Footnotes

1. Clotworthy Stephenson Oath of Fidelity, August 8, 1787, Richmond Hustings Court Order Book 2, 1787–1792, p. 190. William Hodgson probably immigrated through Norfolk, Virginia, where he witnessed the will of Francis Hodgson in 1784 (Norfolk Will Book 2, no. 138, January 15, 1784, pp. 392–93). Francis Hodgson was a ship captain who sailed from the James River to Jamaica (Virginia Gazette, September 15, 1774). William Hodgson’s son, Joseph, took an Oath of Allegiance in Norfolk in 1787 (Elizabeth and W. Bruce Wingo, Naturalizations and Declarations of Intention, Norfolk [Norfolk: Wingo Publishing, 1987], p. 17). The earliest reference to Hodgson in Richmond is in the City Personal Property Tax Lists, 1788, p. 7. The earliest reference to Ingle in Richmond is his advertisement in the August 20, 1788, Virginia Independent Chronicle.

2. For more on the design and construction of the Capitol, see Fiske Kimball, The Capitol of Virginia: A Landmark of American Architecture, ed. Jon Kukla, Martha C. Vick, and Sarah Shields Driggs (Richmond: Virginia State Library and Archives, 1989).

3. Population statistics for the city of Richmond are in Heads of Families, First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790. Records of the State Enumerations of Virginia from 1782 to 1785 (1908; reprint, Bountiful, Utah: Accelarated Indexing Systems, 1978), pp. 111–19.

4. Stephenson Oath, Richmond Hustings Court Order Book 2, August 28, 1787, p. 190. Although Stephenson is not documented in Richmond until 1787, it is possible that he arrived in America about 1785. By 1790, federal law required a one-year residency in the state and a two-year residency in America prior to taking the Oath of Fidelity. If the law codified an earlier tradition, which is likely, Stephenson probably resided in Virginia before 1787 (Wingo, Naturalizations, p. 1). Edmund Randolph to Clotworthy Stephenson, January 1788, Contingent Fund, Auditor of Public Accounts, no. 2, 1787–1792, p. 190, Virginia State Library and Archives, Richmond (hereinafter cited as APA and VSLA). “The Directors of Public Buildings Dt. in Accot. with Hart and Stephenson for Joyners Work done in the Capitol in the Year 1789,” “Measured and Accompted by S. Dobie,” February 16, 1790, Vouchers, APA, 1788–1789, Capitol Square Data, Records, 1784–1931.

5. “Mr. Wm. Hodgsons proposals for the Caps of Columns &. Pilasters [illegible] Council Rooms &. of Work done already. Mar: 30. 1789,” Vouchers, APA, 1788–1789.

1788 The Directors of the Public Buildings to Wm. Hodgson

To 2 Large Trusses @ £ 2.14
10 Smaller Do. @ 1.6
14 Caps for Counl. Cham. @ 2
6 Do. for Sen. Room @ 2.5

To getting out 6 Caps @ 12. . . .
To Do 14 Do @ 16
Painting and putting up 6 Caps a/3
Do 14 @ /2
Inspected S. Dobie

£ 5.8.0
18.0.0
28.0.0
13.10.0
64.18.0
3.12.0
4.4.0
0.0.18
1.1.8
75.0.0

6. For an illustration of the Scamozzi design used on the exterior of the Capitol, see Kimball, Capitol, p. 94.

7. The number of trusses listed on Hodgson’s voucher do not match the actual number of those in the rotunda and entry. The additional twelve trusses may have been listed on a now-lost voucher, or they may have been invoiced as unspecified work by another Capitol artisan if Hodgson was working as a subcontractor.

8. The Directors of Public Buildings to W. Hodgson, November 24, 1789, Vouchers, APA, 1788–1790. “Directors of Public Buildings Dr. in Accot. with Hart and Stephenson,” February 16, 1790, Vouchers, APA, 1788–1789. For more on built-in furniture in Virginia courtrooms, see Carl Lounsbury, “The Structure of Justice, The Courthouses of Colonial Virginia,” Thomas Carter and Bernard Herman, eds., in Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1989), pp. 214–26.

9. “Commonwealth of Virginia Dr. in Account with Hart & Stephenson,” December 15, 1789, and “Commonwealth of Virginia Dr. in Account with C. Worthy Stephenson,” January 4, 1790, Contingent Vouchers, 1789–1791, APA.

