Benjamin Williams Crowninshield

Infobox Congressman
name =Benjamin Williams Crowninshield

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imagesize =200px
state =Massachusetts
district =2nd
term_start =March 4, 1823
term_end =March 3, 1831
preceded =Gideon Barstow
succeeded =Rufus Choate
order2 =5th United States Secretary of the Navy
term_start2 =January 16, 1815
term_end2 =September 30, 1818
president2 =James Madison
James Monroe
predecessor2 =William Jones
successor2 =Smith Thompson
birth_date =December 27, 1772
birth_place =Salem, Massachusetts
death_date =February 3, 1851 (aged 78)
death_place =Boston, Massachusetts
nationality =
party =Federalist
National Republican
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residence =
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occupation =Merchant
profession =
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Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (December 27, 1772 – February 3, 1851) served as the United States Secretary of the Navy between 1815 and 1818, during the administrations of Presidents James Madison and James Monroe.

Crowninshield was born in Salem, Massachusetts the son of a sea captain and merchant of the Boston Brahmin Crowninshield family. He worked in the family shipping business, Geo. Crowninshield & Sons, served at sea, and was also active in politics. He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1811 and the state Senate in 1812.

Crowninshield became Secretary of the Navy in January 1815, a position almost held by his brother Jacob Crowninshield ten years earlier, at the end of the War of 1812 and managed the transition to a peacetime force. 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 war with Algiers in 1815.

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 from 1823 to 1831.

On his passing in 1851, Benjamin Williams Crowninshield was interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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

Crowninshield was the great-grandfather of Charles Francis Adams II, a Union Army General during the American Civil War, and the great-great-grandfather of his son Charles Francis Adams III, also a Secretary of the Navy from 1929 to 1933.

References

*PD-NHC