Louis Pascault, Marquis de Poleon

Jean-Charles-Marie-Louis-Felix Pascault, Marquis de Poléon (c. 1749 – May 31, 1824) was a French-American aristocrat best known today for building Pascault Row in Baltimore.^[1]

Lewis Pascault

Early life

 

The Château de Poléon in Saint-Georges-du-Bois

Pascault was born in France the son of Anne Marie Pascault and Jean-Charles-Alexandre Pascault, Marquis de Poléon (1717–1779), Captain of Laval Infantry, who married in 1747. His brother was Alexandre Pascault, Marquis de Poléon, who married Jeanne-Henriette Cochon-Dupuy.^[a][2]

His maternal grandparents were Marguerite (née Bouat) and Antoine Pascault (1665–1717), a merchant who traded between La Rochelle and Canada. His paternal grandparents were Françoise Potard and Jehan Pascault, Marquis de Poléon. His ancestor Jean Pascault bought the barony, land and seigneury of Poléon in Saint-Georges-du-Bois in 1635 for 40,000 livres from Marguerite, Duchess of Rohan. In 1638, during the reign of Louis XIII, the family tore down the old château and constructed the Château de Poléon.^[3]

Career

Pascault moved to the prosperous French colony of Saint-Domingue, today known as Haiti, to make his fortune.^[1] Following the Haitian Revolution (where two of his children were killed with their nurses), Pascault and his family fled their plantation and escaped from Saint-Domingue, emigrating to America, instead of France, because of the revolution there (his family's estate in France was watched over by the Count de Hanache, the second husband of his late brother's widow).^[3]

Life in America

Around 1790,^[4] he settled in Baltimore, Maryland at Chatsworth, a large country mansion on Saratoga Street between Pine and Green,^[5] that was formerly the estate of Continental Congressman Edward Biddle.^[6] He became a prominent merchant, quickly profiting from the rapidly growing city's booming trade. In 1793, Pascault received approximately 1,500 refugees from Saint-Domingue "when their homes were lost in a slave revolt" and "arranged for their shelter and livelihood and established a library for their use which later became the Library Co. of Baltimore."^[4]

In 1816, Pascault, together with master builder Rezin Wight and merchant William Lorman (and president of the Bank of Baltimore), commissioned William F. Small to design the row of Federal style houses adjacent to his estate known as Pascault Row. The row of eight houses were constructed in 1819 on Lexington Street and, today, are among the earliest examples of the Baltimore rowhouse.^[1] The row became home to some of Balitmore's wealthiest and most prominent families, including his son-in-law, Gen. Columbus O'Donnell, and Bishop William Rollinson Whittingham.^[1]

Reportedly, it was at a dinner party at the Marquis de Poleon's residence that Jérôme Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoleon I and later King of Westphalia, was formally introduced to the close friend of his daughter Henriette, Elizabeth Patterson,^[7] who was herself the daughter of Maryland businessman and founder of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad William Patterson. Bonaparte fell in love with Elizabeth and married her in 1803.^[8]

Personal life

In 1789, Pascualt was married to Mary Magdalene Slye (1763–1830) of St. Charles, Maryland.^[9] Together, they were the parents of at least one son and three daughters, including:^[10][11]

• Louis Charles Pascault, Marquis de Poleon (1790–1867),^[12] a Capt. in the Mexican War who married Ann E. Goldsborough (1787–1855), a daughter of Howes Goldsborough of Pleasant Valley in Easton, Maryland (son of Hon. Robert Goldsborough),^[13][14][15] in 1810.^[16]
• Henriette Pascault (1784–1828), who married French Gen. Jean-Jacques Reubell, who came to Baltimore with Bonaparte.^[17][18]
• Eleanora C. Pascault (1799–1870), who married Gen. Columbus O'Donnell, president of Baltimore's Gas and Light Company, and son of prominent merchant John O'Donnell.^[19][20]
• Josephine Mary Pascault (1801–1885), who married James Gallatin, eldest son of Albert Gallatin, the 4th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury who served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom and France.^[21]

Pascault was an active member of St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church (the predecessor to the Baltimore Cathedral), but was excommunicated by Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal in "a dispute over his daughter's marriage to a non-Catholic."^[4]

The Marquis de Poléon died on May 31, 1824, in Baltimore.^[22] The Château de Poléon remained in the hands of the Pascault family for many years.^[3]

Descendants

Through his daughter Henriette, he was a grandfather of Jean Louis Alfred Reubell (1805–1876) and Jérôme Napoléon Frédéric Reubell (1809–1874), who married Julia Christiana Coster (a daughter of John Gerard Coster). His great-granddaughter, Henrietta Reubell (c. 1849–1924),^[23] was a prominent figure in Paris society who known for hosting a lively salon at her apartment at 42 avenue Gabriel, including James McNeill Whistler, Oscar Wilde, Edith Wharton, and Henry James.^[24]

