[1] His father was a New York merchant from 1808 to 1840, who founded the famous auction firm of Pell & Company, and his brother, Alfred Shipley Pell, was a co-founder of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York.
[2] Pell studied at the Litchfield Law School and was admitted to the bar in Albany in 1828.
He was a member of the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York, having been elected on June 1, 1874, shortly before his death.
[7] The 1870 census lists him as a retired merchant, with a net worth of nearly $400,000 (nearly $8 million today).
Together, they were the parents of:[11] Stricken with apoplexy, Pell died in Newport on January 16, 1874, at the age of 68.