Chapter Ten: The General's House and Plots to Save Dr. T's Reputation

 

Chapter 10: The General’s Houses and Plots to Save Dr. T’s Reputation 

Plaque in Upper Senate Park

A plaque graces Upper Senate Park just north of the Capitol that credits Dr. William Thornton for designing George Washington’s “two brick dwellings.” Glenn Brown based that claim and that Thornton superintended their construction on "the letters of Washington." Brown didn't quote or cite any letters. A hundred years late, C. M. Harris did. In August 1798, Thornton gave a "plan" to Thomas Peter who, on August 26, then passed it on to the General who sent it back to Peter the next day without comment: "Doctr Thorntons plan is returned with thanks; our love to Patsy." She was the Custis sister who married Peter who was the son of Robert Peter who had owned Peter’s Hill when the General had bought lots there.

C. M. Harris and the editors of Washington's Papers have deduced that the plan in question was a design the General’s houses. However, the plan in question was most likely touched on the national university to be sited on Peter’s Hill. In January 1796, Thornton had told White that he was working on a "plan" for the National University and would pass it around to friends for comment. In his October 1797 letter to Dr. Fell, he had mentioned that General Washington asked him for a plan "on a general system of education.... I have begun a piece on the subject, which I hope to mature and finally publish, but the multifarious business I have on hand prevents me from finishing several papers."4 Why would the General return a house plan to Peter the next day if he thought he might copy that plan for the houses he was thinking of building? He had good reason to immediately return a plan for the National University. Congress had tabled the memorial urging its creation. That setback was arguably the major embarrassment the General endured while he was president.

When the General decided to build the houses, he asked Commissioner White, not Thornton for help. He asked White to send him the prices of available lots on Capitol Hill. On September 6, White went with the board's surveyor to identify lots, had a map made, checked with his colleagues about prices and reported to the General on the 8th. On September 12, the General revealed his project in a letter to White. He boasted "I never require much time to execute any measure after I have resolved upon it." That suggests that he drew a design for his houses once he got the map of the lots without soliciting anyone's advice. He even wanted the commissioners to find a contractor to "dig the Cellars, & lay the foundation" that fall "(and the earlier the better)." Then next summer, he wanted two houses built together as that "will look better, & come cheaper than building them seperately or at different times...." Then he discussed the design of the house, even though he was "not skilled in Architecture, and perhaps know as little of planning." He wanted the houses "plain," and enclosed "a sketch, to convey my ideas of the size of the houses, rooms, & manner of building them; to enable you [the commissioners] to enter into the Contract." In closing the letter, he added "My plan when it comes to be examined, may be radically wrong; if so, I persuade myself that Doctr Thornton (who understands these matters well) will have the goodness to suggest alterations."

The General's floor plan

The General's parenthetical comment has been taken a token of the General’s respect for Thornton. But the General's previous parenthetical comment challenges that take. He wanted work to begin that fall "(and the earlier the better)." While he never blamed Thornton specifically, he did fault design changes for delays in building the Capitol. That made clear to White that this project would not wait for dissents to be filed. Then why did he mention Thornton at all? The General enjoyed the traveling English actors who brought tragedy and farce to provincial stages. Farces abound in asides. They are the one liners that double the laughter. White likely got the joke. He had to endure Thornton's pouting about a 50 foot high modallion. His latest was objecting to the board getting around their inability to find mahogany to make doors by giving pine doors a mahogany finish. Thornton insisted that "mahogany is recommended by the best writers in architecture." If the General really wanted Thornton to examine the plan why did he write to White? The general wanted a contractor to examine the plan and fill in the blanks, so to speak, as economically as possible. As it turned out, White immediately gave the floor plan to Thornton.

The board had to find a contractor, which was not White's forte. They asked George Blagden, who with stone work at the Capitol effectively over, was looking for work. All three commissioners had worked with Blagden, though his not supporting Thornton in the rose modallion controversy may have given Thornton pause. Alone with the plan, Thornton did not "suggest alterations." If he saw the General's letter to White, which he likely did given the board's spirit of collegiality, he never revealed his reaction to it. 

