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. Early life Crowninshield was born in Salem in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, the son of George Crowninshield (1734–1815) and Mary (née Derby) Crowninshield (1737–1813) who married in 1757. His father was a sea captain and merchant of the Boston Brahmin Crowninshield family. His family owned the lands near Mineral Spring, where the first Crowninshield family was cradled in the country. His brothers included Congressman Jacob Crowninshield and George Crowninshield Jr., who owned Cleopatra's Barge, the first yacht to cross the Atlantic. 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 Senate districts had led to the term gerrymander, with Crowninshield, who had lost the previous year's Senate seat in a combined Essex County, 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. However, Crowninshield lost his seat in the State Senate the next year, with the Newburyport Herald printing an editorial cartoon of a dead gerrymander and listing "B.W.C." as a "chief mourner". He was elected to the Massachusetts State Senate in 1812. 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. 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. United States House of Representatives 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. Personal life On January