms by overlapping two perfect ovals. As if keen to show how he mathematically simplified the design process, he did not erase the outlines of the circles. His floor plan and elevation had few windows so it resembles his unbuilt design for Lot 17 in Square 171, not the well lit mansion that Lovering built for Tayloe. Perhaps, Thornton considered what he drew as a challenge to Latrobe. If so, it can be counted as a brave display of his genius, but it came at a time when the saga of Thornton and Capitol effectively ended.(32)
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 to the first floor. Thornton made no public comment. Congress did not appropriate money to continue work on the Capitol, or the President's house where Latrobe was helping Mrs. Madison redecorate the building. 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. In a letter to a friend sent at the same time that he sued Thornton, he had blamed his being a “madman” on his “vanity” and “poverty.”(33)
In 1814, Thornton was in the city but never wrote anything about the fire damage to the Capitol except that he assured Jefferson that it could be repaired. He joked that by burning the library in the North Wing, the British did congress a favor because Jefferson donated his library to fill the void. Latrobe's steamboat project drove him into debt. He asked President Madison to let him restore the Capitol. Once back in the city, he sent a complete report on the damage to the building to Jefferson with drawings of compromised Classical orders.(34)
Thornton did not need to hitch his fame to the destruction of the Capitol. He gained ever lasting fame by defending the Patent Office. Like all officials, Thornton fled the city after a British regiment routed American troops at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24. Then the sight of flames seen from Georgetown brought him back to the city the next day on a mission to rescue a musical instrument he had invented that was being built by a workman at the Patent Office. Thornton persuaded British officers not to burn down the "Museum of the Arts." He did more than that. He brought order to the city by arranging guards to prevent looting of the burned buildings. When the mayor returned, Thornton proposed using soldiers the British left to guard their wounded to also patrol the streets. The president, Secretary of State James Monroe and Attorney General Richard Rush returned to the city and rode to the Navy Yard to see if forces there could respond to another British incursion expected when their warships then at Alexandria crossed the river. In a letter he wrote to his son-in-law, Monroe recalled: "...we were followed by Dr. Thornton who stated to the president that the people of the city were disposed to capitulate. The President forbade it. He pressed the idea as a right in the people, notwithstanding the presence of the govt. I turnd to him, and declard, that, having the military command, if I saw any of them, proceeding to the enemy, I would bayonet them. This put an end to the project. The doctor retird, and afterwards changd his tone."
On September 8, Mrs. Thornton joined Mrs. Madison who was next door where her sister lived. The day before the doctor’s letter in the National Intelligencer described his exploits in the wake of the conflagration, and mocked the mayor for doing nothing. Despite that, according to Mrs. Thornton, who briefly kept a diary, the First Lady had “listened to many misrepresentations and falsehoods concerning Dr. T_ ….” That day, the Madisons moved in the Octagon. While exhausted and ill in a city hotel after doing duty as a scout and messenger on the Virginia side of the Potomac, Col. Tayloe evidently arranged for the Madisons to use his house. Then, in his reply, Mayor James Blake mocked Thornton: "Doctor T has been living upon the Public Treasury for near twenty years, and I dare say he cannot point to a single service that entitles him to the patronage of the government." He also accused him of collaborating with the enemy. He had visited and befriended a wounded British officer. Col. William Thornton's brigade had spearheaded the British charge at Bladensburg.
In the newspaper skirmish that followed, no one mentioned the Capitol or the Octagon. In February, the War of 1812 officially ended when Madison exchanged the ratified copies of the Treaty of Ghent with the British minister after a ceremony in the Octagon’s oval sitting room. Even if Thornton had designed the Octagon, he probably wouldn’t have mentioned it when referencing that occasion. He made a grander mark. Thanks to his heroics, congress met in the Patent Office. Northern politicians who wanted to move the federal government out of the city could not point to the lack of a meeting room. Because those wanting to move out of city were stymied, Thornton claimed credit for saving the city by preserving the Patent Office. So, as he explained in a letter to Col. Thornton, it could be fairly said that "One William Thornton took the city and another preserved it by that single act." The doctor claimed that his bon mot swept the city. The president was not amused and Thornton noticed. When Madison left office in 1817, Thornton wrote to him about the shock Mrs. Thornton felt at not getting a farewell visit from Mrs. Madison. As for himself "I have long had to lament a marked distance and coldness towards me, for which I cannot account."
