1. Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton was a prominent Washington, DC, socialite, diarist, and the wife of architect William Thornton, who designed the first United States Capitol building.
10 Facts About Anna Thornton
1. 2.
Anna Thornton rubbed shoulders with figures such as George Washington and Dolley Madison.
3.
In 1790, at the age of 16, Anna Maria married William Thornton, age 31 years.
4.
Unlike her husband, Anna Thornton Maria was not a Quaker, so William was expelled from the Society of Friends.
5.
William Anna Thornton came from a slaveholding family based on the island of Tortola, and after he died in 1828, though his will seemed to grant freedom to his slaves, his wife and mother-in-law continued to reside with slaves in their Washington, DC home.
6.
Anna Thornton's diaries are kept in the Library of Congress and have been used as a source concerning several historic events.
7.
Anna Thornton recorded the movements of Dolley Madison during the 1814 burning of Washington.
8.
The widow Anna Thornton presented a petition signed by numerous Washington notables to President Jackson, in person, and he acted on it on the symbolic date of July 4th, 1836, releasing Bowen from confinement.
9.
Anna Thornton immediately sold Bowen to John Henry Eaton to work on a flatboat in Florida.
10.
Anna Thornton's diary, which is a rich source of information about social life in Washington, DC, in the late 18th and early-to-mid-19th centuries, is available at the Library of Congress.