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The Octagon House, Washington: Thornton

William Thornton to make the plans for a palatial house. During the construction of the building Washington several times rode by and from the saddle inspected the progress of the work. Thornton was at the time a well-known man, though he had been born in the West Indies and was for many years a resident there. After receiving his education in Europe, he lived for several years in the United States. During this period he was a partner of John Fitch in the building and trial of the steamboat that for a time ran successfully on the Delaware River, more than twenty years before Fulton built the Clermont.

He was himself something of an inventor; he secured a number of patents for a device to move a vessel by applying steam to a wheel at the side of the hull.

OVER THE MASON AND DIXON LINE 235 He had returned to the West Indies when he read that a prize was to be given for the best plan submitted for the Capitol to be built at Washington. At once he wrote for particulars, and in due time he presented his plans. He was then living in the United States.

The plans were considered the best that had been offered. Jefferson said that they "captivated the eyes and judgment of all," while Washington spoke of their "grandeur, simplicity, and convenience." While these plans were later modified by others, certain features of the Capitol as it appears to-day are to be traced directly to Dr. Thornton's plans.

At the time of the award he was but thirty-one years old, and had already won a place as a physician, an inventor, and a man of science. He was a friend of Benjamin Franklin, and had received the prize offered for the design for the new building of the Library Company of Philadelphia, in which Franklin was especially interested. Later he was awarded a gold medal by the American Philosophical Society for a paper in which he outlined the method of the oral teaching of deaf and dumb children which is still in use in many institutions.

The building planned by Dr. Thornton for Mr. Tayloe, at the northeast corner of New York Avenue and Eighteenth Street, was completed in 1801. At the time it was the best house in Washington. At once, as the Octagon House, it became famous for the lavish hospitality of its owner. The next stirring period in the history of the Octagon House was the later years of the second war with Great Britain. On the night of August 24, 1814, when the British Army entered the city, the French minister, M. Serurier, looked from his window and saw soldiers bearing torches going toward the White House.

Quickly he sent a messenger to General Ross and asked that his residence be spared. The messenger found General Ross in the Blue Room, where he was collecting furniture for a bonfire. Assured that "the king's house" would be respected, he returned to the minister. Dr. Thornton, who was at the time superintendent of the patent office, succeeded in persuading Colonel Jones to spare that building, on the ground that it was a museum of the Arts, and that its destruction would be a loss to all the world.