Patterson-Bonaparte photograph collection

Elizabeth (Betsy) Patterson Bonaparte (1785-1879) was the daughter of Baltimore merchant William Patterson. She met Jerome Bonaparte (1784-1860), brother of French emperor Napoleon I, when he visited the United States in 1803, and the two fell in love and married on Christmas eve of that year. The marriage, opposed by Napoleon and by William Patterson, was destined to be short lived, being anulled by Napoleon'’s decree in 1806, while Jerome remained in Europe, remarried and became the King of Westphalia according to his brother’s wishes.

Betsy and Jerome had one child, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (1805-1870), who lived with his mother and her family. Jerome graduated from Harvard, married Susan May Williams (1812-1881) in 1829, and lived in Baltimore at the corner of Park Avenue and Centre Street. One of their sons was Jerome Napoleon (1830-1893), who graduated from West Point, was a colonel in the French army, and married Caroline Leroy Appleton Edgar, with whom he had two children. Another son was Charles Joseph (1851-1921), Secretary of the Navy and Attorney General of the United States under Theodore Roosevelt, who married Ellen Channing Day (died 1924) in 1875.