Sir William Pepperrell, 1st Baronet (June 27, 1696 – July 6, 1759) was a merchant and soldier in Colonial Massachusetts. He is widely remembered for organizing, financing, and leading the 1745 expedition that captured the French garrison at Fortress Louisbourg during King George's War. During his day Pepperrell was called "the hero of Louisburg," a victory celebrated in the name of Louisburg Square in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood.
William Pepperrell was a native of Kittery, Maine, then part of Massachusetts, and lived there all his life. Born to William Pepperrell, an English settler of Welsh descent who began his career as a fisherman's apprentice, and Margery Bray, daughter of a well-to-do Kittery merchant, William Pepperrell studied surveying and navigation before joining his father (a shipbuilder and fishing boat owner) in business. Young William Pepperrell expanded their enterprise to become one of the most properous mercantile houses in New England with ships carrying lumber, fish and other products to the West Indies and Europe. The Pepperrells sunk their profits into land, and soon they controlled immense tracts. Pepperrell also joined the militia, becoming a captain (1717), major, lieutenant-colonel, and in 1726 colonel of militia. Pepperrell also married well, the granddaughter of Samuel Sewall of Boston. In short, the rise of the Pepperrells within two generations was meteoric.
