The Green Bag VOL. XVII.
No. 7
BOSTON
JULY, 1905
CHARLES JOSEPH BONAPARTE AS A LAWYER BY WILLIAM REYNOLDS FOR obvious reasons it is always more or less embarrassing to attempt the biography of a person still living, and still more so when the person is one holding high public office and one with whom the writer is often brought into personal rela tions. In such cases the most judicious course is to confine one's sketch, so far as may be found possible, to a recital of facts concerning which the writer has personal knowledge, leaving all deductions and gen eral inferences therefrom to be drawn by the readers. Inasmuch as the selection of myself by the editor of THE GREEN BAG to give some account of Mr. Bonaparte's career as a lawyer has undoubtedly been made because circumstances had put me in a posi tion to know more about it than any one else could now easily learn, I shall endeavor to give my account of him in the manner above stated. Charles Joseph Bonaparte was born at Baltimore, on June 9, 1851, and was edu cated by tutors and in private schools in that city until the year 1869, when he en tered the junior class at Harvard Univer sity. He was graduated number six in the class of 1871, which then had one hundred and fifty-seven members, and he delivered the Latin Salutatory at the Commence ment on June 27, of that year. He after wards entered the Harvard Law School and was one of the three graduates who, out of a class of fifty, received their diplomas cum laude, on June 22, 1874. He was admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Bench of Balti more City on October 20, 1874. When he first began the practice of law in the fall of 1874, he took an office adjoin
ing mine in the Marshall Building. The two rooms had a communicating door be tween them, which generally stood open. Each of us used the other's library as freely as his own, and we had an office boy in common. Although we have moved our offices several times during the past thirty years, we have always had them together. We have never been in partnership, but each is apt to call upon the other when he desires assistance in the trial of any particu lar case, and I have, upon several occasions, represented him in cases which he was un willing to try himself, because he was one of the parties litigant. I mention these facts in order to show how it is that I have been in a better position than perhaps any one else to know all the facts about Mr. Bonaparte's legal career. The first case he ever tried was that of Garvey v. Wayson, which afterwards went to the Court of Appeals and is reported in 42 Md. 178. Dr. Wayson, a very respect able old gentleman of Baltimore City, sus pected one Garvey of having stolen certain papers belonging to him, and thereupon, without taking advice of counsel, swore out a search warrant against Garvey and had the officers go through his house. The missing papers were not found, and there upon Garvey brought his action for malicious prosecution. Dr. Wayson retained to defend him Thomas Donaldson, Esq., one of the leading members of our Bar, who had been acting as Mr. Bonaparte's legal ad viser in the settlement of his father's estate, and he took young Bonaparte, who had just been admitted to the Bar, into the case with him as junior counsel. The case was