10. Stephenson served as Senior Warden of the Richmond Randolph Lodge 19 in 1787 (Charles P. Rady, History of Richmond Randolph Lodge No. 19 [Richmond: Fergusson and Son, 1888], p. 2). The authors thank Mr. Charles Sale and the members of Richmond Randolph Lodge 19 for assisting with this research.

11. Temple-form houses with symmetrical wings are illustrated in several British design books, most notably in Robert Morris’s Select Architecture (London, 1757). Among the best-known American examples are the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island (1748–1750) and the Semple house in Williamsburg, Virginia (ca. 1782).

12. Records concerning the building of Woodlands are in the Cocke Family Papers at the Virginia Historical Society, Richmond. Accounts between merchants William and James Douglas of Petersburg, Virginia, and builder James Crumpley suggest that Crumpley was the undertaker at Woodlands. These accounts refer to Crumpley’s purchase of materials for the hearth, front steps, shelving, closet fittings, and other building supplies (William Douglas to James Crumpley, n.d., Cocke Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond).

13. Although elements of the chimneypiece in Woodlands are similar to details illustrated in Owen Biddle’s Young Carpenter’s Assistant (Philadelphia: Benjamin Johnson, 1805), the woodwork pre-dates this publication. For more on Woodlands, see Mary Jefferson, Old Homes and Buildings of Amelia County, Virginia (Amelia, Va.: privately published, 1964), p. 40; and Helen Scott Townsend Reed, “Chastain,” The Goochland County Historical Society Magazine 9, no. 1 (Spring 1977): 6–14. Hodgson probably executed the carving for Woodlands in his shop in Richmond. During the eighteenth century, carvers often shipped architectural work great distances. For more on this practice, see Luke Beckerdite, “Philadelphia Carving Shops Part III: Hercules Courtenay and His School,” Antiques 128, no. 3 (September 1985): 1044.

14. The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (hereinafter MESDA) first recorded the desks-and-bookcases. Two of them and a related clothespress at Colonial Williamsburg are discussed in Wallace B. Gusler, Furniture of Williamsburg and Eastern Virginia (Richmond: Virginia Museum, 1978), pp 132–37. Two bookcases, long separated from their desk sections and pediments, have frieze designs identical to figures 16, 19, and 21. One was owned originally by Richmond merchant John Wickham.

15. State of Virginia to Dabney Minor, April 1791, Contingent Vouchers, APA. See also Aline H. Zeno, “The Furniture Craftsmen of Richmond, Virginia, 1780–1820,” M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1987, p.177.

16. Indenture between Thomas Clark and Dabney Minor, January 26, 1789, Richmond Hustings Court Book 2, 1787–1792, p. 396. State of Virginia to Dabney Minor, 1790, Contingent Vouchers, APA, no. 139, 1789–1791. The furniture that Minor made for the governor is recorded in State of Virginia to Dabney Minor, December 6, 1792, Records of the Governor’s Mansion, 1791–1826, folder 1791–1821, VSLA. The furniture for the Capitol is recorded in State of Virginia to Dabney Minor, April 24, 1791, Contingent Vouchers, APA, 1789–1791.

17. Will of Branch Tanner, January 9, 1794, Amelia County Will Book 5, p. 122. Amelia County Deed Book 16, 1781, p. 25. The complete provenance of the Tanner piece is published in Gusler, Furniture of Williamsburg, p. 137, n. 6.

18. The Dabney Minor desk-and-bookcase has structural features that are representative of this group. It has a removable cornice with a series of shaped glue blocks held to the top of the bookcase by screws. The waist molding is attached to the bookcase, and the bookcase is attached to the desk with two screws. The backboards are horizontal, and they are butted and glued together. The dustboards are tongue-and-grooved to the drawer blades and dadoed to the case sides. The large case drawers have yellow pine frames and bottoms. The bottom boards have beveled edges that are set into grooves in the fronts and sides. They are held in place along the sides with three rectangular glue blocks, the front one abutting the back of the drawer front, and the back one set in from the back of the drawer. The drawer bottom is nailed to the drawer back with a combination of small cut and wrought nails. Each drawer bottom is composed of several boards that are butt joined and glued. Deep, long kerfs on the inside of the drawer front remain from sawing out the dovetails. A secret compartment hidden beneath the prospect is made of birch. This wood occurs frequently on furniture made in the Richmond area and in the central and southern piedmont areas of Virginia. Laminated blocks support the front feet of the Minor desk-and-bookcase. The rear feet of the Minor example and all four feet of the Tanner piece have single-piece vertical support blocks. Composite feet are discussed in Gusler, Furniture of Williamsburg, pp. 42, 45, 55, 120, 121. Ellen W. Henson was the first to suggest Henry Ingle as a possible maker for these desks-and-bookcases. Her preliminary research on this group is in “Petersburg Cabinetmakers as Related to Three Desks-and-Bookcases attributed to the Petersburg Area,” Summer Institute Paper, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, 1982.

