Charles Joseph Bonaparte

Charles Joseph Bonaparte (June 9, 1851–June 28, 1921) was a grandson of Jérôme Bonaparte (the youngest brother of the French emperor Napoleon I), and a member of the United States Cabinet.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he was the son of Jérôme Napoleon Bonaparte (1805-1870) and Susan May Williams (1812-1881), from whom the American line of the Bonaparte family descended.

After graduating from Harvard University and Harvard Law School, where he would later be appointed a university overseer, he practiced law in Baltimore and became prominent in municipal and national reform movements.

On September 1, 1875, Bonaparte married Ellen Channing Day (1852-1924). The daughter of attorney Thomas Mills Day and Ellen Cornelia (Jones) Pomeroy. They had no children.

He was a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners from 1902 to 1904, chairman of the National Civil Service Reform League in 1904 and appointed a trustee of The Catholic University of America.

In 1905, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Bonaparte to his cabinet as United States Secretary of the Navy. From 1906 until the end of President Roosevelt's administration he served as United States Attorney General. He was active in suits brought against the trusts and was largely responsible for breaking up the tobacco monopoly. In 1908, Joseph founded the Bureau of Investigation (BOI).

He was one of the founders, and for a time the president, of the National Municipal League.

Bonaparte died in Bella Vista, Baltimore County, Maryland and is interred at Baltimore's Loudon Park Cemetery.

Literature

  • Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Charles Joseph Bonaparte: His Life and Public Services (1922)
  • Eric F. Goldman, Charles J. Bonaparte: Patrician Reformer, His Earlier Career (1943)
Preceded by:
Paul Morton 		United States Secretary of the Navy
1905–1906 		Succeeded by:
Victor H. Metcalf
Preceded by:
William H. Moody 		United States Attorney General
1906–1909 		Succeeded by:
George W. Wickersham
United States Attorneys General
Randolph • Bradford • Lee • Lincoln • R Smith • Breckinridge • Rodney • Pinkney • Rush • Wirt • Berrien • Taney • Butler • Grundy • Gilpin • Crittenden • Legaré • Nelson • Mason • Clifford • Toucey • Johnson • Crittenden • Cushing • Black • Stanton • Bates • Speed • Stanberry • Evarts • Hoar • Akerman • Williams • Pierrepont • Taft • Devens • MacVeagh • Brewster • Garland • Miller • Olney • Harmon • McKenna • Griggs • Knox • Moody • Bonaparte • Wickersham • McReynolds • Gregory • Palmer • Welch • Daugherty • Stone • Sargent • W Mitchell • Cummings • Murphy • Jackson • Biddle • T Clark • McGrath • McGranery • Brownell • Rogers • Kennedy • Katzenbach • R Clark • J Mitchell • Kleindienst • Richardson • Saxbe • Levi • Bell • Civiletti • W Smith • Meese • Thornburgh • Barr • Reno • Ashcroft • Gonzales
This box: view • talk • edit

   This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Charles Joseph Bonaparte".