Crowninshield family

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 late 17th century. The family is one of several known collectively as Boston Brahmins.

Johann Caspar Richter was an Old Saxon landowner and shipper-trader originally from the south of Denmark. He moved to the 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. The family adopted the village's name as their surname.

Their son, Johannes Caspar Richter von Kronenschieldt, was born in Leipzig circa 1661. 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 the land near Spring Pond. Their children began the Crowninshield family known today. He died December 19, 1711.

His great-granddaughter Mary Crowinshield (1778–1835) was the wife of Senator Nathaniel Silsbee, whose son-in-law was Jared Sparks.

Although the family's roots are Danish and German, most of the more recent lines of the Crowninshield family in Massachusetts are primarily of English stock.

...
Wikipedia