He was owner and master of the sloop Centurian, which was one of the vessels destroyed at the hands of the British during the Penobscot Expedition in 1779, part of the American Revolutionary War.

[1] In 1756, Native Americans attacked the Means family, who lived at Flying Point, near today's Freeport, Maine.

One of the attackers shot through a hole in the wall, killing the infant and puncturing his mother's breast.

[1] Another source states that McLellan knew, at the time of her kidnap, that Mary would be taken to Quebec and tracked her down when he arrived there.

[6] In 1791, McLellan and Asa Clapp were witnesses to the massacre of the white population of Haiti at the outset of the Haitian Revolution.