| Crowninshield family Richter von Kronenschieldt | |
|---|---|
 Canting arms of Dr. Johann Kasper Richter von Kronenscheldt | |
| Place of origin | Denmark |
| Founder | Johann Caspar Richter |
The Crowninshield family is an American family that has been prominent in seafaring, political and military leadership, and the literary world. The founder of the American family emigrated from what is now Germany in the 17th century. The family is one of several known collectively as Boston Brahmins.
Johann Caspar Richter was a Saxon landowner and shipper-trader originally from Germany. He moved to a supposed German village of Kronenschieldt (sometimes spelled Cronenschieldt), near Leipzig, during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and married Maria Hahn, from Annaburg in Saxony-Anhalt.[ citation needed ]
His illegitimate son, Johannes Caspar Richter von Kronenschieldt, was born in Leipzig circa 1661 and adopted the village's name as part of his surname, together with an entirely spurious and canting coat of arms. After being educated briefly at the University of Leipzig, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts in about 1688. He anglicized his name to "John Caspar Crowninshield" and married Elizabeth Allen on December 5, 1694, in Lynn, Massachusetts, and bought land near Spring Pond. Their children began the Crowninshield family known today. He died December 19, 1711. [1]
His great-granddaughter Mary Crowninshield (1778–1835) was the wife of Senator Nathaniel Silsbee, whose son-in-law was Jared Sparks.
Shortly after moving to Essex County, Massachusetts, and especially the town of Salem, the Crowninshields began to make their impact on American seafaring. They helped settle Salem and led it to seafaring prominence, helping turn it into an important seaport as well as a settlement for affluent families by the late 18th century. George Crowninshield (1733–1815) founded the Crowninshield & Sons shipping business with his five sons.
![George Crowninshield Jr. [1766-1817] sketch, circa 1813 Capt George Crowninshield Jr c1813.tif](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Capt_George_Crowninshield_Jr_c1813.tif/lossy-page1-220px-Capt_George_Crowninshield_Jr_c1813.tif.jpg)
In Salem, the family built Crowninshield's Wharf, one of three major town wharves at the time. As a result, the Crowninshields became highly influential in the international trade in tea (including Bohea from as far as China), cod, molasses, Madeira wine, Valencia oranges, Málaga grapes, salt, iron, pepper, and other goods. [2]
Lieutenant Benjamin Crowninshield (b. 1757) served from 17 October 1778 on the American privateer Black Prince during the American Revolution, [3] which raided Fishguard and disrupted British merchant shipping. He was a son of Jacob Crowninshield (1732–1774) and Hannah Carlton (1734–1824). A son of George Crowninshield (b. 1733), sea adventurer George Crowninshield Jr. (1766–1817) built and sailed the yacht Cleopatra's Barge , named after the ancient ship used by Cleopatra VII. It became the first yacht to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Although the family's prominence was originally gained via seafaring, Crowninshields later became most noted for the public service, primarily in politics and the military. The early Crowninshields were Republicans and were noted for their strong support of Thomas Jefferson.
The Crowninshields were particularly praised for their naval leadership. Benjamin Williams Crowninshield was United States Secretary of the Navy under both James Madison and James Monroe, while his great-great-grandson Charles Francis Adams III, also a noted yachtsman, was secretary under Herbert Hoover. Former U.S. Representative Jacob Crowninshield was appointed to be the second person to hold the position by Thomas Jefferson, but did not serve due to his ill health. His grandson Arent S. Crowninshield served as an admiral in the United States Navy and later as chief of the Navy's Bureau of Navigation during the McKinley Administration.
William Crowninshield Endicott was United States Secretary of War during Grover Cleveland's first term as President of the United States. Caspar F. Crowninshield served as a Union Army captain and brevet brigadier general during the American Civil War, while Charles Francis Adams Jr., great-grandson of Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, served as a general.
Since the late 19th century, the family's political influence has been exercised primarily at the state and local levels, including in Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York, where multiple branches of the family settled, as well as in Massachusetts.
