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King Bonaparte and the Jersey Devil: Surprising Facts About a Bonaparte’s Life in America

Khalid Elhassan March 12, 2025 13 min

Bonaparte - Joseph Bonaparte had a run in with the Jersey Devil — Joseph Bonaparte had a run in with the Jersey Devil. Fine Art America

2. A King Bonaparte in New Jersey

A nineteenth century depiction of Joseph Bonaparte’s Point Breeze estate in New Jersey. Philadelphia Inquirer

Joseph Bonaparte bought a large land tract in Upstate New York that contained a 1200 acre lake that he named Lake Diana, and that is now known as Lake Bonaparte. He eventually bought an estate, Point Breeze, in Bordentown, New Jersey. Joseph spent significant time and effort to expand and landscape his New Jersey estate with extensive gardens in a picturesque style. Little did he know, but he was soon to meet a spooky beast in the Garden State. Unfortunately for the former monarch, Point Breeze was destroyed by a fire in 1820. So Joseph converted its sizable stables, which had survived the blaze, into a new mansion. There, he hosted and entertained many of the day’s prominent intellectuals and politicians, including John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and the Marquis de Lafayette.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.