The General asked the board draw up a contract with Blagden and use their knowledge of suppliers and subcontractors to make sure he wasn't being cheated. Then the General bristled at Blagden's $12,982.29 estimate of the cost of the houses. He knew that Law had contracted to build a house, "not much if any less than my two," for under $6,000. He had calculated that his houses would cost $8,000, or $10,000 at most. So, he decided "to suspend any final decision until I see Mr Blagdens estimate in detail, with your observations thereupon; and what part of the work I can execute with my own Tradesmen, thereby reducing the advances."1 In their reply, signed by Thornton, the commissioners admitted that they were not "able to say whether the Estimate on that subject is reasonable or not.... Hoban is confined by indisposition, or we would have taken his opinion on Mr Blagdin’s Estimate."2 Thornton seemed as clueless as his colleagues and obviously had not designed the General or Law's houses. By the way, the commissioners did not ask Lovering to make an estimate because he would have billed the General.

Then thanks to a letter, now lost, that Thornton wrote to the General on October 17, he won the General’s confidence. In his reply the General thanked him "for the details - as I shall do on similar future occasions." Evidently, rather than play the pompous city planner or the architectural critic, Thornton shared the latest gossip with the General who, of course, didn’t respond in kind. He did explain how he planned to lower the contracted price for the house by using his own "people" to do some of the carpentry. Thornton knew how planters liked to use their slave, and he replied on the 25th with an offer to send a specimen of different moldings to Mount Vernon so that, with models to work with, his people could prepare it before they brought it to the city. Thornton added that he and White had "formed a contract, with which Mr. Blagdin will wait on you." That gives the impression that since Thornton chose the molding and wrote the contract then he must have designed the houses.

However, the General had asked the commissioners to form a contract only after some back and forth between Blagden and the General. He had asked them to simply "cause efficient articles to be drawn under your Inspection & correction." He had not asked them to change the specifications regarding the molding detailed by Blagden. Anyway, Thornton never sent molding to Mount Vernon. The General finally balked at "sending Negro Carpenters to the City, and having them to provide for there." The General asked Thornton to write the final signed contract because he was a county magistrate with "stamped paper," and it was signed on November 5. To have it notarized by another might have cost the General 75 cents a page. It is seven pages long. The draft of the contract that Blagden took to Mount Vernon was not in Thornton's hand writing.

He also found a way to assuage Thornton's obvious desire to have something to do with the houses: “as you reside in the City, and [are] always there, and have moreover been so obliging as to offer to receive the Bills and pay their amount (when presented by Mr Blagden) I will avail myself of this kindness." It seemed that the General only wrote to Thornton about his houses’ design only to make fun of the architectural critic. 

In a December 20 letter to Thornton, he revealed that he had decided to modify in his design: "I saw a building in Philadelphia of about the same front and elevation that are to be given to my two houses, which pleased me. It consisted also of two houses united - doors in the center - a pediment in the roof and dormer window on each side of it in front - skylights in the rear. If it is not incongruous with rules of architecture, I should be glad to have my two houses executed in this style."

Thornton wrote back: "it is a desideratum in architecture to hide as much as possible the roof - for which reason in London, there is a generally a parapet to hide the dormer windows. The pediment may with propriety be introduced, but I have some doubts with respect to its adding any beauty" Thornton passed on the General’s request to Blagden and on Christmas Day sent, as the General put in his reply, “Messrs. Blagden and Lenthals estimate of the cost of adding a pediment and a parapet…," But, the General continued, “the plan to which it refers, did not accompany it...and Mr. Blagden is under promise to make a copy thereof for his own use, to work by, and to send me the original draft. I pray you to remind him of that promise.” Obviously, Thornton had nothing to do with the designs for the houses. 

