A group of one hundred and fifty hitherto unknown letters written to AlexanderJ. Davis has recently been acquired by the Avery Architectural Library of Columbia University.1 Included are six by William Parker Elliot (I807-I854).2 As a relatively obscure young man, Elliot-together with Ithiel Town in an ambiguous role-has been credited with the design (I836) of one of America's most important Greek Revival buildings, the old U. S. Patent Office in Washington, a design which A. J. Davis claimed was based on an earlier one of his own. Davis' projects for the building (I832-1834) were the subject of an article in a previous issue of the Journal,3 to which this discussion of the Elliot letters forms a supplementary note. Three of the six letters date from a period of about three-and-ahalf weeks in 1834, while the other three are scattered over the following four years, one each in 1835, 1836, and I838. From their tone and content it is evident that these letters are a broken sequence from a more extensive correspondence, which must have included additional references to the Patent Office designs. The six letters give only the beginning of the story, a teaser in the middle, and a couple of postscripts. They by no means solve all the tantalizing problems of the authorship of the building's design, but they do throw much more light on the situation as well as adding information about Elliot and giving a glimpse of his personality. The letters immediately reveal a much closer relationship between Davis and Elliot than one could dare to infer from the