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.
Navy collection image of Secretary Benjamin Williams Crowninshield 1772 – 1851
1818 painting of Cleopatra's Barge by George Ropes Jr. in Peabody Essex Museum
Crowninshield's Wharf. This painting by George Ropes Jr. is in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
Photo of Secretary of War William Crowninshield Endicott
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).
Typical dress of the Boston elite, c. 1816–1817
Beacon Hill, a preeminent Boston Brahmin neighborhood in the vicinity of the Massachusetts State House
Samuel Adams, American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and Founding Father of the United States
John Amory Lowell, banking merchant