Fortunately for Thornton's posthumous reputation as an architect, in 1817, Jefferson asked him for advice. He sent Thornton a sketch of a large quadrangle for a university bounded by "a range" of one story dormitories behind a colonnade linking two story pavilions with a classroom below and an apartment for a professor above. 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." He asked Thornton for his ideas.
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Jefferson's campus above; Thornton's idea below  |
In reply, Thornton sent a long letter about how to organize a university as well as build it. For example, he advised that "There ought to be extra grounds for the great Exercises; such as running, riding, Archery[,] Shooting with Pistols, rifles, Cannon,—The military Exercises on horseback & foot.—In the Roman Catholic Academy, in George Town, they have erected a Ball Alley, but I would allow no Child’s-play." He 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 sent a drawing of "a Pavilion for the Centre, with Corinthian Columns, and a Pediment." That prompts C. M. Harris to suggest that Thornton "most noticeably influenced Jefferson in his design for Pavilion VII...." 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.(AA) 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. In May 1818, Jefferson wrote his last letter to Latrobe, who predeceased him in 1820. He lamented the change of command at the Capitol: "I learned with great grief your abandonment of the Capitol. I had hoped that, under your direction, that noble building would have been restored and become a monument of rational taste & spirit. I fear much for it now. to [my]self personally it can be of little moment; because in the public bui[ld]ings which will be daily growing up in this growing countr[y] [you?] can have no competitor for employ."(35)
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. The Jefferson/Thornton ellipse was halved. The Supervisor asked Thornton and others for suggestions on how to cure chamber's acoustics of an echo. He responded full blast, but no one seemed to be listening. 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)
He already had another Capitol in mind, far to the South and for the whole Hemisphere. He had moved on to greater things, the steamboat and revolutions in Spanish America. But, again, contemporaries did not accord him the fame he thought he deserved. One who knew him well and kept copious notes caught his lying which should reflect on his one-sided narrative of the genesis of the Capitol’s design.1. "No. 9 Report of James Hoban...November 13, 1799" in New York Gazette 17 December 1799 p. 3.
2. Harris pp. 242 & 333 footnote 11; Last will and testament ; Annals of Congress, 6th congress p. 208
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.
4. WT to Marshall 2 or 6 January 1800 Harris p. 526, Harris dates the letter four days before AMT wrote that "in the afternoon wrote to Genl. Marshall...." p. 92 - Harris strains to give WT a leading role but Lear to Adams 1 January 1800 covers issues raised by Thornton in his letter to Marshall; Stoddert to WT 23 January 1800 Harris pp. 532-3.
5. WT to Blodget 23 February 1800, Harris p. 535-8; Latrobe to Robert G. Harper, 24 April 1800, Correspondence p. 160.
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; WT to Madison 16 March 1801, 15 August 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
18. Jefferson to Claxton, 26 October 1802, Harbaugh et al to Jefferson 27 October 1802;
19. Latrobe to Jefferson, 27 March 1802; Jefferson to Latrobe, 2 November 1802; Latrobe to Jefferson, 9 November 1802, 28 November 1802.
20. Annals of Congress, House, 28 February 1803; Jefferson to WT 6 March 1803; Jefferson to Latrobe 6 March 1803.
21. Latrobe to Jefferson, 4 April 1803 Enclosure,"Report on the Public Buildings:" Latrobe, Benjamin, The Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of, p. 278;
22. Latrobe to Lenthall, 5 May 1803, Ibid. p. 289; Latrobe Journal p. 207 ;
23. Latrobe to Thornton 28 April 1804; W. T., "Political Economy: Founded in Justice and Humanity, in a letter to a friend;" John Quincy Adams diary 12 March 1805; Latrobe Journal p. 206;
24. Latrobe to Jefferson, 27 & 28 February 1804, Jefferson to Latrobe 28 February 1804; Op. Cit. pp. 437ff
25. "The Report of the Surveyor of Public Buildings," Latrobe Correspondence pp. 444-5; Latrobe to Lenthall, 8 March 1804, Correspondence p. 458.
26. 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;
27. Harris, Papers of William Thornton. p. 257-8; Brown, History of Capitol, new edition, pp. 113ff.
28. 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.
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.
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