Born in
Lebanon,
New Hampshire, Ammi B. Young was the son of Rebecca Burnham and Samuel Young, a builder-designer of churches, courthouses and academy buildings in the Lebanon area. He showed a talent for
mathematics and
drawing, and at the age of 14, began work in his father's trade. In 1823, Young married his first wife, Mary Hough of Lebanon. Like many aspiring builder-designers of the day, he learned the
classical orders from pattern books by
New England architect
Asher Benjamin. Indeed, his design for the
Federal style First Congregational Church, built in Lebanon in 1828, borrows significantly from
Plate K of ''The American Builder's Companion''. Early commissions included dormitories at nearby
Dartmouth College, where his brother, Ira Young, was Professor of Natural Philosophy. But the novice architect also learned from working in the
Boston office of
Alexander Parris, whose characteristic work in
granite influenced Young's subsequent governmental commissions. In 1830, Young opened his own office in
Burlington, Vermont, a trade center growing fast since the 1823 opening of the
Champlain Canal which connected
Lake Champlain with the
Hudson River and
New York City. Here he designed the 1832 St. Paul's Church in the
Gothic Revival style. His first monumental work was the Second Vermont State House, a
cruciform Greek Revival structure built between 1833 and 1838, which combined a Doric
portico modeled on the Temple of
Theseus in
Athens, with a low saucer
dome inspired by the
Pantheon in
Rome. The building's granite blocks were hauled to
Montpelier on the frozen
Winooski River from
quarries at
Barre. But a fire in 1857 destroyed much of the building, except for the portico and some of the walls. With considerable respect for Young's original design, the Vermont State House was rebuilt, although now with wings extended by a
bay, and a
cupola crowning the roof – the plan of
Thomas Silloway, trained in Young's office from 1847 until 1851. The result was considered by architect
Stanford White the finest example of the Greek Revival style in the country. Entering the 1837 competition to design the
Boston Custom House, Young submitted another cruciform scheme combining a Greek Doric portico with a Roman dome. Planned on a large scale at what was then the waterfront, the building reflected the strength and confidence of the young, growing nation. It won, defeating several other entries, including one by Asher Benjamin. Young was appointed supervisor of construction, which took from 1837 until 1847. In 1838, he established a Boston drafting room. The building's 32 columns were each carved from a single piece from
Quincy granite. They measured 5 foot 4 inches in diameter, stood 32 feet high, and weighed 42 tons.
Purists decried the Roman dome on a Greek form. Far less sympathetic to the building's Greek form, however, would be the soaring
Custom House Tower which replaced the dome from 1913 to 1915. Boston's first
skyscraper, it was designed by
Peabody & Stearns to add both office space and presence to a building obscured by later others. ==Supervising Architect of the Treasury==