Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (December 27, 1772 – February 3, 1851) served as the

United States Secretary of the Navy The Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the United States Department of the Navy, Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense. On Mar ...

between 1815 and 1818, during the administrations of Presidents

James Madison James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...

and

James Monroe James Monroe ( ; April 28, 1758July 4, 1831) was an American Founding Father of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He was the last Founding Father to serve as presiden ...

Early life

Crowninshield was born in Salem in the

Province of Massachusetts Bay The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in New England which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of Eng ...

, the son of George Crowninshield (1734–1815) and Mary (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Derby) Crowninshield (1737–1813) who married in 1757. His father was a sea captain and merchant of the

Boston Brahmin The Boston Brahmins are members of Boston's historic upper class. From the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, they were often associated with a cultivated New England accent, Harvard University, Anglicanism, and traditional Britis ...

Crowninshield family. His family owned the lands near

Mineral Spring Mineral springs are naturally occurring springs that produce hard water, water that contains dissolved minerals. Salts, sulfur compounds, and gases are among the substances that can be dissolved in the spring water during its passage un ...

, where the first Crowninshield family was cradled in the country. His brothers included Congressman Jacob Crowninshield and George Crowninshield Jr., who owned '' Cleopatra's Barge'', the first yacht to cross the Atlantic. His sister Mary Crowninshield was the wife of Congressman

Nathaniel Silsbee Nathaniel Silsbee (January 14, 1773 – July 14, 1850) was a ship master, merchant and American politician from Salem, Massachusetts. Early life Silsbee was born on January 14, 1773 in Salem, Province of Massachusetts Bay, then a part of Br ...

Career

Crowninshield worked in the family shipping business, Geo. Crowninshield & Sons, serving at sea. In 1811, Crowninshield was elected to the

Massachusetts House of Representatives The Massachusetts House of Representatives is the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, the State legislature (United States), state legislature of Massachusetts. It is composed of 160 members elected from 14 counties each divided into ...

as a prominent benefactor of the first

gerrymander Gerrymandering, ( , originally ) defined in the contexts of Representative democracy, representative electoral systems, is the political manipulation of Boundary delimitation, electoral district boundaries to advantage a Political party, pa ...

. The redistricting of Essex county into two separate State House districts had led to the term ''gerrymander'', with Crowninshield, who had lost the previous year's Senate seat in a combined Essex County, being placed in the new district specifically designed to favor Republicans over Federalists. Crowninshield would win his Senate seat by only 8 votes, over 100 votes less than the other Republican candidates. However, Crowninshield lost his seat in the State House the next year, with the '' Newburyport Herald'' printing an editorial cartoon of a dead gerrymander and listing "B.W.C." as a "chief mourner". He was elected to the Massachusetts State Senate in 1812.

Secretary of the Navy

Crowninshield became Secretary of the Navy in January 1815, a position almost held by his brother Jacob Crowninshield ten years earlier, and managed the transition to a peacetime force in the years following the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

. This included implementation of the new

Board of Commissioners A county commission (or a board of county commissioners) is a group of elected officials (county commissioners) collectively charged with administering the county government in some states of the United States. A county usually has three to five ...

administrative system and the building of several

ships of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which involved the two column ...

, the backbone of a much enhanced Navy. He also oversaw strategy and naval policy for the

Second Barbary War The Second Barbary War, also known as the U.S.–Algerian War and the Algerine War, was a brief military conflict between the United States and the North African state of Algiers in 1815. Piracy had been rampant along the North African "Barb ...

in 1815.

United States House of Representatives

After leaving Navy office in 1818, Crowninshield returned to business and political affairs in Massachusetts, prospering in both. In addition to serving two more terms in the Massachusetts House, he was also elected to four terms the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

from 1823 to 1831.

Personal life

On January 1, 1804, Crowninshield was married to Mary Boardman (1778–1840), the daughter of Francis Boardman and Mary (née Hodges) Boardman. Together, they were the parents of: * Elizabeth Boardman Crowninshield (1804–1884), who married William Mountford (1816–1885) * Mary C. Crowninshield (1806–1893), who married Charles Mifflin (1805–1875) * Francis Boardman Crowninshield (1809–1877), who married Sarah Putnam (1810–1880) * George Casper Crowninshield (1812–1857), who married Harriet Sears Crowninshield (1809–1873); they were the parents of Frances "Fanny" Cadwalader Crowninshield (1839–1911), the wife of

John Quincy Adams II John Quincy Adams II (September 22, 1833 – August 14, 1894) was an American politician who represented Quincy in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1866 to 1867, 1868 to 1869, 1871 to 1872, and from 1874 to 1875. Adams served as ...

. * Annie G. Crowninshield (1815–1905), who married Jonathan Mason Warren (1811–1867) * Edward Augustus Crowninshield (1817–1859), who married Caroline Maria Welch (1820–1897). After his death, his widow married Howard Payson Arnold (1831–1910). On his death in Boston 1851, Benjamin Williams Crowninshield was interred in

Mount Auburn Cemetery Mount Auburn Cemetery, located in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, is the first rural or garden cemetery in the United States. It is the burial site of many prominent Boston Brahmins, and is a National Historic Landmark. Dedicated in ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

Residence

In 1810, Crowninshield, with Salem's premier architect Samuel McIntire, built a mansion at 180 Derby Street on the Salem Waterfront. Robert Brookhouse purchased the house and in 1861 deeded it to the Association for the Relief of Aged Women. Located next to the

Salem Maritime National Historic Site The Salem Maritime National Historic Site is a National Historic Site consisting of 12 historic structures, one replica tall-ship, and about 9 acres (36,000 m2) of land along the waterfront of Salem Harbor in Salem, Massachusetts, United Stat ...

, the house is now called the Brookhouse Home for Aged Women.

Descendants

Through his son Francis, he was the grandfather of Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1837–1892), a soldier in the Civil War and merchant, and the great-grandfather of Bowdoin Bradlee Crowninshield (1867–1948), a naval architect who specialized in the design of racing yachts, and Francis Boardman Crowninshield (1869–1950), who married heiress Louise Evelina du Pont (1877–1958). Through his son Edward, Crowninshield was the grandfather of Frederic Crowninshield (1845–1918), the artist and author, and the great-grandfather of Francis Welch Crowninshield (1872–1947), the journalist, critic, and editor of '' Vanity Fair''. Crowninshield was also the great-great-grandfather of

Charles Francis Adams III Charles Francis Adams III (August 2, 1866 – June 10, 1954) was an American lawyer and politician, who served as the 44th United States Secretary of the Navy under President Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933. He was the captain of the '' Resolut ...

, also Secretary of the Navy from 1929 to 1933. He was the great-great-great-grandfather of famed ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' newspaper editor

Ben Bradlee Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (, 1921 – , 2014) was an American journalist who served as managing editor and later as executive editor of ''The Washington Post'', from 1965 to 1991. He became a public figure when the ''Post'' joined ''The ...

(1921–2014).

Namesake

The destroyer USS ''Crowninshield'' (DD-134) was named in his honor.

References

;Notes ;Sources * * Retrieved on 2009-03-04 , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Crowninshield, Benjamin Williams 1772 births 1851 deaths Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery Crowninshield family Madison administration cabinet members Massachusetts National Republicans Monroe administration cabinet members Politicians from Salem, Massachusetts American people of the Barbary Wars United States secretaries of the navy Massachusetts Federalists Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts National Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives People from colonial Massachusetts 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives