Samuel Thomson and the Old Custom House

Abstract

THE authorship of the Old Custom House, later the SubTreasury, at the corner of Wall and Nassau streets has been a great mystery to lovers of this magnificent Greeklike temple (fig. 1).1 There were at least four architects who shared, at one time or another, in the making of designs for the Custom House. Three have been positively identified, for the evidence is abundant, but the fourth has for a long time eluded the architectural historian. Yet it was probably this one man who did more to create the general plan of the building as it exists today than any of the others.