SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL.
Baronet of Kittery, Maine.
William Pepperell was a native of Tavistock near Plymouth in Devon, who at the age of twenty-two, about the year 1676, emigrated to the Isle of Shoals, and became a fisherman. He acquired property and removed to Kittery on the mainland, where he died in 1734, leaving an only son of his own name, who continued the business of fishing, amassed great wealth, and arrived at great honors. It is interesting and instructive to trace the rising steps of the Pepperell family, from a destitute young fisherman to the princely affluence and exalted station, civil, political, and military, to which his son arrived. It throws light upon the early history of the infant colonies, the character of the early settlers, the nature of their occupations, their commerce, the condition, and relative importance of places of trade, and the influence of the times, and events, in forming the character and shaping the fortunes of the illustrious subject of this memoir. The name once so celebrated, has in America long since become extinct, and but for its record in the page of history, would ere this have passed into oblivion. To account for this curious fact, it will be necessary to give a more extended notice of the history of the family than would otherwise seem necessary.
While a fisherman at the Isle of Shoals, Pepperell had frequent occasion to sail to Kittery Point for the purpose of traffic, and for the purchase and repair of boats. A shipwright there named John Bray welcomed him to his home, and supplied his wants. He had a daughter Margery, who had arrived at the age of seventeen when she first saw Mr. Pepperell, who was smitten with her youthful charms. At the time of this marriage Mr. Pepperell removed from the Shoals to Kittery Point, where Mr. Bray gave him the site of the present Pepperell mansion. The south part of this structure was built by him and the north part by his son Sir William, who was born here in 1696, and here dwelt the two families till the decease of the father in 1734, which left the son's family sole occupants till 1759. The home has since been curtailed in its dimensions by the removal of ten feet from each end of the building. It was during this period of little more than half a century that the largest fortune, then known in New England, was gradually accumulated. The principal business of the Pepperells was done in the fisheries. They sometimes had more than one hundred small vessels at a time on the Grand Banks. Ship-building was also a very extensive branch of industry on the Pascataqua, and its tributary streams. The Pepperells built many vessels and sent them to the West India islands, laden with lumber, fish, oil, and live stock, to exchange for cargoes of rum, sugar, and molasses, for home consumption; others to European markets to exchange for dry goods, wine, and salt, and to sell both vessel and cargo. To the Southern colonies fish was sent in exchange for corn, tobacco, and naval stores. Mills were erected by them on the small rivers, and lumber and ship-timber, were floated down to Kittery Point, and Newcastle, to be shipped to European and American ports.
Sir William was his only son. About 1727 he was elected a member of the Council of Massachusetts, and held a seat in that body by annual election for thirty-two years, until his death. He was also selected to command a regiment of militia, and being fond of society, rich, and prosperous, was highly popular, and possessed much influence. With a vigorous frame, firm mind, and great coolness, when in danger, he was well fitted for his residence in a country exposed to ferocious enemies.
The Treaty of Utrecht which secured Nova Scotia to the British Crown, gave France undisputed right to Cape Breton. Here they built the city of Louisburg at enormous cost, and protected it with fortresses of great strength. The walls of the defences were formed with bricks brought from France, and they mounted two hundred and six pieces of cannon. The city had nunneries, and Palaces, gardens, and squares, and places of amusement, and was designed to become a great capital, and to perpetuate French dominion, and the Catholic faith in America. Twenty-five years of time and six million dollars in money were spent in building, arming, and adorning this city, "The Dunkirk of the New World." That such a plan existed, at so early a period of our history, is a marvel, and the lovers of the wonderful may read the works of Parkman which contain accounts of its rise, and ruin, and be satisfied that "truth is sometimes stranger than fiction."
