Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte was born on July 7, 1805 in Camberwell, Surrey, England, son of Jerome Bonaparte and Elizabeth Patterson, and Emperor Napoleon I's nephew. Although born in England, he lived in the United States with his mother, whose marriage had been annulled at the order of the French emperor. With the annulment came the rescinding of Patterson's son right to carry the Bonaparte name, a ruling that was reversed by Napoleon III.

He married Susan May Williams (1812-1881), and it is from them that the American line of the Bonaparte family descended. They had two sons: Charles Joseph Bonaparte and Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte II.

Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte died on June 17, 1870 in Baltimore, Maryland and is buried in the Loudon Park Cemetery, Baltimore.