References

Notes

1. After his brother Alexandre died in 1780, his widow married Louis-Maximilien-Alexandre, Count de Hanache.^[2]

Sources

1. Thomas, David; Donnelly, Theresa. "Pascault Row". explore.baltimoreheritage.org. Explore Baltimore Heritage. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
2. Chesnaye-Desbois, Franc̜ois Alexandre Aubert de La (1783). Dictionnaire de la noblesse, contenant les généalogies, l'histoire & la chronologie des familles nochbles de France, l'explication de leur armes, & l'état des grandes terres du royaume ...: On a joint à ce dictionnaire le tableau généalogique, historique, des maisons souveraines de l'Europe, & une notice des familles étrangères, les plus anciennes, les plus nobles & les plus illustres ... (in French). La veuve Duchesne. p. 62. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
3. "Château de Poléon à Saint-Georges-du-Bois". www.chateau-fort-manoir-chateau.eu (in French). Château de France. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
4. "651-665 W. Lexington Street | Pascault Row Landmark Designation Report" (PDF). chap.baltimorecity.gov. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
5. Alexander, Robert L. (2004). The Architecture of Baltimore: An Illustrated History. JHU Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN 978-0-8018-7806-0. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
6. Graydon, Alexander (1 November 2010). Memoirs of a Life Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania Within the Last Sixty Years. Penn State Press. ISBN 978-0-271-04537-5. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
7. Lewis, Charlene M. Boyer (22 May 2012). Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte: An American Aristocrat in the Early Republic. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-8122-0653-1. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
8. Macartney, Clarence Edward; Dorrance, Gordon (13 January 2019). The Bonapartes in America. Pickle Partners Publishing. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-78912-371-5. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
9. "Notes and Queries" (PDF). Maryland Historical Magazine. Maryland Historical Society: 76. March 1955. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
10. Dungan, Nicholas (28 September 2010). Gallatin: America's Swiss Founding Father. NYU Press. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-8147-2111-7. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
11. Alden, Henry Mills (1882). "The Social Athens of America". Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Harper & Brothers: 22. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
12. "Louis Charles Pascault, 1790 - 1867". npg.si.edu. National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
13. "Miniatures in the Collection of the Society" (PDF). Maryland Historical Magazine. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society. December 1956. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
14. "Pleasant Valley, Easton, Talbot County, Maryland". www.loc.gov. Library of Congress. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
15. "Pleasant Valley Farm site". apps.jefpat.maryland.gov. Collections at the MAC Lab. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
16. Hanson, George A. (June 2009). Old Kent: The Eastern Shore of Maryland. Genealogical Publishing Com. pp. 279–280. ISBN 978-0-8063-4632-8. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
17. Gill, John H. (28 March 2011). With Eagles to Glory: Napoleon and His German Allies in the 1809 Campaign. Frontline Books. pp. 453–454. ISBN 978-1-84832-582-1. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
18. "To James Madison from John Dawson, 29 July 1803". founders.archives.gov. Founders Online, National Archives. Retrieved 28 October 2021. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Secretary of State Series, vol. 5, 16 May–31 October 1803, ed. David B. Mattern, J. C. A. Stagg, Ellen J. Barber, Anne Mandeville Colony, and Bradley J. Daigle. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000, p. 247.]
19. "ADRIAN ISELIN DEAD AT HIS CITY HOME; Banker's Illness Developed Into General Breakdown. NEW ROCHELLE'S BENEFACTOR Rumor That He Was Deathbed Convert to Roman Catholic Church, to Which He Gave Much". The New York Times. 29 March 1905. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
20. Matthews, John (June 2009). Complete American Armoury and Blue Book: Combining 1903, 1907 and 1911-23 Editions. Genealogical Publishing Com. p. 185. ISBN 978-0-8063-4573-4. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
21. Walters, Raymond (15 October 1957). Albert Gallatin: Jeffersonian Financier and Diplomat. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 327, 346. ISBN 978-0-8229-7408-6. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
22. Virkus, Frederick Adams; Marquis, Albert Nelson (1933). The Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy: First Families of America: A Genealogical Encyclopedia of the United States. F.A. Virkus & Company. p. 735. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
23. "Henrietta Reubell ca. 1884–85". www.metmuseum.org. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
24. Fisher, Paul (2012). ""Her Smoking Was the Least of Her Freedoms": Henrietta Reubell, Miss Barrace, and the Queer Milieu of Henry James's Paris". The Henry James Review. 33 (3): 247–254. doi:10.1353/hjr.2012.0027. S2CID 161778059. Retrieved 28 October 2021.

External links

• Pascault Row, 651-665 West Lexington Street, Baltimore, Independent City, MD at the Library of Congress