The General then returned to his argument with Thornton:  "Rules of architecture are calculated, I presume, to give symmetry, and just proportion to all the orders, and parts of the building, in order to please the eye. Small departures from strict rules are discoverable only by skilful architects, or by the eye of criticism, while ninety-nine in a hundred - deficient of their knowledge - might be pleased with things not quite orthodox. This, more than probable, would be the case relative to a pediment in the roof over the doors of my houses in the city."

131. Two houses built by the General on right. Street below had been leveled during construction of the New Capitol. The house on the left was not built by Thornton

In a January 30 letter, the General reacted favorably to drawings of the windows that Thornton sent that had been  drawn by Blagden and Lenthall. The General observed “the drawing sent, gives a much handsomer appearance to the Windows than the original design did.” Evidently, Blagden and Lenthall drew both the old and revised designs or, presuming he had any hand in the design, the General took a perverse delight in ignoring Thornton. He did have others who went to the city that he could rely upon. He worried about site preparation and asked his nephew Lawrence Lewis to check. After getting his report that nothing had been done, the General wrote to his secretary Tobias Lear who was staying with Dr. Thornton to get treatment for a lame leg. He asked Lear to investigate, but Thornton took over. He wrote to the General on April 19 and gave the impression that he arrived at the site in the nick of time: “I took the liberty of directing Stone Sills to be laid, instead of wooden ones, to the outer Doors of the Basement, as wood decays very soon, when so much exposed to the damp;…” Evidently, the General and Blagden did not appreciate his advice. In the future, he only passed on the General’s advice and Blagden’s questions.

In a 1799 letter to his old Lancashire friend Thomas Wilkinson, Thornton wrote: "The late President General Washington, who appointed me here, continues to honor me with his particular friendship. I frequently visit and am visited by this great and good man, besides corresponding. He is now building two Government Houses in this city, and has confided to me his money transactions here, as a friend...."Would Thornton have concealed from Wilkinson that he had designed the houses or superintended their contruction?

However, on January 3, 1800, Lear wrote and asked for his accounts of the General’s payments to Blagden. On New Year’s Day, Mrs. Thornton began keeping a diary that would include entries for every day of that year. She reacted to Lear’s letter by confiding that “the money to the undertaker of them having all gone thro my husband’s hands, he having Superintended them as a Friend.” To Pamela Scott that entry proves that Thornton superintended construction of the houses. The occasion for an accounting was the death of the General. However, a superintendent would have more to attend to than accounts, but Mrs. Thornton didn’t mention his doing anything with regard to the houses until January 21 on the eve of the executors’ meeting at Mount Vernon. On that day, Dr. T. sent their slave Joe Key "very early in the morning," to get receipts from Blagden to be sent to Mount Vernon.

That the General didn’t ask Thornton to design his house hurt. To certify his fame, Thornton thought that he had to make it generally understood that the General realized that his accepting modifications to Thornton’s original Capitol design was a mistake and that he then allowed Thornton to restore his design. The General had never changed his view that the design was the work of a committee and efforts to make design changes only led to delays. That left the impression that in architectural matters the General did not trust Thornton. His not consulting him before sending White a sketch of the houses he wanted to build on Capitol Hill underscored that lack of trust. Thornton must have been shocked that the General used White to arrange matters. The elderly Virginia lawyer knew nothing about architecture and little about the city. Due to his wife's protestations, the president had excused White from having to move to the city. Thornton had designed the Capitol and had thoroughly studied the city plan, had taken levels of the city, contemplated its landscaping, and, most pertinent, had invested in the city while White had not.(2)

That

it only took Thornton nine days to come up with a way to turn insult into indelible proof of his architectural genius was a credit to his true genius. On April 5, 1793, when the old board notified Thornton that the president had "given his formal approbation of your plan," they asked him to "be pleased to grant powers or put the business in a way of being closed on the acknowledgments your success entitles you." According to the prospectus, the winner had to choose between a medal worth $500 or $500, and would be awarded a lot "designated by impartial judges." Thornton took the money and did nothing vis-a-vis the lot. On September 21, 1798, the General chose two lots, one from the public and the other from Daniel Carroll of Duddington. He paid $535.70 for the public lot.(3) On the same day, Thornton handed a letter to his colleagues asking that the board finally award him the prize lot.

