Benjamin Williams Crowninshield

Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (December 27, 1772 – February 3, 1851) was an American politician and merchant who served as a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts and as the United States Secretary of the Navy between 1815 and 1818, during the administrations of Presidents James Madison and James Monroe. A member of the prominent Crowninshield family of Salem, he was active in maritime commerce before entering state and national politics, and later became a notable figure in the early development of the United States Navy in the post–War of 1812 era.

Crowninshield was born in Salem in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, the son of George Crowninshield (1734–1815) and Mary (née Derby) Crowninshield (1737–1813), who had married in 1757. His father was a sea captain and merchant and a leading member of the Boston Brahmin Crowninshield family, which owned lands near Mineral Spring where the first branch of the family was established in the country. He grew up in a milieu shaped by New England maritime trade and public service. His siblings included Congressman Jacob Crowninshield and George Crowninshield Jr., the owner of Cleopatra’s Barge, the first yacht to cross the Atlantic, and his sister Mary Crowninshield married Congressman Nathaniel Silsbee, further entwining the family with the region’s political and commercial elite.

Educated in Salem and trained for commerce rather than a formal profession, Crowninshield entered the family shipping firm, Geo. Crowninshield & Sons, and served at sea in the Atlantic trade. Through this work he gained practical experience in navigation, ship management, and international commerce at a time when New England’s mercantile interests were central to the young republic’s economy. His success in business and his family’s standing in Salem society helped lay the groundwork for his later political career, giving him both the financial independence and the local prominence necessary to seek public office.

Crowninshield’s political career began in Massachusetts state politics. In 1811 he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives as a Republican and became associated with the first widely noted instance of partisan redistricting, later known as the “gerrymander.” The redistricting of Essex County into two separate State House districts was designed to favor Republicans over Federalists, and Crowninshield, who had lost a previous year’s Senate race in a combined Essex County, was placed in a new district drawn to benefit his party. He won his Senate seat by only eight votes, more than one hundred votes fewer than other Republican candidates, and his election became part of the broader controversy over Governor Elbridge Gerry’s redistricting plan. The following year he lost his seat in the State House; the Newburyport Herald published an editorial cartoon of a dead gerrymander and listed “B.W.C.” as a “chief mourner,” underscoring his association with the episode. He was subsequently elected to the Massachusetts State Senate in 1812, continuing his involvement in state government during the politically contentious years surrounding the War of 1812.

In January 1815, Crowninshield was appointed United States Secretary of the Navy, a position his brother Jacob Crowninshield had been selected for but did not ultimately assume a decade earlier. Serving under President James Madison and continuing under President James Monroe, he managed the transition of the Navy from a wartime to a peacetime footing in the years immediately following the War of 1812. His tenure saw the implementation of the new Board of Commissioners administrative system, which reorganized naval administration, and the construction of several ships of the line that formed the backbone of a significantly strengthened Navy. Crowninshield also oversaw naval strategy and policy for the Second Barbary War in 1815, supporting operations that reasserted American maritime rights in the Mediterranean and curtailed piracy against U.S. shipping. He remained in office until 1818, helping to define the early institutional character and long-term development of the United States Navy.

After leaving the Navy Department in 1818, Crowninshield returned to business and political affairs in Massachusetts, prospering in both. He resumed his involvement in the family’s commercial interests and remained active in state politics, serving two additional terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He then advanced to national office, being elected as a member of the Unknown Party representing Massachusetts to the United States House of Representatives. In Congress he served four terms, from 1823 to 1831, during a significant period in American history marked by the presidencies of James Monroe and John Quincy Adams and the emergence of Andrew Jackson as a national figure. During these years he contributed to the legislative process, participated in the democratic governance of the expanding republic, and represented the interests of his Massachusetts constituents in debates over economic policy, internal improvements, and the evolving role of the federal government.

Crowninshield also played a visible role in the civic and architectural life of Salem. In 1810 he commissioned Salem’s leading architect, Samuel McIntire, to design and build a mansion at 180 Derby Street on the Salem waterfront. This residence reflected both his wealth derived from maritime commerce and the refined Federal-era architectural style of the period. The house was later purchased by Robert Brookhouse, who in 1861 deeded it to the Association for the Relief of Aged Women. Situated adjacent to what is now the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, the building is known today as the Brookhouse Home for Aged Women, a lasting physical reminder of Crowninshield’s presence in Salem.

On January 1, 1804, Crowninshield married Mary Boardman (1778–1840), the daughter of Francis Boardman and Mary (née Hodges) Boardman. They were the parents of several children who continued the family’s prominence in American public, commercial, and cultural life. Their daughter Elizabeth Boardman Crowninshield (1804–1884) married William Mountford (1816–1885); Mary C. Crowninshield (1806–1893) married Charles Mifflin (1805–1875); Francis Boardman Crowninshield (1809–1877) married Sarah Putnam (1810–1880); George Casper Crowninshield (1812–1857) married Harriet Sears Crowninshield (1809–1873), and they were the parents of Frances “Fanny” Cadwalader Crowninshield (1839–1911), who married John Quincy Adams II; Annie G. Crowninshield (1815–1905) married Jonathan Mason Warren (1811–1867); and Edward Augustus Crowninshield (1817–1859) married Caroline Maria Welch (1820–1897), whose second husband after Edward’s death was Howard Payson Arnold (1831–1910). Through these descendants, the Crowninshield family remained intertwined with other influential New England and national families.

In his later years, Crowninshield lived principally in Massachusetts, remaining a respected elder statesman of the state’s mercantile and political community. Through his son Francis, he was the grandfather of Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1837–1892), a Civil War soldier and merchant, and the great-grandfather of Bowdoin Bradlee Crowninshield (1867–1948), a naval architect specializing in racing yachts, and of Francis Boardman Crowninshield (1869–1950), who married heiress Louise Evelina du Pont (1877–1958). Through his son Edward, he was the grandfather of the artist and author Frederic Crowninshield (1845–1918), and the great-grandfather of Francis Welch Crowninshield (1872–1947), a journalist, critic, and editor of Vanity Fair. He was also the great-great-grandfather of Charles Francis Adams III, who served as Secretary of the Navy from 1929 to 1933, and the great-great-great-grandfather of Benjamin C. “Ben” Bradlee (1921–2014), the influential executive editor of The Washington Post. Benjamin Williams Crowninshield died in Boston on February 3, 1851, and was interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His legacy in naval affairs was later commemorated by the naming of the destroyer USS Crowninshield (DD-134) in his honor.