{{Short description|American politician (1772–1851)}} {{for|his grandson|Benjamin W. Crowninshield}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2020}} {{Infobox officeholder |image = BenjaminWilliamsCrowninshield.jpg |state = Massachusetts |district = {{ushr|MA|2|2nd}} |term_start = March 4, 1823 |term_end = March 3, 1831 |predecessor = Gideon Barstow |successor = Rufus Choate |office1 = 5th United States Secretary of the Navy |president1 = James Madison<br/>James Monroe |term_start1 = January 16, 1815 |term_end1 = September 30, 1818 |predecessor1 = William Jones |successor1 = Smith Thompson |office2 = Member of the Massachusetts Senate<ref name= "bioguide">{{citeweb|url=https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/C000946|title=CROWNINSHIELD, Benjamin Williams|publisher=Biographical Directory of the United States Congress|access-date=August 22, 2025}}</ref> |term2 = 1812 |office3 = Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives<ref name= "bioguide"/> |term3 = 1811 |term4 = 1821 |term5 = 1833 |birth_date = {{birth date|1772|12|27}} |birth_place = Salem, Massachusetts, British America |death_date = {{death date and age|1851|2|3|1772|12|27}} |death_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |party = Democratic Republican (Before 1825)<br/>National Republican (1825–1834) |spouse = Mary Boardman |relatives = Crowninshield family }} '''Benjamin Williams Crowninshield''' (December 27, 1772 – February 3, 1851) was an American politician 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.
==Early life== thumb|right|upright|Crowninshield's grave at Mount Auburn Benjamin Williams Crowninshield was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to George Crowninshield (1734–1815) and Mary (née Derby) Crowninshield (1737–1813) who married in 1757.<ref name="Davis1894"/> His father was a sea captain and merchant of the Boston Brahmin Crowninshield family.<ref name="Davis1894">{{cite book|last1=Davis|first1=William Thomas|title=Professional and Industrial History of Suffolk County, Massachusetts|date=1894|publisher=Boston History Company|url=https://archive.org/details/professionalindu01davi_0|page=[https://archive.org/details/professionalindu01davi_0/page/594 594]|access-date=June 29, 2017|language=en}}</ref> His family owned the lands near Mineral Spring, where the first Crowninshield family was cradled in the country.<ref name="Davis1895">{{cite book|last1=Davis|first1=William Thomas|title=Bench and Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts|date=1895|publisher=Boston History Company|url=https://archive.org/details/benchbarofcommon01davi|page=[https://archive.org/details/benchbarofcommon01davi/page/594 594]|access-date=June 29, 2017}}</ref>
His brothers included Congressman Jacob Crowninshield and George Crowninshield Jr., who owned ''Cleopatra's Barge'', the first yacht to cross the Atlantic.<ref name="Crowninshield1913">{{cite book|last1=Crowninshield|first1=George|title=The Story of George Crowninshield's Yacht, Cleopatra's Barge: On a Voyage of Pleasure to the Western Islands and the Mediterranean, 1816-1817|date=1913|publisher=Private Print.|url=https://archive.org/details/storyofgeorgecro1913crow|page=[https://archive.org/details/storyofgeorgecro1913crow/page/19 19]|access-date=June 29, 2017}}</ref> His sister Mary Crowninshield was the wife of Congressman Nathaniel Silsbee.
