Area Architects, Circa 1820
During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Dr. William Thornton, Charles Bulfinch, Robert Mills, Benjamin Latrobe and George Hadfield were all designing buildings in the stylistic mode of Huntley. Mason would have been aware of Dr. Thornton's work at Tudor Place in Georgetown, completed about 1815, and at Woodlawn Plantation, near Huntley, completed about 1805. Though Thornton did not die until 1828, he was already an elderly man by 1820, and Tudor Place is the last house he is known to have designed.[62]
Mason would have been aware of Bulfinch's work from his visits to Boston, and Bulfinch arrived in this area in 1817. He immediately busied himself as Architect of the United States Capitol, however.[63] Robert Mills studied in Washington with Latrobe, and later designed buildings here, but he was not in Washington at the time Huntley was built.[64] Latrobe, who died in 1820, was at the height of his career and had ample commissions in the period of time from 1810-20. Hadfield, on the other hand, was available, needed work,[65] and had not yet begun his City Hall. Huntley would have provided not only suitable work, but a challenging site, and a suitable family for whom to work.
George Hadfield
Hadfield, a British subject, was born in Leghorn, Italy, about 1764.[66] His architectural training and collection of architectural prizes were outstanding when he arrived in this country in 1795 to superintend the construction of the United States Capitol. He, and his sister Maria Cosway, a painter, were both friends of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson championed Hadfield here, though his actual recommendation to the Capitol job was from John Trumbull, the American artist. Soon difficulties began with Dr. William Thornton, who had won the competition for design of the Capitol and Hadfield lost his job.
From the time of Hadfield's dismissal from the Capitol in 1798, until 1820, when he was busy with his magnum opus, the City Hall, the records are sketchy and incomplete. He elected to stay in this city rather than go to Philadelphia where the social and political centers were. This decision must have been made deliberately, with the prospect of designing many buildings in this growing metropolis. He was without a steady income during all this period, yet he was able to keep busy on many jobs that enabled him to stay alive.[67]
Hadfield was obviously not always happy with the commissions which came his way, however. On September 22, 1822, he wrote Jefferson:
... am much obliged to you Sir, for the wish you express to inform my Sister that I am in good health and doing well: the former, thanks to Providence, I enjoy; as to the latter, I cannot say much; there is here a stagnation in the building line, owing to the scarcity of money, that is very injurious to both architects and mechanics. I have for the two preceding seasons been occupied in the building of the City Hall....[68]
We know little of what Hadfield accomplished in Washington, though his obituary, in 1826, gives some leads: