William Thornton Re-examined by Bob Arnebeck

Table of Contents     Chapter Nine: The Case of the Ingenious A 116. Law's 1800 house became the fulcrum of the New Varnum Hotel In an 1888 magazine article about the Octagon, restoration architect Glenn Brown accepted the family legend that Thornton was its designer. Brown also proposed the Octagon as the headquarters of the American Institute of Architects, which was then in Manhattan. To build support for his proposal, in 1896, he wrote an article that dispelled doubts cast on the supremacy of Thornton's Capitol design. Brown also credited him for designing and superintending construction of other houses including two houses that the General had built to board congressmen. Work on the Octagon and the General's houses began in 1799. That same year, work began on Thomas Law's five story brick house just south of the Capitol. It had oval rooms like the Octagon and stood for over a century first as a boarding house, then a private residence and finally as a hotel. It ha...

The Doctor Examined, or Why William Thornton Did Not Design the Octagon House or the Capitol by Bob Arnebeck   Table of Contents     Chapter Six: Walls Fall Down 72. Robert Morris house in Philadelphia where the president lived and worked While Thornton left Hallet stewing  in his little stone house next to the Capitol, he could not avoid Hallet's pretensions once he got to Philadelphia. In mid-February, 1795, the New York Minerva, immediately followed by the Boston Orrey and Philadelphia's Gazette of the United States, printed a three part "Essay on the City of Washington." Since it was also printed in French, one scholar suggests that Hallet wrote it. However, Greenleaf had several French employees including a "Mr. Henry" who he paid to project ideas about the world capital soon to be built. Another Greenleaf brother-in-law, Noah Webster, was publisher of the Minerva. The essay primarily celebrated the economic and cultural importance of the city, and ...