Antoinette Van Leer Polk

Antoinette Van Leer Polk, Baroness de Charette (October 27, 1847 – February 3, 1919) was an American Southern belle in the Antebellum South and (by marriage) French aristocrat in the Gilded Age. Born into the planter elite, the great-niece of the 11th President of the United States James K. Polk and American Revolutionary War General "Mad" Anthony Wayne, member of the Van Leer family and an heiress to plantations in Tennessee, she was a "Southern heroine" who saved Confederate States Army personnel during the American Civil War of 1861-1865. After the war, she moved to Europe, where she took to foxhunting in the Roman Campagna of Italy and the English countryside, and later became a Baroness and socialite in Paris and Brittany.

Miniature portrait done by Katherine Arthur Behenna, now kept at the New York Historical Society
Antoinette Van Leer Polk
Van Leer Polk in 1912
BornOctober 27, 1847
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
DiedFebruary 3, 1919(aged 72)
Bouguenais, Loire-Atlantique, France
OccupationEquestrian, planter, socialite
TitleBaroness
Spouse(s)Athanase-Charles-Marie Charette de la Contrie
ChildrenAntoine de Charette
Parent(s)Andrew Jackson Polk
Rebecca Van Leer
RelativesWilliam Polk (paternal grandfather)
James K. Polk (paternal great-uncle)
Leonidas Polk (paternal uncle)
Vanleer Polk (brother)
Anthony Wayne (great-uncle)

Early life and family background

Antoinette Wayne Van Leer Polk was born on October 27, 1847 in Nashville, Tennessee.[1][2] Her father, Colonel Andrew Jackson Polk, was a planter who served in the Confederate States Army.[2][3] Her mother, Rebecca Van Leer, was an heiress to an iron fortune from Cumberland Furnace.[4] Polk grew up at Ashwood Hall, a mansion in Ashwood near Columbia in Maury County, Tennessee with her parents and brother, Vanleer Polk.[3]

Her paternal great-uncle, James K. Polk served as the 11th President of the United States from 1845 to 1849.[5] Bishop Leonidas Polk, who served as a General in the Confederate States Army, was her uncle.[6] She was also a descendant of William Penn, the founder of the state of Pennsylvania, and General Anthony Wayne, a General in the American Revolutionary War and Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army.[7]

American Civil War and fox-hunting

During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, while visiting Mary Polk Branch, the wife of Confederate Colonel Lawrence O'Bryan Branch, she saw Northern forces on their way to Ashwood.[5] Polk got on a horse and rode there before the Northerners to warn the Confederate soldiers of their arrival.[5][6][8] As a result, she is credited as a "Southern heroine" for saving Confederate personnel.[5][8]

After the war, Polk moved to Italy with her mother and her siblings. Her family later became friends with King Humbert I.[9] [10] She took to fox-hunting in the Roman Campagna of Italy,[11] where she won a fox-hunt among forty female riders.[6][12] She also participated in fox hunting in the English countryside.[11]

Personal life

In Italy, Polk met her future husband, General Baron Athanase-Charles-Marie Charette de la Contrie, then a Commander of the Papal Zouaves and grandson of Charles X the last king of France.[1][7][13] They wed in Rome, Italy, on December 1, 1877.[6][13] An aristocrat from the Vendée, he had served as a general in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.[14] They resided at the Avenue Hoche in the 8th arrondissement of Paris and at the Château de la Basse-Mothe in Bouguenais near Nantes.[14] Her wounded father lived with them,[3] until he died in Switzerland.[8] Polk inherited plantations in Tennessee from him.[10]

The couple had a son, Antoine de Charette, who was first engaged to Gladys Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough,[10] and later married Susan Henning of Shelby County, Kentucky,[15][16][17] the daughter of James W. Henning, a stockbroker on the New York Stock Exchange,[18] in a lavish society wedding at the St. Patrick's Cathedral.[19]

Her miniature portrait was done by Katherine Arthur Behenna for New York art collector and socialite Peter Marié.[2] It was acquired by the New York Historical Society in 1905.[2][20]

Death and legacy

She died on February 3, 1919 at her Château de la Basse-Mothe in Brittany, France.[1] Her son Antoine inherited her Southern plantations.[10][19] Her miniature portrait was exhibited alongside others as part of a special exhibition of the Peter Marié Collection showing socialites of the Gilded Age from November 11, 2011 to September 9, 2012 at the New York Historical Society in New York City.[20]

References
  1. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 1922. p. 259.
  2. Baroness de Charette, New York Historical Society
  3. Tennessee: A Guide to the State, US History Publishers: Federal Writers' Project, 1949, p. 389
  4. George W. Jackson, Cumberland Furnace, a Frontier Industrial Village: A Story of the First Ironworks on the Western Highland Rim, Virginia Beach, Virginia: The Donning Company, 1994
  5. "Valorous Acts of American Women in War: A Few Instances of Personal Heroism at the Front". The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. 3 June 1917. p. 2. Retrieved July 10, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. "Antoinette Polk His Bride: Baron di Charette Married Noted Horse-woman of Tennessee". The Washington Post. 25 February 1908. p. 12. Retrieved July 10, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Personal". Chicago Daily Tribune. 7 November 1877. p. 12. Retrieved July 11, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. "Some Southern Heroines: Daring Feats Performed by the Women During the War". The Anderson Intelligencer. 22 July 1896. p. 1. Retrieved July 10, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. "Van Leer Archives".
  10. "Lucky Frenchman Has Won the Love of Gladys Deacon: After the Affairs of a Smitten Prince and a Duke "Turned Down," Comes the Triumph of Young Baron de Charette, And Another International Romance Is Launched". Palestine Daily Herald. 13 April 1908. p. 6. Retrieved July 10, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. "To American Girls Abroad". The Atlanta Constitution. 13 November 1877. p. 1. Retrieved July 10, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "News In Brief". The Pittsburgh Daily Gazette. 20 May 1870. p. 1. Retrieved July 11, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. "A Southern Lady's Choice". The Greensboro Patriot. 21 November 1877. p. 1. Retrieved July 11, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. Chauncey M. Depew, Titled Americans: A list of American ladies who have married foreigners of rank Archived 2015-07-13 at the Wayback Machine, Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2013
  15. Mary Polk Branch (1912). Memoirs of a Southern Woman.
  16. Marquis Related to American Families: French Nobleman Will Wed Kentucky Belle and Heiress: James K. Polk's Niece, The St. John Sun, August 3, 1909
  17. Henning-Charette Family Papers – Van Stockum Collection, 1893-1950, The Filson Historical Society, August 21, 2013
  18. "Another Title Gained By An American Woman: Miss Henning Becomes the Bride of a French Marquis Whose Mother Was An American". The Wichita Beacon. 9 November 1909. p. 1. Retrieved July 10, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. "Crush at Church Wedding of Kentucky Heiress and Marquis de Charette, Necessitating Activity by Many Bluecoats. Auto Owner Endeavors To Present Bill for $58 When Bridegroom Arrives, But Policeman Squelches Him--Nuptials Equal Those of Gladys Vanderbilt". The Cincinnati Enquirer. 12 November 1909. p. 2. Retrieved July 11, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. Emma Mustich, Hot chicks of the Gilded Age?, Salon, November 5, 2011
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