During the late 19th and 20th centuries, the Crowninshields were mostly visible in the arts and publishing. Frank Crowninshield created and edited Vanity Fair magazine, while Francis Boardman Crowninshield became an accomplished painter and architect. Stained-glass artist Frederic Crowninshield (1845–1918) was an instructor at the Museum of Fine Arts School of Drawing and Painting in Boston. [4]
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee was the executive editor of The Washington Post during the publication of the Pentagon Papers and played a pivotal role in the newspaper's coverage of the Watergate scandal. He stepped down as executive editor and became a member of the editorial board and vice president at large in 1991.
The Crowninshields were responsible for bringing the first elephant to the U.S. The elephant arrived on April 12, 1796, brought by Jacob Crowninshield, who had purchased it in India. The two-year-old elephant was brought into New York City, costing Crowninshield a total of $450. It later toured the country extensively after Crowninshield sold it for $10,000. [5]
Louise E. du Pont Crowninshield, wife of Francis Boardman Crowninshield, is known as one of America's first major historical preservationists and was a founding member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Charles Francis Adams IV, great-great-great-grandson of Benjamin Williams Crowninshield and the son of Charles Francis Adams III, was the first president and later chairman of the Raytheon Company.
The Crowninshields, like other Boston Brahmin families, often married into other noted families. Frances (Fanny) Cadwalader Crowninshield, daughter of George and Harriet Sears Crowninshield, married John Quincy Adams II, son of Charles Francis Adams, grandson of president John Quincy Adams and great grandson of president John Adams. William Crowninshield Endicott was a direct descendant of John Endecott, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Fellow Salem resident Nathaniel Hawthorne's father, Captain Nathaniel Hathorne Sr., sailed ships owned by the Crowninshields, who were his in-laws.
The Crowninshields were also intermarried with the Derby and Pickman families of Salem, two other dynastic families of merchants. George Crowninshield married Mary Derby, sister of Elias Hasket Derby, who married Elizabeth Crowninshield, George Crowninshield's sister, in 1761. [6] Anstiss Derby, Elias Hasket's daughter by his Crowninshield wife, Derby married merchant Benjamin Pickman Jr.
Rebecca Crowninshield Browne married Robert F. Bradford, who was Governor of Massachusetts from 1947 to 1949. Francis Boardman Crowninshield married the former Louise Evaline du Pont (later Louise E. du Pont Crowninshield) of the Du Pont family.
On June 20, 1700, in Massachusetts Bay Colony, Dr. John Casper Richter von Crowninshield (Johannes Kaspar Richter von Kronenscheldt, as first spelled), became a historic landowner of an estate by Spring Pond in Lynn and Salem, married Elizabeth, daughter of the former land owners of the estate. He was a physician from Germany, descended from a noble family of the Kingdom of Saxony. He bought the land near Spring Pond with all the "houses, buildings, waters, and fishings" from Elizabeth (Clifford) Allen of Salem, widow of Jacob Allen. He settled on the land in the interest of retreat and farming.
The Crowninshields also had close associations with other elite families, including the Monroes, Jeffersons, and Madisons. Robert Gould Shaw was a close friend of Benjamin W. Crowninshield (not to be confused with Benjamin Williams Crowninshield) at Harvard. The Crowninshields also periodically lived with other noted figures, such as William Bentley, who boarded with the family in Salem from 1791 to 1819; Andrew Jackson and his wife, who lived with Benjamin William Crowninshield and his family in Georgetown; and Condé Nast, who was Frank Crowninshield's New York City roommate.
Although they were known for feuding with other noted families, particularly the anti-Jeffersonian Derby family of Salem, they also had close connections to the powerful. During the Salem witch trials, the Crowninshields were aligned on the side of John Hathorne, one of the associate magistrates of the trials; no Crowninshields were accused during the trials.
Early Crowninshields were typically educated at institutions like St. Paul's School and Phillips Academy, followed by Harvard University, Harvard Law School, Williams College, or the service academies. Family members have held trusteeships and provost positions at Harvard College and Boston College, among other institutions.
