Cronan was born October 23, 1883, in Chicago, Illinois, and after joining the navy was stationed aboard the USS Bennington (PG-4) as a boatswain's mate.

The combination of the explosion and the scalding steam killed a number of men outright and left others mortally wounded; the final death toll was one officer, Ensign Newman K. Perry and sixty-five men, making it one of the U.S. Navy's worst peacetime disasters.

For his actions Boatswain's Mate Cronan was awarded the peacetime Medal on January 5, 1906, by President Theodore Roosevelt.

He died October 22, 1959, and is buried in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, California.

Bennington, for extraordinary heroism displayed at the time of the explosion of a boiler of that vessel at San Diego, Calif., 21 July 1905.