Pepperrell, Sir William

PEPPERRELL, SIR WILLIAM. (1696–1759). Colonial merchant and military officer, first American-born baronet. Born at Kittery, Maine, on 27 June 1696, William Pepperrell was the son of one of the most prosperous merchants in New England. He received a limited formal education and joined his father as a partner in the senior Pepperrell's mercantile firm. He was elected to the General Court in 1726, appointed colonel of all the militia in Maine the same year, elected to the governor's council in 1727, and appointed chief justice of the York county court in 1730. By the time his father died in 1734, Pepperrell was one of the wealthiest and most prominent residents of Massachusetts, and certainly the most influential man in Maine.

Pepperrell's greatest fame derived from his command of the New England expedition that captured the French fortress of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island in 1745. Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts was the principal architect of the expedition, and he gave Pepperrell command of the provincial forces because of his prominence, popularity, mercantile connections, and experience as militia colonel in Maine. The New England colonies raised and transported a forty-three-hundred-man force to Cape Breton Island, and in their most notable feat of arms before the Revolution, managed to force Louisburg to capitulate on 17 June 1745. While good luck, strong backs, and French mistakes contributed greatly to this outcome, Pepperrell was responsible for keeping the army together and, critically, for maintaining good relations with Commodore Sir Peter Warren, the commander of the Royal Navy squadron that convoyed the New England transports and blockaded Louisburg. For his success in this operation, Pepperrell was commissioned a colonel in the British army on 1 September 1745 and allowed to raise his own colonial regiment as part of the garrison of the conquered town, the governorship of which he shared with Warren until late in the spring of 1746. In November 1746 he was created a baronet, the first native-born American to be so honored. (The regiment was disbanded when Louisburg was returned to the French in 1748 at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.)

Promoted to major general on 27 February 1755, he commanded on the eastern frontier in Maine during the unfortunate military events elsewhere that year. For about six months between the death of Lieutenant Governor Spencer Phips and the arrival of Governor Thomas Pownall in August 1757, Pepperrell was de facto governor of Massachusetts by virtue of being president of the governor's council. After raising troops for the defense of Massachusetts, he was commissioned lieutenant general in the British army on 20 February 1759 but was prevented by failing health from taking part in subsequent operations of the French and Indian War. He died on 6 July 1759 at Kittery.

Pepperrell's only son died unmarried, but his grandson, William Pepperrell Sparhawk, inherited the bulk of his estate after accepting the stipulation of the will that he change his name to Pepperrell. In 1774 his grandson also was created baronet. A Loyalist, he fled to England shortly thereafter and lost his entire estate by confiscation.

SEE ALSO Colonial Wars; Shirley, William.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fairchild, Byron. Messrs. William Pepperrell: Merchants at Piscataqua. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1954.

                               revised by Harold E. Selesky