He couched his letter to his colleagues in a way that made it seem that he was getting his due for making sure the North Wing conformed to his original design. To do that, he had to imply that the changes Hallet made to the design in July 1793 made his being awarded a lot problematical. So he wrote to the board that 

I have been prevented by motives of delicacy from requesting your attention to a claim which I have from my drawings for the capitol of the United States being approved by the late President of the United States and the commissioners, our predecessors, which plan, though deviated in some respects, I restored and accommodated to my original ideas, and furnished correspondent elevations and sections for the same, which have thus far been carried into execution, and as no material change is now contemplated it is presumed the whole will be completed upon the plan now adopted…. The plan was decided in the year 1793, at which time a very extensive selection of valuable lots gave a great advantage over the present moment; and the numerous sales which are daily making will so far continue to lessen the choice, that I should do myself evident injustice were I to delay any longer a request that you would be pleased to appoint any gentleman you think proper to make a choice of lot for you…."(4)

Scott and White chose Thomas Law and Notley Young, two advocates for the East side of the city, and on October 1, 1798, they awarded Thornton a lot next to the General's. But Scott and White didn't reply to his letter. Because they didn't contradict Thornton, in his 1914 history of the city, W. B. Bryan insisted that proved that Thornton had indeed restored his original design.(5) However, having joined the board well after the July 1793 conference and after Thornton's plans went missing, Scott and White were in no position to judge and they did not ask the General or Hoban for their opinions. Evidently, they did not even tell the General that Thornton was given a lot adjoining his, or if they did the General didn’t react. Thornton got the lot on October 1. Even though Thornton visited Mount Vernon for three days that week, evidently Thornton did not break the news until he wrote to the General on October 25.

In that letter, he modified his explanation: "the Board allowed me the lot adjoining yours (it being awarded to me by Messrs. Young and Law for the premium which I had not demanded from motives of Delicacy, but which I was entitled to for my plans of Capitol.)" He did not mention his restoring his design and that it would dictate the future course of building. Perhaps, he shied from repeating that because his September 21 letter did not ignite a discussion, let alone a celebration. The General had never acknowledged that and had not endorsed the elevation then hanging in Thornton's parlor.(6)

Of course, now that he owned the lot next to the General, it behooved Thornton to build on it. That gave him the opportunity to signal to the General that he knew how to design and build a house. In his letter, he offered to save the cost-conscious General money by building a three story brick house “or Houses on a similar plan” next door and assume the full cost of the party wall. Mentioning the party wall was a bit of a stretch. Thornton also confessed to a temporary lack of funds and would not be able to build until he recovered from “some late heavy losses; not in Speculations, but matters of Confidence, to the amount of between four and five thousand Dollars...." He was likely alluding to his inability to mortgage his share of the Tortola plantation. In reply, the General promised to share the cost of the party wall and authorized Thornton to get specifications from the contractor. He never built on the lot.

It is possible that Thornton anticipated the conclusion of W. B. Bryan that merely his being awarded the prize lot proved that he had restored his design. Thornton’s genius luxuriated in the length of time it took to build a monumental building like the Capitol. In his July 1793 response to Hallet’s attack on his design, Thornton had ridiculed the Frenchman’s going on at length about mistakes when “no skilful workman could think himself necessitated to follow in the execution.” As for another goof, Thornton assured that he could have corrected it if only he had time to draw a section. His becoming a commissioner taught him another lesson. He could out last his critics, but he had to give them a push. So, in January 1799, he started a campaign to be the last architect standing when congress came to town. 

