Nevada Stoody Hayes

Nevada Stoody Hayes (21 October 1870 – 11 January 1941), sometimes called Nevada of Braganza, was an American socialite who became the wife of Infante Afonso of Braganza, Duke of Porto, whose nephew, Manuel II, was the last king of Portugal. She was the Princess Royal of Portugal – if not, an Infanta of Portugal – but was never accepted as a member of the exiled Portuguese royal family, albeit her marriage to the Infante Afonso under the Portuguese law was legal.

Early life Nevada was born on 21 October 1870 (or in 1885) in Sandyville, Ohio, to Jacob Walter Stoody and Nancy Miranda ( McNeel) Stoody. Her maternal grandparents were James Powell McNeel and Sarah Yell ( Chase) McNeel, niece of Governor Archibald Yell.

Personal life

First marriage Her first husband was inventor Lee Albert Agnew (1867-1924), whom she divorced in 1906. Despite the divorce, Agnew maintained warm feelings toward his former wife, and after he died on 31 January 1924, his will left her his estate's income not earmarked for the support of their son, Lee Albert "David" Agnew, Jr. (1903-1977).

Second marriage The day after her divorce from Agnew, Stoody married William Hayes Chapman (1834-1907), a distant relative of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes and founder of the Chapman & Turner department stores, then in his early seventies. When he bequeathed her more than $8 million at his death a year later, the newspapers dubbed her "the $10 million widow". and descendant of an old Dutch American patroon family from Albany, on November 23, 1909, in Greenwich, Connecticut. In turn, she sued him, and the following year, she obtained an uncontested divorce from Volkenburgh in Putnam, Connecticut, on grounds of desertion in 1914.

Fourth marriage

Her fourth and last husband was the Duke of Porto, Dom Afonso of Braganza (1865–1920), Infante of Portugal, whom she married morganatically, in a civil ceremony on 26 September 1917 in Rome, and again in a second civil ceremony – before a consular officer of the Portuguese Republic Hayes began styling herself "Her Royal Highness, Nevada, the Duchess of Porto", but the Portuguese royal family never recognized her as a member. Afonso tried to have his wife accepted by his family, but was rebuffed.

Three years later, on 21 February 1920, at Naples, Italy, the duke died, without having ever renounced his rights to the throne. Hayes traveled from Italy to Portugal with the body of her late husband and arranged for its installation in the Braganza pantheon in the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora in Lisbon. Although the terms of a morganatic marriage exclude the surviving spouse from inheriting any of the titles or privileges that are the prerogatives of royalty (while the concept of morganatic marriage has never explicitly existed anywhere in Portugal), they do not exclude the survivor from inheriting property. In his will, Dom Afonso left his entire estate to Nevada Stoody Hayes.

After her death, the Foundation of the House of Bragança bought the painting "Battle of Cape St. Vincent", a Portuguese national treasure that had been included in her inheritance, depicting a victory of the fleet of Maria II of Portugal over the fleet of Miguel I of Portugal during the Liberal Wars. It is now located in the Maritime Museum in Lisbon.