Bowdoin B. Crowninshield

Bowdoin Bradlee Crowninshield (October 13, 1867 – August 12, 1948) was an American naval architect who specialized in the design of racing yachts. Early life Crowninshield was born on October 13, 1867, in New York City. He grew up in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in the wealthy Crowninshield family with long-standing ties to the sea. The family estate, Crowninshield House, was built by his father in 1870. His father was Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1837–1892) and his mother was Katherine May Bradlee (1844–1902). His younger brother Francis Boardman Crowninshield (1869–1950), married heiress Louise Evelina du Pont (1877–1958). Through his paternal grandmother Sarah Gool Putnam (1810–1880), he was a distant cousin of architect J. Pickering Putnam (1847–1917). His great-grandfather Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1772–1851) had served as Secretary of the Navy, and his great-granduncle George Crowninshield Jr. (1766–1817) built the first luxury yacht in the United States, Cleopatra's Barge in 1816. His first cousin once removed was Frederick Josiah Bradlee, Jr. (1892–1970) whose son was journalist Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (1921-2014). Because of his many relations, he was known as "B.B." Crowninshield. He attended Prince School in Boston and graduated from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1885, but transferred to Harvard University, where he graduated in 1890.