In 1802, Commissioner White recalled in a letter to President Jefferson, "both of the my colleagues were desirous of getting Hoban out of the way and amazing exertions were made to find something in his conduct which would justify them in dismissing him." Thornton began by moving for an investigation of a charge that Hoban fired a carpenter because he would not join the artillery militia. There was no second. Then Thornton broadened the investigation and Scott joined him. In February 1799, the board asked carpenters and joiners for complaints against both Hoban and Redmund Purcell who played such a large role in getting Hadfield out of the way. Evidently, Scott thought Purcell was the source of a rumor that he stole building materials from the public stores for his own house.

The board soon charged Purcell for not properly supervising the men working under him during the winter. He even paid slave sawyers their shilling a day while doing little work. When Hoban heard that the board had received letters from workers impugning his conduct, he asked the board to share that evidence. The investigation centered on the complaints of an English joiner, Joseph Middleton, who claimed that Hoban did not provide the drawings and materials he needed to build shutters that the board hired him to build. On March 12, Hoban explained that he had given Middleton what he needed to make doors and doubted he had time to make shutters.

There was ample evidence that Purcell and Hoban were not negligent in their work. Both the President's house and the North Wing were almost ready. Thornton and Scott laid traps for them. They gave Purcell two days to prepare his defense and fired him when he failed to appear. They asked Hoban to prepare a report on the Capitol giving past and estimating future expenses. He had routinely done that for the President's house. If he failed to report on the Capitol, they could fire him for insubordination.

Purcell counter-attacked in the press. He characterized Thornton as "the fribbling quack architect who smuggled his name to the only drawing of sections for the Capitol ever delivered to the commissioners' office, made out by another man." There were also no updated plans based on the work already done, and Thornton should draw them. In his attack, Purcell mentioned Thornton's extant elevation, but it was not in the hands of the superintendent: "The original plan is hung as a trophy to science in his [Thornton's] parlor." The letter was published on April 16.

Hoban also made the Thornton’s supposed Capitol design an issue. He claimed that he could not very well estimate expenses at the Capitol for the coming season because he had no "plan or sections of the building to calculate by, nor the parts in detail, all which should be put into the hands of the superintendent." Hoban knew of that requirement because he too had been a design contest winner. White also got the impression that Hoban was talking to a lawyer. Perhaps that and White not objecting to firing Purcell persuaded Scott to break with Thornton. On April 15, Hoban wrote a more telling letter to the board. He asked for "drawings necessary for carrying on the following work at the Capitol, viz. 1st. The East entrance and staircase, 2nd. The Elliptic staircase, 3rd. The back staircase, 4. The Representatives Chamber, 5. The Senate Chamber." His colleagues who had not replied to Thornton’s September 21, 1798, letter gave him Hoban’s letter and observed: “We have looked over the original advertisement under which you received the premium for the plan of the Capitol, which evidently requires that the author should furnish the necessary drawings; and your letter of the 17th of November 1795 admits the principle.” That suggests that Thornton had never practiced that principle. If he had, his colleagues could simply ask him to supply the drawings as usual.

Thornton wrote the draft of his reply to his colleagues on April 17. He began by pointing out that he had already made enough drawings and that he was on hand to give advice. He reminded them that the "late Superintendent," meaning Hadfield, was "expressly engaged to furnish the detailed drawings.…" No historian has produced an example of Thornton sketching something for Hadfield to draw. He didn’t, for example, sketch the Capitol roof and relied on forcing Hadfield to stipulate in writing that the roof would not be higher than the balustrade.

Thornton found an ingenious way to split hairs and free himself from any principle that he should make drawings in order to get the Capitol ready for congress. He reminded the board that it "had determined not to finish the rooms in a splendid and expensive style at present but in a plain manner...." He argued that such "plain" expedients to get the building ready for use were not part of his design and not his responsibility. The stairways were to be temporary and made of wood. They were an expedient. Otherwise, he would be anxious to make drawings. He evidently forgot that in his November 1795 letter he had written "...I promise to supply such drawings hereafter, as may be deemed sufficient for the prosecution of the Capitol, and in time to prevent any delay whatever."

