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.