Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte


Jérôme Napoléon "Bo" Bonaparte was an American farmer, chairman of the Maryland Agricultural Society, and first president of the Maryland Club. He was the son of Elizabeth Patterson and Jérôme Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I.

Biography

Bonaparte was born in 95 Camberwell Grove, Camberwell, London, but lived in the United States with his wealthy American mother, Elizabeth. His mother's marriage had been annulled by order of Jérôme's uncle, Napoleon I. The annulment caused the rescission of his right to carry the Bonaparte name, although the ruling was later reversed by his cousin, Napoleon III.
He graduated from Mount St. Mary's College in 1817 and later received a law degree from Harvard, but did not end up practicing law. He was a founding member of the Maryland Club, serving as its first president.
In November 1829, Jérôme Napoleon married Susan May Williams, an heiress from Baltimore, and it is from them that the American line of the Bonaparte family descended. They had two sons: Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte II, who served as an officer in the armies of both the United States and France, and Charles Joseph Bonaparte, who became the United States Attorney General and Secretary of the Navy, and also created the Bureau of Investigation, which was later rechristened the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Jérôme Napoleon had been refused marriage to his cousin Charlotte, daughter of Joseph Bonaparte. With a growing disdain for Europe and lack of professional ambition, he opted to marry an American heiress, Susan Williams, for the $200,000 fortune she brought to the marriage. In an attempt to match the railroad heiress's dowry, the groom's maternal grandfather, William Patterson — one of the wealthiest men in Maryland — gave the couple Montrose Mansion as a wedding gift. Bonaparte died from throat cancer in Baltimore, Maryland, at age 64 and is buried at Loudon Park Cemetery.

Constitutional issues

It is speculated that Jérôme's prospective title and his position in the line of inheritance to Napoleon as Emperor, as well as the title of duchess for his mother Elizabeth Patterson as part of the recompense offered by Napoleon for her divorce to his brother, is a reason the 11th Congress of the United States in 1810 proposed the Titles of Nobility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, fearing that Napoleon would attempt to establish a western kingdom in America. This proposed amendment would have stripped an American of his citizenship if he accepted a title of nobility from a foreign nation. The amendment was not approved; at the time, it lacked the approval of only two state legislatures.