Francis Boardman Crowninshield

Crowninshield was born in New York City on April 22, 1869. He was a member of the Crowninshield family from Salem, Massachusetts. Crowninshield attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire and graduated from Harvard University in 1891. He rode with Troop K of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders during the Spanish–American War in 1898 and saw combat in the Cuban campaign in the Battle of San Juan Hill.

On June 28, 1900, he married Louise du Pont.[3] The couple were married for 50 years and never had any children. During their married life, they traveled back and forth between their three primary residences: Seaside Farm,[4] in Marblehead, Massachusetts; Eleutherian Mills, in Wilmington, Delaware; and Las Olas,[5] in Boca Grande, Florida.

Crowninshield was a professional yachtsman all his life and many of the trophies he won were on display at the Eastern Yacht Club in Marblehead at the time of his death, including one he and his team won in a race in Spain.[1] His family at one time owned an oceangoing yacht called Cleopatra's Barge and for which Crowninshield published a book in 1913.[6]

In addition to writing, Crowninshield also liked to sketch and paint in watercolors. His subject matter was typically the homes and gardens of his three residences. There was an exhibition of his work towards the end of his life in 1944 at the Ferargil Galleries in New York City entitled, Francis Boardman Crowninshield Exhibition.[2]

Crowninshield Garden, by Frank Crowninshield, c. 1930s, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE

Even though Crowninshield and his wife only spent a couple months out of the year at their home in Delaware, he devoted a lot of his time researching and traveling overseas studying gardens and neoclassicism in order to create Crowninshield Gardens, a fascinating garden of neoclassical ruins on top of the Eleutherian Mills site that had been ruined by time and neglect.[7]

Crowninshield died on May 19, 1950, at the age of 81 at Eleutherian Mills. He is buried in Wilmington, Delaware.[1]

• Hagely Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE
• Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, Winterthur, DE
• Bocca Grande Historical Society & History Center, Bocca Grande, FL
• Marblehead Historical Commission, Marblehead, MA