==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 as a prominent benefactor of the first gerrymander. The redistricting of Essex county into two separate State House districts had led to the term ''gerrymander'',<ref>{{cite news|title=Boston Gazette|date=March 26, 1812}}</ref> with Crowninshield, who had lost the previous year's Senate seat in a combined Essex County,<ref>{{cite news|title=Independent Chronicle|date=May 16, 1811}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news|title=Salem Gazette|date=May 19, 1812}}</ref>
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".<ref>{{cite news|title=Unknown |work=Newburyport Herald|date=April 9, 1813}}</ref> He was elected to the Massachusetts State Senate in 1812.<ref name="BWCbioguide"/>
===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.<ref>{{cite web|title=Benjamin Williams Crowninshield {{!}} Secretary of the Navy for James Monroe|url=http://cabinet-members.insidegov.com/l/412/Benjamin-Williams-Crowninshield|website=cabinet-members.insidegov.com|access-date=June 29, 2017|language=en-us}}{{Dead link|date=October 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> 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.<ref name="BWCbioguide"/>
===United States House of Representatives=== After leaving Navy office in 1818, Crowninshield returned to business and political affairs in Massachusetts, prospering in both.<ref name="loc1818">{{cite web|last1=Crowninshield|first1=Benjamin Williams|last2=Patterson|first2=Daniel Todd|title=Benjamin Williams Crowninshield to Daniel Todd Patterson, March 27, 1818|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/maj007905/|website=loc.gov|publisher=The Library of Congress|access-date=June 29, 2017|language=en}}</ref> In addition to serving two more terms in the Massachusetts House, he was also elected to four terms the United States Congress from 1823 to 1831.<ref name="BWCbioguide">{{cite web|title=Crowninshield, Benjamin Williams - Biographical Information|url=https://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000946|website=bioguide.congress.gov|publisher=Biographical Directory of the United States Congress|access-date=June 29, 2017}}</ref>
==Personal life== On January 1, 1804, Crowninshield was married to Mary Boardman (1778–1840), the daughter of Francis Boardman and Mary (née Hodges) Boardman.<ref name="Davis1894"/> 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)<ref name="danvers">{{cite book |author=Danvers Historical Society |title=Historical collections of the Danvers Historical Society |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zW4WAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA42 |year=1922 |publisher=Danvers Historical Society |page=42}}</ref> * 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. * 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 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.<ref name="Davis1894"/>
===Residence=== In 1810, Crowninshield, with Salem's premier architect Samuel McIntire, built a mansion at 180 Derby Street on the Salem Waterfront.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.brookhousehome.com/history.html|title=History}}</ref> 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 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,<ref>{{cite news |date=August 13, 1948 |title=B. B. Crowninshield, Ship Designer, Dies; Former Head of Firm Planned 7-Masted Schooner |pages=15 |newspaper=The New York Times |url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0711F83458157A93C1A81783D85F4C8485F9&scp=2&sq=bowdoin+crowninshield&st=p |access-date=October 28, 2010 |id={{ProQuest|108375711}}}}</ref> and Francis Boardman Crowninshield (1869–1950), who married heiress Louise Evelina du Pont (1877–1958).<ref>{{cite web |title= Louise du Pont Crowninshield papers |publisher= The Winterthur museum |url= http://findingaid.winterthur.org/html/HTML_Finding_Aids/ARC21.htm |access-date= October 28, 2010 }}</ref>
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''.<ref name="unloads">{{cite magazine |title= Art: Mr. Crowinshield Unloads |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,933282,00.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081214161126/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,933282,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= December 14, 2008 |magazine= Time |date= November 1, 1943 |access-date= October 29, 2010 }}</ref>
Crowninshield was also the great-great-grandfather of Charles Francis Adams III, also Secretary of the Navy from 1929 to 1933.
He was the great-great-great-grandfather of famed ''Washington Post'' newspaper editor Ben Bradlee (1921–2014).
==Namesake== The destroyer USS ''Crowninshield'' (DD-134) was named in his honor.
==See also== *Stephen Decatur *George Crowninshield Jr., brother
==References== ;Notes {{reflist|30em}}
;Sources *{{NHC}} *{{Biographical Directory of Congress|C000946}} Retrieved on 2009-03-04
{{s-start}} {{s-off}} {{s-bef|before=William Jones}} {{s-ttl|title=United States Secretary of the Navy|years=1815–1818}} {{s-aft|after=Smith Thompson}} |- {{s-ppo}} {{s-bef|before=Henry Dearborn}} {{s-ttl|title=Democratic-Republican nominee for Governor of Massachusetts|years=1818, 1819}} {{s-aft|after=William Eustis}} |- {{s-par|us-hs}} {{s-bef|before=Gideon Barstow}} {{s-ttl|title=Member of the U.S. House of Representatives<br>from Massachusetts's 2nd congressional district|years=1823–1831}} {{s-aft|after=Rufus Choate}} |- {{s-bef|before=Timothy Fuller}} {{s-ttl|title=Chair of the House Naval Affairs Committee|years=1823–1825}} {{s-aft|after=Henry R. Storrs}} {{s-end}}
{{Democratic-Republican Party}} {{USRepMA}} {{USSecNavy}} {{US House Armed Services chairs}} {{Madison cabinet}} {{Monroe cabinet}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crowninshield, Benjamin Williams}} Category:1772 births Category:1851 deaths Category:Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery Benjamin Williams Category:Madison administration cabinet members Category:Massachusetts National Republicans Category:Monroe administration cabinet members Category:Politicians from Salem, Massachusetts Category:American people of the Barbary Wars Category:United States secretaries of the navy Category:Massachusetts Federalists Category:Democratic-Republican Party United States representatives from Massachusetts Category:National Republican Party United States representatives Category:People from colonial Massachusetts Category:19th-century United States representatives