Then he launched into a written description of features in each room. For the Senate chamber, he wrote: "I propose that the columns be executed in the ancient Ionic order with the volutes curved in the middle over the column and with an astragal below the volutes to form a neck to the column: the shaft of the column plain - the entablature full but plain and without modillions." That's not exactly from Chambers who described Ionic columns with "angular volutes with an astragal and fillet below the volute." Chambers at least provided a glossary. A volute is a scroll. An astragal is "a small moulding whose profile is semi-circular." Thornton wished marble for the columns but accepted substitutes.  He thought one of the walls of the library, which was to be the House's temporary chamber, "ought to be taken down." He explained how timbers could be supported in another way and where to form an arch to create a "lighted closet," but he offered no drawings. He noted times when the board had asked Hoban for drawings, and suggested that doing drawings had always been Hoban's job.

On April 18, Thornton's colleagues asked Hoban to make the necessary drawings "as conveniently you can." Not surprisingly, Harris interprets the exchange as a complete victory for Thornton. He claims that “the following day they forwarded to Hoban a copy of this response by WT, directing the superintendent to prepare drawings for the board’s examination. The correctness of these exchanges would seem to reflect the uncertainty of Hoban’s position at that time, charges of negligence against him having been taken up by the board.”

“As conveniently as you can” is not the language of “correctness.” Thornton completely failed in his effort to get Hoban “out of the way.” In an 1802 letter to White, President Jefferson gave the impression that Hoban had in no way been corrected or put in the shade by Thornton: “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, Luther Martin (as Hoben says) deems determinable only by the finishing of the buildings. I believe the writing says he is to continue till they are finished. he claims damages too for what he suffers in his reputation as an architect by their not being finished.” Martin was the leading trial lawyer in Maryland, and arguably in the nation. White was dumbfounded and said that he talked to Hoban at the end of 1800, and he seemed resigned to being dismissed when congress took charge of the future of the Capitol. When Commissioner Scott died on Christmas Eve, Thornton became leader of the board. Evidently, he and Hoban came to an agreement, and, in return, Hoban agreed not to question that Thornton was the author of the Capitol design. Glenn Brown cited Hoban's evident good opinion of Thornton as proof that all of Thornton’s claims about the Capitol design were true.

In the continuing correspondence between the General and Thornton, Hoban and the Capitol were never mentioned. Thornton’s friendship with the General was glory in itself and he would not endanger it by soliciting praise that the General had never seen fit to give. As for on-going project, the General continued to school Thornton. He reminded him to get the contractors to paint sashes before installing them, instructed him on the proper mixture of sand in the paint for the walls and lectured him on plaster of Paris. After that last lesson, Thornton referred Washington to a pamphlet on the subject written by a Pennsylvania judge. While president, the General had asked the judge to do the research and write the pamphlet.

Thornton tried to school the General after he asked Thornton for his opinion on what the rent should be for the houses. In his reply, Thornton discussed the issue at length, concluded that 10% of the cost of construction would be fair, but he had a better idea: "...preserve them unrented, and keep them for sale, fixing a price on them together or separately; and I have no Doubt you could sell them for nine or ten thousand Dollars each, and if you were inclined to lay out the proceeds again in building other Houses this might be repeated to your Advantage, without any trouble, with perfect safety from risk, and to the great improvement of the City." In reply, other than thanking him "for the information, and sentiments," the General didn't react to Thornton's suggestion that in the waning years of his illustrious life, he become a real estate developer. Then Thornton drove away a boarding house manager who back in September 1798 had expressed an interest in renting the houses. Because the prospective renter wanted to build back buildings, Thornton wrote to the General that he “refused to name any price.”4 The General was probably not amused and decided to sell the houses as soon as possible.

Thornton continued to shine in other ways, sometimes in ways not quite believable. In late May 1799, Thomas Boyleston Adams, the First Family's third son, toured the city. In a June 9, 1799, letter to his mother, that was mostly favorable about the city's site and prospects, Thomas painted a dismissive portrait of Thornton. He was "a democratic, philanthropic, universal benevolence kind of a man—a mere child in politics, and having for exclusive merit a pretty taste in drawing—He makes all the plans of all the public buildings, consisting of two, and a third going up."

