January 8, 1853, the thirty-eighth anniversary of Jackson's victory at New Orleans. The only equestrian statue erected previously in what is now the United States was of George III. It was placed in the Bowling Green at the foot of Broadway, New York, on August 21, 1770, and was pulled down on July 9, 1776, immediately after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. The material of which the statue was made, lead, thickly gilded, was sent to Litchfield, Connecticut, and was there made by the ladies of the town into bullets to be used by our troops against the friends of George III. I have been interested enough in the history of this statue to make some investigation concerning it, and have found in "Sketches and Chronicles of the Town of Litchfield, Connecticut" by Payne Kenyon Kilbourne, published in 1859, an account showing that 42,088 bullets were made out of the statue of George III.

The second equestrian statue to be erected in the National Capital was one of Washington himself. It was unveiled February 22, 1860, and one of the most active members of this Society was born on that day and on that account was named for the Father of his Country.

A friend who was making her first visit to Washington some months ago told me that she had long desired to see her Nation's Capital on account of a sense of duty but that she would come again as soon as possible because of the city's beauty. As in this friend's case so it is with every one, not only the city's history that attracts but its beauty that fascinates. These things draw us back to it. The farther we go or the longer we stay away the heavier seems the weight pulling us back. The lines of Goldsmith come to me:

"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,

Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po;
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies,
A weary waste expanding to the skies;
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain."

DR. WILLIAM THORNTON AND HIS ESSAY ON "TEACHING THE DEAF, OR SURD, AND CONSEQUENTLY DUMB, TO SPEAK,” 1793.

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF WILLIAM THORNTON.1

BY MARIAN H. GRAHAM BELL.

(Read before the Society by Alexander Graham Bell, LL.D., December 9, 1916.)

INTRODUCTION.

William Thornton, the author of the first American publication upon the teaching of the deaf, was born in the West Indies in 1761. His parents were English, and he himself was sent to England to be educated. He studied medicine in Edinburgh, under Dr. Brown, graduating in 1784, and then continued his studies in Paris. He also travelled extensively in Europe, but while still a young man he came to this country, and the year 1793 found him married to an American and settled in Washington, D. C. He was already a doctor of medicine, an architect, a painter, a writer, an inventor, and a philanthropist. An old notice says of him that "He was a scholar and a gentleman, full of talent and eccentricity," and quaintly adds that "his company was a complete antidote to dullness."

As an inventor he was much interested in all machines worked by steam, and he experimented with Fitch upon

1 The writer is chiefly indebted for information to an article on Dr. Thornton by Glenn Brown, in the Architectural Record of Sept., 1896. See also Annals (I, 190) and Cyclopedia of Political Science, Political Economy and United States History, edited by John J. Lalor, 1884 (Vol. III, p. 126).-M. H. G. B.

steamboats before Fulton began his work. Thornton also contrived a means of converting sawdust into planks, an invention which has recently been revived.

At the end of the last century, such men as Franklin and Noah Webster were interested in the project of a phonetic reformation of the English language, and in 1793 Thornton published his views upon the subject in a prize essay entitled "Cadmus." The Appendix to this is upon "The Mode of Teaching the Deaf, or Surd, and consequently Dumb, to speak," and is, as before mentioned, the first publication of its kind in America.2

In this same year, 1793, Thornton's plans for the Capitol, then about to be built in Washington, were accepted by the President, and work on it commenced at once. Thornton received, for his designs, five hundred dollars and a lot in the city. In 1814, the British burned the still unfinished building. The new Capitol afterwards erected was on a far grander scale than the old one had been, although from drawings still extant, it seems probable that the central portion of the present Capitol was built somewhat on the lines of Thornton's plan.

In 1791, the President had appointed Commissioners to lay out the city of Washington, and to attend to the construction of government buildings. In 1794, Thornton was made one of these officers. From the records it appears that a decided improvement was noticed in all the business of the Commissioners after Thornton's appointment. It also appears that Thornton always insisted very strongly that grandeur was necessary in the capital city of the United States, and it is greatly due to his efforts that Washington is the beautiful city we now know.

2 See proceeding of American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1793, Vol. III, pp. 262-319.-M. H. G. B.

In the early days of the Republic, all patents had to be examined by the Secretary of State and two other Cabinet officers. A little later the Secretary of State was in sole charge, but in 1803,3 it was necessary to have a special Superintendent of Patents. Thornton was the first to occupy this position, and to him is due, in a great measure, the present patent system of the United States. The value he set upon the department under his charge is shown in the account of what happened during the invasion of Washington by the British in 1814.

Thornton, seeing that a British gun was being aimed at the Patent Office, rode up to the enemy's ranks, and placing himself in front of the gun, called out, “Are you Englishmen, or Goths and Vandals? This is the Patent Office, the depository of the inventive genius of America, in which the whole civilized world is concerned. Would you destroy it? If so, fire away, and let the charge pass through my body!" By this effort, the records and models of the Patent Office were saved. Thornton carried them off to his country home where he kept them until peace was firmly established.

Thornton died in 1828, leaving no descendants. He was buried in the Congressional Cemetery with the honors paid to Senators and Representatives, his body being followed to the grave by the President of the United States and members of his Cabinet.

3 Mr. Brown gives this date as 1802.-M. H. G. B.