Charles Bonaparte ( Attorney General ) Charles Joseph Bonaparte ( June 9 , 1851June 28 , 1921 ) was an American lawyer and political activist for progressive and liberal causes . Originally from Baltimore , Maryland . he served in the cabinet of the 26th U . S . President , Theodore Roosevelt . Bonaparte was the U . S . Secretary of the Navy and later the U . S . Attorney General . During his tenure as the attorney general , he created the which later grew and expanded by the 1920s under the director J . Edgar Hoover , ( 1895 - 1972 ) , as the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) , of which it was renamed as such in 1935 . He was of Corsican ancestry , and a great - nephew of Emperor Napoleon I of the French . Bonaparte was one of the founders , and for a time the president , of the National Municipal League . He was also a long time activist for the rights of the Negro ( " Colored " ) people of his city and quite progressive and liberal . Early life and education . Bonaparte was born in Baltimore , Maryland on June 9 , 1851 , the son of Jerome ( " Bo " ) Napoleon Bonaparte , ( 1805 – 1870 ) and Susan May Williams ( 1812 – 1881 ) , from whom the American line of the Bonaparte family descended , and a grandson of Jérôme Bonaparte , the youngest brother of French Emperor Napoleon I and King of Westphalia , 1807 - 1813 . However , the American Bonapartes were not considered part of the dynasty and never used any titles . He graduated from Harvard College in Harvard University and the Harvard Law School in Cambridge , Massachusetts , across from Boston , where he later served as a university overseer . He practiced law in Baltimore and became prominent in municipal and national reform movements . Career . In 1899 , Bonaparte was the keynote speaker for the first graduating class of the Roman Catholic women ' s institution run by the Order of the School Sisters of Notre Dame , the College of Notre Dame of Maryland , ( today renamed the Notre Dame of Maryland University ) . He spoke on " The Significance of the Bachelor ' s Degree " : Today , and here for the first time in America , a Catholic college for the education of young ladies bestows the bachelor ' s degree . . . The Style of Scholarship . . . which benefits the recipient of the bachelor ' s degree has two distinctive and essential marks . It implies in the first place a broad , generous sympathy with every form of honest , rational and disinterested study or research . A Scholar who is also , and first of all , a gentleman may be . . . specially interested is some particular field of knowledge , but he is indifferent to none . He knows how to value every successful effort to master truth ; how to look beyond the little things of science . . . to the great things - God ' s handiwork as seen in nature , God ' s mind as shadowed in the workings of the minds of men . Young ladies , of this degree has such meaning for your brothers , what meaning has it for you . Bonaparte lived in a townhouse in the north Baltimore neighborhood of Mount Vernon - Belvedere and had a country estate in suburban Baltimore County , Maryland , which surrounds the city on the west , north and east . His home , Bella Vista , was designed by the architects James Bosley Noel Wyatt , ( 1847 - XXXX ) and William G . Nolting , ( 1866 - 1940 ) , in the prominent local architectural partnership firm of Wyatt & Nolting in 1896 . It lies east of the Harford Road ( Maryland Route 147 ) in an area called Glen Arm . The house was not electrified since Bonaparte refused to have electricity or telegraph lines installed due to a dislike of technology , verified by his use of horse - drawn coach until his death in the early 20 ' s . Politics . A founder of the Reform League of Baltimore , organized in 1885 , which eventually led to a certain amount of efficient municipal government with a clean sweep of an election by 1895 in which long - time minority progressive liberal Republicans ousted the long - time Democratic machine politicians in heavily Democratic wards of Baltimore City and ruled with a clean hand for a brief time . 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 northeast Washington , D . C . . In 1905 , President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Bonaparte Secretary of the Navy . In 1906 Bonaparte moved to the office of Attorney General , which he held until the end of Roosevelt ' s term . He was active in suits brought against the trusts and was largely responsible for breaking up the tobacco monopoly . In 1908 , Bonaparte established a ( BOI ) within the Department of Justice which had been earlier established in 1870 under the direction of the Attorney General himself . By the 1920s , under its long - time director , J . Edgar Hoover , the Bureau had again been cleaned up and streamlined and in 1935 was renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) . Death . Bonaparte died in Bella Vista , and is interred at southwest Baltimore ' s landmark Loudon Park Cemetery , near Irvington , off Frederick Road ( eastern extension old National Pike - Maryland Route 144 ) and north of Wilkens Avenue . He died of " Saint Vitus Dance " ( today called chorea ) . A nearby street in Baltimore County bears the name of Bonaparte Avenue After Bonaparte ' s death the house was later owned by bootleggers Peter and Michael Kelly . After they left , it was destroyed in a fire caused by faulty wiring on January 20 , 1933 . The site was replaced by a poured concrete mansion , but a large carriage house dating back to 1896 is still on the estate . Personal life . On September 1 , 1875 , Bonaparte married the former Ellen Channing Day ( 1852 – 1924 ) , daughter of attorney Thomas Mills Day and Anna Jones Dunn . They had no children .