William Thornton (1759–1828), first superintendent of the United States Patent Office, 1802–28, corresponded frequently with TJ on their many shared interests. A native of the British West Indies who received an M.D. from the University of Aberdeen in 1784, he came to the United States in 1786 and became a citizen two years later. Thornton was an early proponent of steamboat development and an accomplished amateur architect. TJ greatly admired his winning design for the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., and later solicited his ideas for the design of the University of Virginia. Thornton was also interested in science and mathematics, farming, animal husbandry, and the arts, and he wrote passionately in support of colonial independence movements (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DNB description begins Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds., Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1901, 22 vols. description ends ; PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 31 vols. description ends , 26:236–7; C. M. Harris and Daniel Preston, eds., Papers of William Thornton [1995– ]; TJ to Thornton, 9 May 1817; Thornton to TJ, 27 May 1817).