The Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (Series 4): Volume 3 4-3, 1811-1820

by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, John C. Van Horne (Editor), Lee W. Formwalt (Editor)

This is the last of three volumes of selected correspondence and miscellaneous papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820), America’s first professional architect and engineer. Covering the final decade of Latrobe’s life, it includes about 375 documents, comprised of letters (mostly from Latrobe), government reports, pamphlets, and newspaper articles.
The years from 1811 to 1820 included both setbacks and triumphs for Latrobe. On the one hand we learn about the ill-fated New Orleans Waterworks project, during which his son Henry died of yellow fever; bitter disputes with Robert Fulton over Latrobe’s service as agent of the Ohio Steam Boat Company; and acrimonious relations with the commissioners who oversaw Latrobe’s rebuilding of the U.S. Capital after the War of 1812. On the other hand, there were such successful projects as the Baltimore Cathedral and St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C., and a gratifying collaboration with Thomas Jefferson on plans for the University of Virginia. Latrobe thrived artistically if not financially in America, and he was instrumental in bringing a sense of grandeur to American architecture. This volume of Latrobe’s papers, like the others, is a tribute to the lasting influence he exerted on the culture of the young republic.

Published for The Maryland Historical Society

520 pages, Hardcover

First published September 10, 1985

About the author

Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe was a British-American neoclassical architect who emigrated to the United States. He was one of the first formally trained, professional architects in the new United States, drawing on influences from his travels in Italy, as well as British and French Neoclassical architects such as Claude Nicolas Ledoux. In his thirties, he emigrated to the new United States and designed the United States Capitol, on "Capitol Hill" in Washington, D.C., as well as the Old Baltimore Cathedral or The Baltimore Basilica, (later renamed the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary). It is the first Cathedral constructed in the United States for any Christian denomination. Latrobe also designed the largest structure in America at the time, the "Merchants' Exchange" in Baltimore. With extensive balconied atriums through the wings and a large central rotunda under a low dome which dominated the city, it was completed in 1820 after five years of work and endured into the early twentieth century. He is the father of Benjamin Henry Latrobe II.