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BARLOW, Joel (1854-1812)
Writer, businessman, and diplomat, Barlow was born in Connecticut and educated at Yale, after which he became a lawyer and writer, and soon became well known as an epic poet and member of becoming a member of the Hartford Wits. In 1788 he moved to France where he wrote, worked as a businessman, and served as a diplomat. In 1805 he returned to the United States and shifted to Washington, where the Madisons and Barlows enjoyed each others' company. In February 1811 JM appointed JB minister to France and he arrived there in September. The following year Barlow pursued Napoleon to Lithuania. The American minister died in December 1812 in Poland, still chasing his mission. His wife, Ruth Barlow, remained a friend of DPM.

BARLOW, Ruth Baldwin (1756-1818)
Wife of Joel Barlow, the couple moved to Washington, DC in 1808 after which the two women were part of the same social circle. RBB corresponded with DPM while her husband was minister to France (1811-1812) and subsequent to his death, as did her sister, Clara Baldwin.

BONAPARTE, Elizabeth Patterson (1784-1879)
A famous beauty who was born into a royally wealthy Baltimore, MD, family, Betsy Patterson married Jerome Bonaparte in 1803. Napolean opposed the marriage and the two were divorced in 1813. She swept through Washington society and later kept an eye out for John Payne while he was in school in Baltimore.

BOYD, George (1779-1846)
Born in Eastern Maryland, by the early 1800s Boyd had moved to Washington and in 1805 married Harriet Johnson, John Quincy Adam's sister-in-law. Merchant and secretary to Secretaries of War, 1811-1814. Agent for the President's Furniture Fund after the destruction of the White House in 1814, in 1819 became Indian Commissioner in Wisconsin.