Clarkson Crolius (1774–1843), potter and public official, belonged to a New York City stoneware dynasty launched by his grandfather and eventually passing to Crolius’s namesake son. Crolius held numerous local offices in the city, including assistant alderman, member of the Common Council, and city inspector. He was appointed an ensign in the New York City militia in 1802, rose to captain in 1807, and served as a major in the United States Army, 1814–15. Crolius represented New York City for ten terms in the New York Assembly, 1806–07, 1816–22, and 1824–25, including service as Speaker in 1825. Starting out as a Republican, he later supported John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. In 1811 and 1819 Crolius was grand sachem of the New York Tammany Society. He died in New York City (William C. Ketchum Jr., Potters and Potteries of New York State, 1650–1900 [1987], 41–7; Albany Gazette, 22 Nov. 1802; New York Chronicle Express, 21 Feb. 1803; New York American Citizen, 30 Sept. 1806; New-York Gazette, 24 Feb. 1808; Hugh Hastings and Henry Harmon Noble, eds., Military Minutes of the Council of Appointment of the State of New York, 1783–1821 [1901–02], 1:587, 665, 923; Heitman, U.S. Army description begins Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 1903, repr. 1994, 2 vols. description ends , 1:339; Franklin B. Hough, The New York Civil List [1861], 341; E. Vale Blake, History of the Tammany Society [(1901)], 185; New York Evening Post, 4 Oct. 1843).

Crolius sent copies of the enclosure with similar letters to John Quincy Adams on 19 Nov. 1819 and to John Adams and James Madison on 29 Nov. 1819 (DNA: RG 59, MLR; MHi: Adams Papers; Madison, Papers, Retirement Ser., 1:561).