Henry Walton Grinnell (November 19, 1843 – September 2, 1920) was an American naval officer who served in the American Civil War and Spanish–American War. Working in tandem with other foreign experts, Grinnell was credited with modernizing the Japanese navy in the late 19th century.
Naval service
American Civil War
Grinnell's early action focused on enforcing coastal blockade against Confederate states in the Gulf of Mexico. He was praised in the report of Captain Francis Ellison for engaging hostile forts at Pensacola while aboard USS Richmond on November 22, 1861, and also by Brigadier General Thomas E.G. Ransom for leading a two-howitzer landing party from USS Monongahela in the capture of Port Aransas, Texas in late 1863.
Personal life
Grinnell's elder sister, Sylvia, married William Fitzherbert Ruxton, who became an admiral in the British Royal Navy. Through this marriage, Grinnell was the uncle of anthropologist Sylvia Leith-Ross.
Grinnell was married to Louisa Platt from 1874 until her death in Providence, Rhode Island on October 26, 1904. Their son, Henry Grinnell (1875-1936), was a forester who served as acting Chief of Forest Products and "inspector of experiments in wood preservation" with the Bureau of Forestry and its successor agency, the United States Forest Service. The junior Henry later managed lumber properties in Asheville, North Carolina.
On July 25, 1910, 66-year-old Grinnell married 25-year-old Florence Roche, the daughter of Grinnell's late friend James Jeffrey Roche, a Boston-based poet, journalist, and diplomat. In his St. Augustine retirement, Grinnell belonged to a social club of ex-military notables cultivated by Union Army Brigadier General Martin Davis Hardin.