{{short description|American politician}} {{Infobox officeholder | name =Benjamin Homans | caption = | order = | office =Chief Clerk of the US Navy Department<ref name="USNCorpsp17"/> | term_start =March 9, 1813<ref name="USNCorpsp17"/> | term_end =December 1, 1823<ref name="USNCorpsp17"/> | predecessor =Charles W. Goldsborough<ref name="USNCorpsp17"/> | successor =Charles Hay |appointer =James Monroe | office2 =4th Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts | term_start2 =1810 | term_end2 =1812 | predecessor2 = | successor2 =Alden Bradford | birth_date ={{circa|1765}} | birth_place =Massachusetts | death_date =December 1823 | death_place =Georgetown, D.C. | party = | relations = | children =I. Smith Homans<ref name="BankMag101no.3Bp430"/> | alma_mater = | occupation = | profession = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }}
'''Benjamin Homans''' ({{circa|1765}} – December 1823)<ref name=Jefferson/> was an American merchant captain,<ref name="USNCorpspp17-18">{{Citation | last= McKee| first= Christopher| title=A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794-1815|pages = 17–18 | publisher=Naval Institute Press | location = Annapolis, Maryland | date = 1991}}</ref> and politician who served as the 4th Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth and who served from as the Chief Clerk of the Navy Department,<ref name="USNCorpsp17">{{Citation | last= McKee| first= Christopher| title=A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794-1815|page = 17 | publisher=Naval Institute Press | location = Annapolis, Maryland | date = 1991}}</ref><ref name="BankMag101no.3Bp430">{{Citation | editor= Elmer H. Youngman| title=The Bankers Magazine, Volume CIII, no 3| page = 430 | publisher=The Bankers Publishing Co. | location = New York, New York | date = September 1921}}</ref> which was at the time the second highest civilian position in the US Navy.
==Early career== Born in Massachusetts,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ytg9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA83 |title=A Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military and Naval, in the Service of the United States on the 30th of September, 1821 |date=1822 |page=83 |publisher=Davis & Force |location=Washington, D.C. |access-date=2024-11-08}}</ref> Homans had been a merchant captain during the 1780s and 1790s. During the Quasi war with France, because of the Sedition Act and because he was an ardent Jeffersonian, Homans went into exile in Bordeaux.<ref name="USNCorpspp17-18"/>
==War of 1812== Prior to the 1814 British attack, and Burning of Washington during the War of 1812, it was Homans, along with Dolley Madison who removed two wagon loads of the White House and Navy Department's archives; including saving Charles Willson Peale's classic portrait of George Washington.<ref name="BankMag101no.3Bp430"/><ref name=son/> The trunks were transferred onto a canal boat and taken upstream on the Potomac River, where they were stored in a barn near Cabin John, Maryland until the danger had passed.<ref name=son/><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OPIMAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA174 |title=Social Life in the Early Republic |first=Anne Hollingsworth |last=Wharton |date=1903 |page=174 |publisher=J. B. Lippincott Company |location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |access-date=2024-11-08}}</ref>
==Later life== Homans resigned as chief clerk of the Navy Department to become naval storekeeper in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but died in Georgetown<ref name=Jefferson/><ref>{{cite news |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bQI1AAAAIAAJ&q=%22In+Georgetown+D+C+Mr+Benjamin+Homans%22 |title=Obituaries from the ''Family Visitor'' |date=January 1960 |volume=68 |issue=1 |page=72 |magazine=The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography |access-date=2024-11-08}}</ref> in December 1823 before he could leave Washington to take up the new post.<ref name=Jefferson>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T_5ZDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA505 |title=The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series |first=J. Jefferson |last=Looney |date=2005 |volume=2 |page=505 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, New Jersey |isbn=978-0-691-12490-2 |access-date=2024-11-07}}</ref><ref name=son>{{cite news |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7HE9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA23 |title=I. Smith Homans |date=January 1896 |volume=LII |issue=1 |page=23 |magazine=The Bankers' Magazine |access-date=2024-11-07}}</ref>
==Notes== <references/> {{s-start}} {{s-off}} {{succession box | before = William Tudor | title = 4th Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth | years= 1810 – 1812 | after =Alden Bradford}} {{s-gov}} {{succession box | before= Charles W. Goldsborough| title= Chief Clerk of the US Navy Department| years=March 9, 1813 - December 1, 1823 | after= Charles Hay }} {{s-end}}
==External links== {{commons category-inline}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Homans, Benjaman}} Category:Year of birth missing Category:1823 deaths Category:American sea captains Category:Sailors from Massachusetts Category:Merchants from Massachusetts Category:Secretaries of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Category:United States Navy civilians Category:19th-century American businesspeople