He is widely remembered for organizing, financing, and leading the 1745 expedition that captured the French fortress of Louisbourg during King George's War.

[1] William Pepperrell was born in Kittery, Maine, then a part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and lived there all his life.

He was the son of William Pepperrell, a Massachusetts settler of Welsh descent, and Margery Bray, the daughter of a well-to-do Kittery merchant.

William Pepperrell senior had begun his career as a fisherman's apprentice but was by that time a shipbuilder and fishing boat owner.

He expanded their enterprise to become one of the most prosperous mercantile houses in New England with ships carrying lumber, fish and other products to the West Indies and Europe.

When they sailed in April 1745, he was commander-in-chief, supported by a Royal Navy] naval squadron under Captain Peter Warren, appointed Commodore on a temporary basis.

[citation needed] In 1746 Pepperell was made a baronet for his exploits, the first and only American to hold the title, and given a colonel's commission in the British Army to raise his own regiment.

[citation needed] In 1755, during the French and Indian War, he was made a Major General responsible for the defence of the Maine and New Hampshire frontier.

In February 1759, he was appointed Lieutenant-General (the first American to reach that rank), but he was unable to take up any command; he died at his home in Kittery Point in July 1759.