Other people that he befriended at Harvard, according to his diary, include Robert Gould Shaw, whom Crowninshield first met when Shaw was a freshman who was hoping to become a member of the Pierian Sodality. Crowninshield was also friends at Harvard with William Henry Fitzhugh Lee. His diary entry for 1856-11-19, for example, records him playing whist "till the sociable (Lee's) was ready at L. Erving's room". (The "sociable" was a party.) Its entry for 1857-06-24 records him going "into town to a supper at Parker's given in honor of Lee, Jones, Lowndes all of whom are going to leave the class".