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Benjamin Homans

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American politician
Benjamin Homans
Chief Clerk of the US Navy Department
In office
March 9, 1813 – December 1, 1823
Appointed byJames Monroe
Preceded byCharles W. Goldsborough
Succeeded byCharles Hay
4th Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
In office
1810–1812
Succeeded byAlden Bradford
Personal details
Bornc. 1765
Massachusetts
DiedDecember 1823
Georgetown, D.C.
ChildrenI. Smith Homans

Benjamin Homans (c. 1765 – December 1823) was an American merchant captain, and politician who served as the 4th Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth and who served from as the Chief Clerk of the Navy Department, which was at the time the second highest civilian position in the US Navy.

Early career

Born in Massachusetts, Homans had been a merchant captain during the 1780s and 1790s. During the Quasi war with France, because of the Sedition Act and because he was an ardent Jeffersonian, Homans went into exile in Bordeaux.

War of 1812

Prior to the 1814 British attack, and Burning of Washington during the War of 1812, it was Homans, along with Dolley Madison who removed two wagon loads of the White House and Navy Department's archives; including saving Charles Willson Peale's classic portrait of George Washington. The trunks were transferred onto a canal boat and taken upstream on the Potomac River, where they were stored in a barn near Cabin John, Maryland until the danger had passed.

Later life

Homans resigned as chief clerk of the Navy Department to become naval storekeeper in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but died in Georgetown in December 1823 before he could leave Washington to take up the new post.

Notes

  1. ^ McKee, Christopher (1991), A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794-1815, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, p. 17
  2. ^ Elmer H. Youngman, ed. (September 1921), The Bankers Magazine, Volume CIII, no 3, New York, New York: The Bankers Publishing Co., p. 430
  3. ^ Looney, J. Jefferson (2005). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series. Vol. 2. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 505. ISBN 978-0-691-12490-2. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  4. ^ McKee, Christopher (1991), A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794-1815, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, pp. 17–18
  5. A Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military and Naval, in the Service of the United States on the 30th of September, 1821. Washington, D.C.: Davis & Force. 1822. p. 83. Retrieved 2024-11-08.
  6. ^ "I. Smith Homans". The Bankers' Magazine. Vol. LII, no. 1. January 1896. p. 23. Retrieved 2024-11-07.
  7. Wharton, Anne Hollingsworth (1903). Social Life in the Early Republic. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J. B. Lippincott Company. p. 174. Retrieved 2024-11-08.
  8. "Obituaries from the Family Visitor". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. 68, no. 1. January 1960. p. 72. Retrieved 2024-11-08.
Political offices
Preceded byWilliam Tudor 4th Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth
1810 – 1812 		Succeeded byAlden Bradford
Government offices
Preceded byCharles W. Goldsborough Chief Clerk of the US Navy Department
March 9, 1813 - December 1, 1823 		Succeeded byCharles Hay

External links

[REDACTED] Media related to Benjamin Homans at Wikimedia Commons

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