The Crowninshield influence is particularly visible in Essex County, Massachusetts, and especially in their historical homebase of Salem.
The homestead of Captain John Crowninshield, son of Johannes Caspar Richter von Kronenschieldt and Elizabeth Allen, survives as the Crowninshield-Bentley House, which is governed by the Peabody Essex Museum and is part of Salem's historical tourism industry.
Benjamin Williams Crowninshield's federal-style waterfront mansion, once used by President James Monroe on a trip to Salem, is now used as home for the Brookehouse for Women. Some other sites, such as the Crowninshield Wharf have been lost to time and damage.
Other places and things named for the family include Crowninshield Island, located off nearby Marblehead, and USS Crowninshield, a Wickes-class destroyer during World War I.
There are also streets named for members of the Crowninshield family in Providence (Rhode Island); Brookline, Marblehead, and Peabody (Massachusetts); and The Bronx (New York City), all locations where noted Crowninshields lived.[ citation needed ]
Family members are buried in several of New England's most prominent cemeteries, including Mount Auburn Cemetery and the ancient burial ground in Salem.[ citation needed ]
Although less common today, references to the Crowninshield family in popular culture were prevalent in earlier American society. Some examples include:
The simplified family tree through the 18th century:
| Johann Caspar Richter | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Johannes Caspar von Kronenschieldt | Elizabeth Allen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| John Crowninshield (1696–1761) | Anstiss Williams | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| John Crowninshield (1728–1766) | Jacob Crowninshield (1732–1774) | Hannah Carlton (1734–1824) | George Crowninshield (1733–1815) | Mary Derby | Elizabeth Crowninshield (1736–1799) | Elias Hasket Derby | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Benjamin Crowninshield (1757–1836) | George Crowninshield Jr. (1766–1817) | Jacob Crowninshield (1770–1808) | John Crowninshield (1771–1842) | Benjamin Crowninshield (1772–1851) | Mary Crowinshield (1778–1835) | Richard | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Benjamin Crowninshield Jr. (1782–1864) | Benjamin V. Crowninshield (1808-1829) | Francis Boardman Crowninshield (1809–1877) | George Casper Crowninshield (1810–1857) | Edward, Elizabeth, Mary, Annie | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Salem is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem was one of the most significant seaports trading commodities in early American history.
The Boston Brahmins or Boston elite are members of Boston's traditional upper class. They are often associated with a cultivated New England or Mid-Atlantic dialect and accent, Harvard University, Anglicanism, and traditional British American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English colonists are typically considered to be the most representative of the Boston Brahmins. They are considered White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs).
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.
William Crowninshield Endicott was an American politician and Secretary of War in the first administration of President Grover Cleveland (1885–1889).
Benjamin Williams Crowninshield was an American historian, businessman, and Union Army officer during the American Civil War.
Jacob Crowninshield was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts and appointee to the position of U.S. Secretary of the Navy, which he never filled. His brother Benjamin Williams Crowninshield did successfully hold the post; the Crowninshield family in general was prominent in early American maritime affairs. His ancestor, Johann Casper Richter von Kronenscheldt, immigrated from Leipzig. He was the grandfather of Arent S. Crowninshield.
Elias Hasket Derby was an American merchant based in Salem, Massachusetts who owned or held shares in numerous privateers. The crews of these ships took more than 150 prizes during the American Revolution, and the sale of the prizes resulted in great wealth to be shared. Derby was in business with his father, who died at the end of the war.
Crowninshield Island, also known as Brown's Island, is a small island off the shore of Marblehead, Massachusetts. Since 1955, it has been maintained by The Trustees of Reservations. For all Trustees of Reservations purposes, the island is referred to as Crowninshield Island, however federally the island is still maintained as "Brown's Island", and it remains better known by that name locally.
John Quincy Adams II was an American politician who represented Quincy in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1866 to 1867, 1868 to 1869, 1871 to 1872, and from 1874 to 1875.
Benjamin Pickman Jr. was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.
