Pepperrell, Sir William (1696-1759), was a prosperous merchant, politician, and military leader of Britain’s North American colonies. Raised near the frontier of Native American and French territory, Pepperrell gained renown for his successful siege of the French fortress at Louisbourg on Île Royale (now Cape Breton Island) in Nova Scotia, Canada. The French and the British had been competing for territory and Indian trading agreements in North America since the late 1600’s.
Pepperrell was born on June 27, 1696, in Kittery Point, a town in a region of Massachusetts that is now Maine. While still a teenager, Pepperrell helped manage his father’s business. The firm came to own dozens of trading vessels. The Pepperrells also became wealthy landowners. In 1723, William married Mary Hirst, the daughter of a Boston merchant. The couple had four children, two of whom survived infancy.
Pepperrell entered colonial politics in 1725, when he became a local judge. In 1726, Pepperrell was elected to represent Kittery in the Massachusetts provincial assembly. In 1727, he was chosen to sit on to the Massachusetts Council board, whose members acted as the upper house of the legislature and as advisers to the governor. He remained on the council until his death in 1759. Fellow council members came to respect his expertise on military affairs and Indian relations.
By 1722, Pepperrell was a colonel of the militia (citizens’ army) of York County, Massachusetts. At the beginning of King George’s War (1744-1748), the Massachusetts governor appointed Pepperrell to lead an army of colonists against the French fortress at Louisbourg. The war was the third of four conflicts called the French and Indian wars, which began in 1689 and ended in 1763. In 1745, Pepperrell’s colonial soldiers, aided by the British Navy, besieged and captured the French fortress. The capture was one of the major events of the conflict, and Pepperrell was hailed as the “hero of Louisbourg.”
As a reward for his victory, Pepperrell was named a baronet and promoted first to colonel and then lieutenant general in the British army. He was the first American-born person to achieve such honors. For a few months in 1757, he served as acting governor of Massachusetts. Pepperrell died in Kittery Point on July 6, 1759.