19. William Mcpherson Hornor, Blue Book of Philadelphia Furniture (1935; reprint, Washington, D.C.: Highland House, 1977), pp. 321, 326.

20. Hornor, Blue Book, pp. 317–26.

21. Robert Schwartz, The Stephen Girard Collection, A Selective Catalog (Philadelphia: Girard College, 1980), figs. 14–17.

22. Heads of Families, First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790, Records of the State Enumerations of Virginia from 1782–1785 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1966), p. 80. Between May 20 and October 19, 1791, Jefferson hired Henry and his brother Joseph to make two tables and a writing desk, to put up Venetian blinds, and to carry out a host of miscellaneous repairs. The Ingle shop was adjacent to Jefferson’s residence in Philadelphia (Julian Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 22 vols. to date [Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1965–present], 17: 359, 364, 366, 373).

23. For more on the Cabells and their plantations, see Marlene Heck, “Palladian Architecture and Social Change in Post-Revolutionary Virginia,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1988.

24. Instead of a dustboard between the drawers, the mahogany press from the Tabb family has drawer runners that are dadoed to the case sides, mortise-and-tenoned to the drawer blades, and tapered and nailed at the back (Luke Beckerdite to Wallace B. Gusler, March 3, 1983, Colonial Williamsburg Archives). Two cabinetmakers associated with Henry Ingle possibly made these presses: Elijah Speakman or James McCormick. Speakman was in business with Ingle briefly in 1788 (Virginia Independent Chronicle, August 20, 1788). McCormick, who reportedly worked in “the first shops in Dublin,” immigrated to Baltimore in February 1786 (Maryland Journal & Baltimore Advertiser, February 21, 1786). He moved to Alexandria the following May (Maryland Journal & Baltimore Advertiser, April 7, 1786; and Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser, May 11, 1786) and subsequently relocated to Norfolk in 1787 (Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal, November 21, 1787). McCormick died in Petersburg, Virginia, in June 1791 (Virginia Gazette, and Petersburg Intelligencer, June 23, 1791). An orphan named James McCormack was apprenticed to Joseph Ingle in 1793 (Borough of Alexandria, Hustings Court Order Book, August 28, 1793, p. 146). The orphan may have been James McCormick’s son. The aforementioned references are from MESDA research files and Ronald L. Hurst, “Cabinetmakers and Related Tradesmen in Norfolk, Virginia,” M.A. thesis, College of William and Mary, 1989, pp. 123–25.

25. Dr. William H. Crim of Baltimore, Maryland, owned this piece in 1903 (Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Dr. William H. Crim [Baltimore: O. A. Kirkland Auctioneer, April 22, 1903], lot 748). It is illustrated in Edward Wenham, Collector’s Guide to Furniture Design (New York: Collector’s Press, 1928), fig. 363. The authors thank Luke Beckerdite and Michael Flanigan for these references. For more on the Hunter library bookcase, see Hornor, Blue Book, pl. 410. For more on the secretary-and-bookcase illustrated in figure 29, see MESDA Research File S-6534.

26. Virginia Independent Chronicle and General Advertiser, October 28, 1789. Clement Biddle, The Philadelphia Directory (Philadelphia: James & Johnson, 1791). No Henry Ingle appeared in the Philadelphia directories after 1794 except for an ironmonger by that name (information courtesy, Cinder Stanton). Henry Ingle first advertised in Washington in the October 21, 1801, National Intelligencier; however, he was living in Alexandria by 1799 when he assisted his brother with Washington’s funeral (“The Estate of the late Genl. George Washington . . . to Henry and Joseph Ingle Alexandria July 16, 1800”). The authors thank Mount Vernon curator Christine Meadows for the information on Washington’s funeral.

27. Frances Clary Morse, Furniture of the Olden Time (1903; reprinted and enlarged 1917, New York: MacMillan Co., 1946), p. 143. Morse identified the owner of the bookcase as
J. J. Gilbert of Baltimore. The authors thank Luke Beckerdite for this reference.