In a September 1,1799, letter to the General in which he mentioned spending the day with Tayloe, he went on at length about plans and improvements, without mentioning Tayloe’s house which was then being built. The General had forwarded a letter from Secretary of State Pickering offering a plan for the federal city's docks that would prevent yellow fever. Thornton noted that "it is a highly interesting subject and one I have urged, for three years to the board." Then he noted continuing lot sales and added that "the Trustees, of Morris & Nicholson, are going to finish the Houses at the Point." He also had to brag. He noted that "the navy-yard will. be fixed... where I recommended it." He had prevented it from being placed on the square designated for the Marine Hospital. He also had preserved the reservation for "a military academy, for parade-ground, for the exercise of the great guns, for magazines, etc., etc." Then he found even higher ground: "I am jealous of innovations where decisions have been made after mature deliberation, and I yet hope that the city will be preserved from that extensive injury contemplated by some never-to-be-content and covetous individuals."

While the General didn’t reply to Thornton’s September report on progress in the city. Tobias Lear, the General’s secretary wrote to Thornton: "I hope the grand and magnificent will be combined with the useful in all the new public undertakings. We are not working for our selves or our children; but for ages to come, and the works should be admired as well as used. Your wharves and the introduction of running water are among the first objects. Let no little mindedness or contracted views of private interest prevent their being accomplished upon the most extensive and beautiful plan that the nature of things will admit of - and - But hold, I am talking to one who has considered and understands these subjects much better than myself, and who, I trust, will exert himself to have everything done in the best manner."

In the summer of 1799, Thornton simply did not seem interested in designing houses. Why should he down size his genius when he was in a position to create the infrastructure to enhance the grandeur of the capital which could only amplify the genius of the Author of the Capitol? How was he to know that history would have no interest in who preserved the “parade-ground, for the exercise of the great guns?” It seems that thanks to Thornton’s obsession with the Big Picture, even when he was at the General’s table, house design was not a topic of conversation.

In his September 12 letter, Lear mentioned his own fever and that Mrs. Washington was recovering from a serious illness. Thornton rushed to Mount Vernon and spent four nights.1 Three days after he left, the General advised his nephew Lawrence Lewis, who had lived at Mount Vernon for two years, that in his will he gave the house to another nephew. Lewis had married Mrs. Washington’s the last resident grand child. To salve his surprise, the General revealed that portion of his will that bequeathed 2000 acres of the Mount Vernon estate to Lewis for the express purpose of his building a house. The General advised him that "few better sites for a house than Grays hill, and that range, are to be found in this County, or elsewhere." He also gave Lewis license to immediately "proceed on sure ground with respect to the buildings, I will agree, and this letter shall be an evidence of it, that if, thereafter, I should find cause to make any other disposition of the property here mentioned, I will pay the actual cost of such buildings to you, or yours." He seemed to be prodding Lewis, who had a tendency to sickness and repose, to do something. What better way to prod Lewis then by alerting Thornton that Lewis needed a design for an elegant country house? Instead, the General revealed his gift to Lewis three days after Thornton left Mount Vernon. There is no evidence that Thornton knew anything about it.

Both White and Thornton wrote to the General on December 7 and both reported the usual mix of good and bad news about the city and its prospects. Not surprisingly, the elderly Virginia politician and Thornton elicited different replies. To the former, the General was resigned: "it may be said with truth, that those whose interest it was, most to promote the welfare & growth of the City, have been its worst enemies, yet that matters will still go right." To the latter, he was aroused: "...the obstructions continually thrown in its way—by friends or enemies—this City has had to pass through a firey trial—Yet, I trust will, ultimately, escape the Ordeal with eclat.” For the General, Thornton was a tonic, and sometimes too exuberant, but not an architect. 

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