The possession of this stronghold by the French was a source of continual annoyance to the New England fishermen, and at last became intolerable. Situated as it was directly off the fishing grounds, it meant destruction to the fishing interest every time there was a war with France. At last its capture was seriously conceived and undertaken. Governor Shirley, in 1744, listening to the propositions made to him on the subject, submitted them to the Legislature of Massachusetts, and that body in secret session, the first ever held in America, authorized a force to be raised, equipped, and sent against it, and the command was conferred upon Colonel William Pepperell. His troops consisted of a motley assemblage of fishermen, and farmers, sawyers, and loggers, many of whom were taken from his own vessels, mills, and forests. Before such men, and others hardly better skilled in war, in the year 1745, Louisburg fell. The achievement is the most memorable in the Colonial annals. For this great service Colonel Pepperell was created a Baronet in 1746. After the fall of Louisburg, he went to England and was presented at Court. In 1759 he was appointed Lieutenant-General. He died the same year at his seat at Kittery, aged sixty-three years, and was buried in the large and beautiful tomb erected in 1734 which was placed near the mansion home. His children were two, Andrew, a son who graduated at Harvard University in 1743, and died March 1, 1751, aged twenty-five, and a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Colonel Nathaniel Sparhawk. Lady Pepperell, who was Mary Hirst, daughter of Grove Hirst of Boston, and granddaughter of Judge Sewall of Massachusetts, survived until 1789. Mrs. Sparhawk bore her husband five children, namely Nathaniel, William Pepperell, Samuel Hirst, Andrew Pepperell, and Mary Pepperell. Sir William, her father, soon after the decease of her brother, executed a will, by which after providing for Lady Pepperell, he bequeathed the bulk of his remaining property to herself, and her children. Her second son was made the residuary legatee, and inherited a large estate. By the terms of his grandfather's will he was required to procure an Act of the Legislature to drop the name of Sparhawk, and assume that of Pepperell. This he did on coming of age, and was allowed by a subsequent Act, to take the title of Sir William Pepperell, Baronet. He received the honors of Harvard University in 1766, subsequently he visited England, and became a member of the Council of Massachusetts. In 1774 when that body was recognized under the Act of Parliament, he was continued, under the mandamus of the King, and thereby incurred the wrath of the disunionists, who at a county congress, held at Wells, York County, Maine, on the 16th of Nov. 1774, declared a boycott against him, and denounced him in the following manner: "The said William Pepperell, Esq., hath, with purpose to carry into force, Acts of the British Parliament, made with apparent design to enslave the free and loyal people of this country, accepted, and now holds, a seat in the pretended Board of Councillors in this Province, as well as in direct repeal of the charter thereof, as against the solemn compact of kings, and the inherent right of the people. It is therefore Resolved, that said William Pepperell, Esq. hath thereby justly forfeited the confidence, and friendship of all true friends to American liberty, and with other pretended councillors, now holding their seats in like manner, ought to be detested by all good men, and it is hereby recommended to the good people of this country, that as soon as the present leases made to any of them by said Pepperell, are expired, they immediately withdraw all connection, commerce, and dealings, from him, and they take no further lease, or conveyance of his, farms, mills, or appurtenances thereunto belonging (where the said Pepperell is the sole receiver and appropriator of the rents and profits), until he shall resign his seat, pretendedly occupied by mandamus. And if any persons shall remain, or become his tenants, after the expiration of their present leases, we recommend to the good people of this country, not only to withdraw all connections, and commercial intercourse with them, but to treat them in the manner provided by the third resolve of this Congress."
The Baronet not long after this denouncement retired to Boston. His winter residence was on Summer street, near Trinity church, and his country residence was an estate on the southerly side of Jamaica Pond containing sixty acres, which he leased from Sir Francis Bernard. In 1775 he arrived in England under circumstances of deep affliction. Lady Pepperell, who was Elizabeth, daughter of Hon. Isaac Royall, of Medford, having died on the passage. In 1778 he was proscribed and banished, and the year following was included in the Conspiracy Act. In May, 1779, the Committee on confiscated estates offered for sale "his large and elegant house, gardens, and other accommodations, &c., pleasantly situated on Summer street, Boston, a little below Trinity church." His vast domain in Maine, the largest owned by any individual in New England, though entailed upon his heirs, was confiscated. This estate extended from Kittery to Saco, with a coast line of upwards of thirty miles, and extending back many miles into the interior, and, for the purposes of farming and lumbering, was of great value, and the water power and mill privileges, rendered it even at the time of the sequestration, a princely fortune. His possessions were large in Scarboro, Elliot, Berwick, Newington, Portsmouth, Hampton and Hubbardston. In Saco alone he owned 5,500 acres, including the site of that populous town and its factories. A large portion of this property was purchased by Thomas Cutts who had served as a clerk in Sir William's counting room. He was active during the revolution, was a noted merchant, president of a bank, colonel of a regiment, senator in the Massachusetts Legislature, and one of the founders of the Massachusetts General Hospital. He died in 1821.
All of Sir William's brothers were loyalists and were forced to leave the country, and their vast domains passed into other hands. A life interest or dower right in the Saco lands was enjoyed by Lady Mary Pepperell, the widow of the first Sir William and her daughter, Mrs. Sparhawk, which was devised to them by the Baronet's will. In exchange for the right thus arising, the State afterwards assigned two-ninths in absolute property to Lady Pepperell and her daughter, by a deed executed in 1788. This small portion of this great estate was saved through these ladies residing in the country during the war, the "sons of despotism" could hardly tar and feather two defenceless women, or drive them forth as they did their sons and brothers, and make absentees or refugees of them.
Thus the princely fortune of Pepperell, that required a century to construct, from the foundation laid by John Bray the shipwright to the massive structure raised by the fisherman William Pepperell and completed by his son Sir William, fastened and secured though it was, by every instrument that his own skill and the best legal counsel could devise to give stability and perpetuity, was in a brief hour overthrown, and demolished by the confiscation act of 1778. So complete was the wreck that two of his daughter's grandsons, were saved from the almshouse by the bounty of some persons on whom they had no claim for favor.