William Thornton was an American physician, inventor, painter and architect who designed the United States Capitol.
22 Facts About William Thornton
2.
William Thornton served as the first Architect of the Capitol and first Superintendent of the United States Patent Office.
3.
From an early age William Thornton displayed interest and discernible talent in "the arts of design," to employ an 18th-century term that is particularly useful in assessing his career.
4.
William Thornton was sent to England at age five to be educated.
5.
Frary William Thornton was brought up strictly by his father's relations, Quakers and merchants, in and near the ancient castle town of Lancaster, in northern Lancashire, England.
6.
The earliest of William Thornton's known writings, a journal he began during his apprenticeship, records almost as many entries for drawing and sketching as notes on medical treatments and nostrums.
7.
William Thornton's subjects were most often flora and fauna, but he did portraits, landscapes, historical scenes, and studies of machinery, such as the Franklin stove, and managed to construct a camera obscura.
8.
In 1783, William Thornton went to London to continue his medical studies; characteristically, he found time to attend lectures at the Royal Academy.
9.
William Thornton received his medical degree in 1784 at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
10.
William Thornton then spent time in Paris, before returning to Tortola in 1786.
11.
William Thornton married Anna Maria Brodeau, daughter of a school teacher, in 1790.
12.
In 1789, after briefly practicing medicine and pursuing an interest in steamboats, William Thornton submitted a design to the architectural competition for the Library Company of Philadelphia's new hall.
13.
William Thornton's design won but was somewhat departed from during actual construction.
14.
William Thornton was inspired by the east front of the Louvre, former royal palace later turned art museum, as well as the Pantheon, famed former Roman temple in Roma and later converted to a Christian church, for the center portion of the design.
15.
William Thornton responded with designs on several occasions during his tenure as a commissioner, less so after 1802 when he took on the superintendency of the Patent Office.
16.
Many buildings designed by William Thornton have been added to the National Register of Historic Places including:.
17.
William Thornton designed this new track, one mile in circumference, and named the Washington City Race Course.
18.
When Washington was burned by the British in 1814, William Thornton convinced them not to burn the Patent Office because of its importance to mankind.
19.
William Thornton held the position from June 1,1802, until his death in 1828 in Washington, DC.
20.
When John Hall applied for a patent on a new breech-loading rifle in 1811, William Thornton claimed he had invented it.
21.
In 1787 William Thornton was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
22.
William Thornton died in 1828 and was buried in Congressional Cemetery in eastern Washington, DC.