28. The authors thank Melissa Haines, site coordinator for the John Marshall house, for documentary information on the Marshall house. The names of Hodgson, Ingle, and Stephenson do not appear in any published or nonpublished account kept by John Marshall. For more on Marshall and his house, see Charles T. Cullen and Herbert A. Johnson, eds., The Papers of John Marshall (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); and J. Everete Fauber, Jr., “Report on Documentary Research John Marshall House, Richmond, Virginia” (typescript), 1970, and “Supplementary Report No. 2” (typescript), 1971, Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Richmond.

29. For more on the Amblers and their mansion, see Samuel Mordecai, Richmond in By-Gone Days (Richmond: George M. West, 1856), pp. 64, 67. Jacquelin Ambler was treasurer of the Commonwealth in 1781. In 1784 he served as a Director of Public Building, and he undoubtedly participated in the planning for the Capitol. He probably knew the principal artisans who worked on the Capitol.

30. “Account of Sales made this day of the estate of William Hodgson, decd.,” February 21, 1807, Richmond Hustings Deed Book 5, 1807–1810, pp. 10–11.

31. Thomas Jefferson to George Andrews, June 2, 1802; Thomas Jefferson to James Oldham, November 20, 1804, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge Collection of Manuscripts 1705–1827 (microfilm), Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston (information courtesy, William Beiswanger, Architectural Historian, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation). See also Richard Cote, “The Architectural Workmen of Thomas Jefferson in Virginia,” Ph. D. dissertation, Boston University, 1986.

32. James Oldham to Thomas Jefferson, March 5, 1805; James Oldman to Thomas Jefferson, June 30, 1805, Thomas Jefferson Papers (microfilm), Library of Congress.

33. Hodgson’s tombstone reads, “Here lies the Body/ of Wm. Hodgson/ d. July 28, 1806/ Aged 58 Yrs.” “Inventory of Estate of William Hodgson.”

34. Edward Ingle, Henry Ingle (1764–1822) His Ancestry and Descendants (1610–1914) (Baltimore: privately published, 1914), pp. 1–4. Joseph Ingle first appears in Alexandria in 1793 (Borough of Alexandria, Hustings Court Order Book, 1791–1796, August 28, 1793, p. 146). “The Estate of the late Genl. George Washington . . . to Henry and Joseph Ingle Alexandria July 16, 1800.”

35. Virginia Moore, “Reminiscences of Washington as Recalled by a Descendant of the Ingle Family,” in Records of the Columbia Historical Society (Washington: Columbia Historical Society), vol. 3, pp. 96–114. Henry first advertised hardware in the December 10, 1802, National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser. Jefferson’s hardware purchases are discussed in Henry Ingle to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1802; John Ingle to Henry Ingle, March 24, 1806; and Henry Ingle to Thomas Jefferson, October 14, 1806 (letters transcribed by L. C. Stanton, research files, Monticello research department). Vestry Minutes of Christ Church, April 19, 1806. Henry Ingle and other vestrymen started a subscription to purchase land for a burial ground in 1807 (information courtesy, Jean Kling, Archivist, Christ Church, Washington, D.C.). The land for the burial ground was deeded to Christ Church on March 25, 1808 (Evening Star [Washington], May 11, 1808, clipping).

36. Edward T. Schultz, History of Freemasonry in Maryland, of All the Rites Introduced into Maryland (Baltimore: J. H. Mediary, 1884), pp. 182–191. Stephenson described himself as a resident of the “City of Washington” in an advertisement in the September 10, 1794, Virginia Gazette. Hoban advertised for employment soon after his arrival in America (Pennsylvania Evening Herald, May 25, 1785). For more on Hoban in Charleston, see Beatrice St. Julien Revenel, Architects of Charleston (Charleston: Carolina Art Association, n.d.), pp. 76–80. Stephenson served as Grand Marshall at the laying of the cornerstone (Kenton Harper, History of the Grand Lodge and of Freemasonry in the District of Columbia [Washington: R. Beresford, 1911], p. 17).

37. A description of the Alexandria Theater appeared in the May 17, 1798, Times and Alexandria Advertiser:

It is a lofty edifice decorated with handsome pediments and deep cornices, the window-frames, trusses and rustic work are of stone. The pedestals on the South front are designed for the Statue of Shakespeare, with the tragic and Comic Muse at the West and East Corners.

The theater stood for many years and was later renamed Liberty Hall. In 1872, it burned in a devastating fire that destroyed much of Cameron Street (William Francis Smith and T. Michael Miller, A Seaport Saga, Portrait of Old Alexandria, Virginia [Norfolk: Duning Co., 1989], p. 54).