Susan May Williams Bonaparte (April 2, 1812 – September 15, 1881) was an American heiress and the wife of Jérôme Napoléon Bonaparte, a French-American nephew of Napoléon I, Emperor of France and a Baltimore lawyer and landowner. Susan was the daughter of Benjamin Williams, a native of

Roxbury, Massachusetts Roxbury () is a neighborhood within the City of Boston, Massachusetts. Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and one of 23 official neighborhoods of Boston used by the city for neighborhood services coordination. The city states that Roxbury se ...

, who became a prominent

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

merchant; and his wife, Sarah Copeland, widow of Nathaniel Morton. In 1827, Williams helped found the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the first railroad company in the United States, in response to the opening of the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing ...

and its competition with the port of Baltimore. In November 1829, Susan married Jérôme Napoleon Bonaparte-Patterson, the son of Elizabeth Patterson, an American socialite, and

Jérôme Bonaparte Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte (born Girolamo Buonaparte; 15 November 1784 – 24 June 1860) was the youngest brother of Napoleon I and reigned as Jerome Napoleon I (formally Hieronymus Napoleon in German), King of Westphalia, between 1807 and 18 ...

; their marriage had been annulled after three years on the orders of Napoléon himself so that his brother could make a more advantageous marriage. Jérôme Napoleon-Patterson, who had graduated from Harvard but found he preferred raising horses to working in law, soon became interested in Susan and the $200,000 fortune she had inherited. According to his uncle Henry Patterson, the match was purely mercenary on Bonaparte's part. The groom's maternal grandfather, William Patterson, one of the wealthiest men in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

, made the financial arrangements for the marriage and gave the couple Montrose Mansion as a wedding gift. Their wedding was conducted in secret behind the back of his mother, who was away in Europe at the time and hoping for an aristocratic match for her son; Susan and Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte never successfully reconciled after this rift. Their sons were the soldier

Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte II Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte II (November 5, 1830 – September 3, 1893) was a French-American military officer who served in the United States Army and later in the French Army. He was a member of the American branch of the Bonaparte family. Ea ...

(1830-1893) and the lawyer and government official

Charles Joseph Bonaparte Charles Joseph Bonaparte (; June 9, 1851June 28, 1921) was an American lawyer and political activist for progressive and liberal causes. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, he served in the cabinet of the 26th U.S. president, Theodore Roosevel ...

(1851-1921). General Lew Wallace described Susan as:

...staunchly Union, a tall, handsome, black-eyed, Franco-American woman, decidedly masculine in mind, but true to her woman's place

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Susan May 1812 births 1881 deaths 19th-century American people Susan May Williams People from Baltimore Susan May Williams Patterson family of Maryland