Benjamin Williams Crowninshield served as the United States Secretary of the Navy between 1815 and 1818, during the administrations of Presidents James Madison and James Monroe.
Background
Benjamin Williams Crowninshield brother of George and Jacob Crowninshield, was born on December 27, 1772 in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of George and Mary (Derby) Crowninshield.
He was a great-grandson of Johannes Kaspar Richter von Kronenshelt (or Kronenscheldt) who for killing his antagonist in a duel, was compelled to leave the University of Leipzig somewhat hastily.
He established himself as a physician in Boston, married Elizabeth Allen of Lynn, who had been one of his patients, anglicized his name, and became highly respected.
George Crowninshield was a sea-captain and merchant of Salem. Each of his six sons was taken from school early, and, after a short period in the counting-house, was sent to sea as cabin-boy, so that he might learn navigation and the art of leadership without serving before the mast.
This system of training was completely successful: all the brothers except Edward, who died at Guadeloupe at the age of seventeen, commanded ships before they were twenty, and eventually they displaced the Derbys as the leading merchant family of Salem.
Education
He was studying at the University of Leipzig.
Career
Like his brothers, Benjamin was taken from school early and sent to sea as a cabin-boy, commanded a ship before he reached his majority, proceeded from the quarter-deck to the counting-room, and was made a partner in the world-renowned firm of George Crowinshield & Sons.
The double misfortune of the Embargo and the death of his gifted brother Jacob caused the dissolution of George Crowninshield & Sons in 1809. Benjamin then went into business with his father and his brother George, but the father’s death in 1815 and George’s in 1817 terminated the enterprise.
He was also president of the Merchants Bank of Salem, which was organized in 1811 in opposition to Federalist banks.
Meanwhile Benjamin had succeeded Jacob as the politician of the family, sitting as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1811 and of the state Senate in 1812.
The fame of his brother lent him a reputation that his own political prowess did not deserve, and on December 19, 1814, the Senate confirmed his appointment by President Madison as secretary of the navy.
Crowninshield promptly declined and then, a few days later, dispatched a second letter accepting the office. The weakness revealed in this vacillation marked his whole career in Washington. In deference to his wife, he remained in the capital only while Congress was in session.
Consequently, although he discharged the administrative duties of his office with entire competence, he never mastered the complexities of national politics.
President Monroe retained him in office, but Crowninshield was evidently dissatisfied with the part he was playing and resigned on October 1, 1818.
He was a presidential elector on the ticket of Monroe and Tompkins in 1820 and a member of the Massachusetts lower house again in 1821.
In 1823 he returned to Washington as a Democrat in the House of Representatives, was reelected to the Nineteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-first Congresses but was defeated in 1830 by Rufus Choate.
While in Congress he was a friend and supporter of John Quincy Adams, and an ironical, somewhat bewildered, observer of national affairs.
In 1833 he was for the third time a member of the Massachusetts House, but his political career was closed.
He moved in 1832 to Boston and lived there in retirement for the rest of his life. His death came suddenly, while he was ascending the steps of a business house.
He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Achievements
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 at the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, the house is now called the The Brookhouse Home for Aged Women and provides quality support to senior women.
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.
This included implementation of the new Board of Commissioners administrative system and the building of several ships of the line, the backbone of a much enhanced Navy.
He also oversaw strategy and naval policy for the Second Barbary War in 1815.
He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
Connections
On January 1, 1804, he was married to Mary Boardman, daughter of Francis and Mary (Hodges) Boardman of Salem, and sister-in-law of Nathaniel Bowditch and Zachariah Silsbee.
