George Crowninshield Jr.

Crowninshield was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on May 27, 1766. He was the son of George Crowninshield (1734–1815) and Mary (née Derby) Crowninshield (1737–1813), who married in 1757. Crowninshield was the eldest of five adult brothers.[1] His father and grandfather were both merchants, doing business in East India and China.[2]

Crowninshield went to local public schools until he was twelve. Then he studied navigation and first went to sea as a captain’s clerk and assisted in commanding a ship to the West Indies in 1790. He commanded the ship Belisarius to the East Indies in 1794. Crowninshield’s work was largely in the construction and outfitting of his family's ships.[3]

His father was the founder of the mercantile house of George Crowninshield & Sons. The firm was engaged in commerce with the West Indies, Europe, India and China. He was admitted into his father's Salem firm in 1801 and immediately built a sloop he named the Jefferson.[4] This was the first American yacht and with it,[5][6] Crowninshield became the first American yachtsman.[7][8] He cruised the yacht for several years under the United States flag.[9][10] Crowninshield took over the family firm upon the death of his father in 1815 and became an international merchant.[11] Through these endeavors he became wealthy and was afforded substantial leisure time.[12]

George Crowninshield Jr. sketch, circa 1813

Crowninshield was a short person of 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) in height and wore extravagant clothing like Hessian boots with gold tassels. He donned a pigtail and a shaggy beaver-skin hat. He was known around Salem for his extracurricular activities, such as driving around the city in his bright yellow curricle. He liked chasing down fires of burning buildings. Rescuing people from ships in distress, for the purpose of which he maintained a vessel, was a passion of his.[2]

Crowninshield procured all the necessary paperwork from Washington D.C.to bring home to Salem the bodies of Captain James Lawrence and Lieutenant Augustus Ludlow. They were killed in the defeat of the USS Chesapeake by the British vessel HMS Shannon on June 1, 1813. He chartered the brig Henry at his own expense and manned it with a crew that sailed to Halifax, Nova Scotia. His crew were ship captains from the Salem Marine Society. The bodies were recovered and taken back to Salem. They arrived on August 23, 1813. Preparations meanwhile were made for a formal funeral that was attended by many high ranking officers of the United States Navy and the US Vice President.[13][14]

Crowninshield gained notoriety with his luxury pleasure yacht Cleopatra's Barge.[15] The elaborate schooner with a deluxe interior was launched in 1816.[3] Those that knew Crowninshield's admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte put it together that there was a good possibility he and his brothers rescued the Emperor from his exile on Saint Helena Island and took him back to America. It was speculated by author Francis Boardman Crowninshield that the sole purpose of Cleopatra's Barge was for the object of rescuing Napoleon, but that has not been conclusively proven.[16]

Crowninshield never married, but did have one daughter born 1811, Clarissa (called Clara), whose mother was Elizabeth Rowell.[3] Born in Salem, Clara was a friend of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who considered her like a sister. When Crowninshield died he bequeathed a large sum of money to Clara and her mother in his will. Benjamin Ropes Nichols, a Salem attorney, informally adopted Clara on the death of Crowninshield. Clara was sent to a female seminary in Hingham, Massachusetts. There her studies consisted of Latin, French, German, and literature. She became a friend of Mary Storer Potter, Longfellow's first wife.[17] Clara recorded in her diary events of an eighteen-month trip (1835–1836) to Europe with the Longfellows. Clara married a Mr. Louis Thies in 1843. They had a son and a daughter. Clara died in Dresden in 1907.[18]

Crowninshield died of a heart attack in Salem onboard Cleopatra's Barge on November 26, 1817.[19][20][21] He is buried in Salem.[3][22]

• Crowninshield, Frank (1966). Vanity Fair. University Microfilms.

• Day, Thomas Fleming (1904). The Rudder. Fawcett Publications. ... it may be well for us to make a somewhat closer acquaintance of George Crowninshield, Jr., the first American yachtsman.

• Essex Institute (1917). Old Time Ships of Salem. Essex Institute. In 1801, fifteen years before the building of "Cleopatra's Barge," Captain George Crowninshield built a smaller yacht, a sloop of twenty-one tons, the Jefferson, which is the first recorded American yacht.

• Gale, Robert L. (2003). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Companion. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32350-8.

• Garraty, John Arthur (January 1, 1999). American National Biography. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-512784-3.

• Horwitz, Tony (2003). The Devil May Care. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516922-5.

• Paine, Ralph Delahaye (1924). Ships and Sailors of Old Salem. Heritage Books. ISBN 978-0-7884-3774-8. Captain George has the distinction of being the first American yacht owner. As early as 1801 he had built in Salem a sloop called the Jefferson in which he cruised for several years. While the Jefferson was beyond doubt the first vessel built for pleasure in the country, and the first yacht that ever flew the Stars and Stripes, her fame is overshadowed by that of the renowned Cleopatra's Barge, the second yacht owned by Captain Crowninshield, and the first of her nation to cruise in foreign waters.

• Putnam, George Granville (1930). Salem Vessels and Their Voyages. Essex Institute.

• Seaman's Friend Society (1907). The Sea Breeze. Boston Seaman's Friend Society. ... and of George Crowninshield, who owned the first American yacht, the Jefferson, built in Salem waters in 1801.