The Peabody Museum of Salem (1915–1992), formerly the Peabody Academy of Science (1865–1915), was a museum and antiquarian society based in Salem, Massachusetts. The academy was organized in part as a successor to the East India Marine Society, which had become moribund but held a large collection of maritime materials in a museum collection at the East India Marine Hall, built in 1825 on Essex Street. The Peabody Museum was merged with the Essex Institute to form the Peabody Essex Museum in 1992. The East India Marine Hall, now embedded within the latter's modern structure, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 in recognition of this heritage, which represents the nation's oldest continuously-operating museum collection.
The East India Marine Society of Salem, Massachusetts, United States, was "composed of persons who have actually navigated the seas beyond the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn, as masters or supercargoes of vessels belonging to Salem." It functioned as a charitable and educational organization, and maintained a library and museum. It flourished especially in the 1800s–1830s, a heyday of foreign trade.
Dudley Leavitt Pickman (1779–1846) was an American merchant who built one of the great trading firms in Salem, Massachusetts, during the seaport's ascendancy as a trading power in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Pickman was a partner in the firm Devereux, Pickman & Silsbee and a state senator. Among the wealthiest Salem merchants of his day, Pickman used his own clipper ships to trade with the Far East in an array of goods ranging from indigo and coffee to pepper and spices, and was one of the state's earliest financiers, backing everything from cotton and woolen mills to railroads to water-generated power plants. Pickman also helped found what is today's Peabody Essex Museum.
Bowdoin Bradlee Crowninshield was an American naval architect who specialized in the design of racing yachts.
Cleopatra's Barge was the first oceangoing yacht built in the United States. It was built in 1816 at Salem, MA by shipbuilder Retire Becket for owner George Crowninshield Jr. Crowninshield died in 1817 after a single pleasure voyage to the Mediterranean; his brother Richard bought it, used it for two coastal trading voyages, and then sold it to Boston China traders Bryant & Sturgis and Capt. John Suter in early 1820. Suter sailed it to Hawai'i and sold it to Hawaiian monarch Kamehameha II for slightly more than a million pounds of sandalwood. Liholiho used it as his private yacht, renaming it Haʻaheo o Hawaiʻi in 1822 after a rebuild. Under an all-Hawaiian crew, Ha'aheo wrecked in Hanalei Bay, Kaua'i, Hawai'i in April 1824.
Joseph Peabody was a merchant and shipowner who dominated trade between Massachusetts and the Far East for a number of years.
Harmony Grove Cemetery is a rural cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts. It was established in 1840 and is located at 30 Grove Street. The cemetery is approximately 35 acres in size and was designed by Francis Peabody and Alexander Wadsworth.
Spring Pond, United States, abuts the three cities of Lynn, Peabody and Salem. In the center of these townships "is a beautiful pond". It is a secluded lake known by residents of the three cities and visitors who come to enjoy the camps, trails and natural environment of the woods. "It is in fact one of the most picturesque and romantic lakelets in Massachusetts". Stretching from Spring Pond to Marlborough Road in Salem, the pond and woods form a microcosm of beauty. On the edge of Spring Pond was once the Fay Farm, an English manor estate in New England. The mansion of Fay Farm was a well-known hotel in 1810, when the springs of these areas were believed to possess medicinal qualities. People visited the springs near Spring Pond to restore health, and worship the goddess Hygeia and drink from the rusty iron-rich water trickling from the foot of a bank. Later, some traveled there solely for fun and frolic. The hotel was then converted into a private residence. The waters of Spring Pond are conveyed by springs from an aquifer lying below Spring Pond through Peabody, Lynn and Salem. Spring Pond is listed as one of the "Massachusetts Great Ponds".
Francis (Frank) Boardman Crowninshield was an international yachtsman and the husband of Louise Evelina du Pont. He was an amateur painter and writer and was also interested in architecture and design, and boat racing.
Samuel Endicott Peabody was an American merchant and banker who was a partner in the London banking firm of J.S. Morgan & Co.
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