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Antoinette Polk

Antoinette Van Leer Polk
Antoinette Polk, Baroness de Charette.png
Antoinette Van Leer Polk in 1912
Born Antoinette Wayne Van Leer Polk
October 27, 1847
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Died February 3, 1919
Bouguenais, Loire-Atlantique, France
Residence Avenue Hoche, 8th arrondissement of Paris
Château de la Basse-Mothe
Occupation Equestrian, planter, socialite
Title Baroness
Spouse(s) Athanase-Charles-Marie Charette de la Contrie
Children Antoine de Charette
Parent(s) Andrew Jackson Polk
Rebecca Van Leer
Relatives William Polk (paternal grandfather)
James K. Polk (paternal great-uncle)
Leonidas Polk (paternal uncle)
Vanleer Polk (brother)

Antoinette 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 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 Britanny.

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

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


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