William Pepperrell migrated from Devon, England to Massachusetts Bay.
Birth
There are varying sources as to the area of Devon that William Pepperrell originated from but the sources agree that he was born between 1646 and 1648 in either:
and was baptised in the Parish of Yealmpton, Devon, England on 5 September 1648[4] in, possibly, the church of St Peter the Poor Fisherman[5], Stoke Bay, near Revelstoke, Devon, England. Only the ivy-covered shell of the tiny church remains now[3] south of Yealmpton on the Devon coast.
He was the son of Andrew Pepperrell and Joan Blackaller who both died while their children were still young, William was only eleven.[3] William eventually went to sea as a fisherman arriving at the Isle of Shoals and the coast of Maine in around 1676. He went into business with a Mr Gibbons curing fish at the Isle of Shoals, dissolving the partnership after a few years and moved to Kittery Point in the Province of Maine.[2]
Marriage
William married Margery Bray in 1680 in Kittery, York, Maine.[3] They had eight children together:
According to Find A Grave William died in Kittery Point, York County, Maine, on February 15, 1733[6] and was buried in the Pepperrell Family Plot in Kittery Point. However this does not reconcile with the date of the Last Will and Testament (see below). Biographers of his life seem to agree on a year of 1734
January 15, 1734 - Howard, Cecil Hampden Cutts. The Pepperrells in America.[7]
1734 - PARSONS, Usher. The Life of Sir W. Pepperrell, Bart.,[8]
The Last Will and Testament dated July 19, 1733 was Probated March 6, 1734. : Maine Wills, 1640-1760 (Portland, Me., 1887), p. 342, citing Probate Office, 4, 177.[9]
Research Notes
For the elder William Pepperrell, the most valuable documentary sources are the:
Pepperrell papers of the Maine Hist. Soc. (Portland, Me.)
the New England Historic Genealogical Society (Boston, Mass.)
the Kittery town records, Maine, Books I–II.
For published sources, see:
Province and court records of Maine, IV, and York county, Me., Register of deeds, ed. H. W. Richardson et al. (18v. in progress, Portland, 1887– ), III, IV. See also, PRO, CSP, Col., 1681–85
Savage, James. Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England. Vol. 3. Boston, 1860.
Genealogical dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, ed. Sybil Noyes et al. (Portland, Me., 1928–39)
Scales, John. Piscataqua Pioneers: Register of Members and Ancestors, 1623-1775. Salt Lake City, UT: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1973. Link
Quinby, Henry Cole. New England Family History: July 1st, 1908 (Classic Reprint). Place of publication not identified: FORGOTTEN Books, 2016.
Howard, Cecil Hampden Cutts. The Pepperrells in America. Salt Lake City, UT: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1986.
Fairchild, Byron. Messrs. William Pepperrell Merchants at Piscataqua. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Pr., 1954.
Parsons, Usher. The Life of Sir William Pepperrell: the Only Native of New England Who Was Created a Baronet during Our Connection with the Mother Country. Boston: Little, Brown and company, 1856.
Byron Fairchild, “PEPPERRELL, WILLIAM,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 2, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed December 2, 2019, Link.
Chase, George Bigelow. A Genealogical Memoir of the Chase Family of Chesham, Bucks, in England and of Hampton and Newbury in New England, Etc. H.W. Dutton & Son: Boston, 1869.
Research Notes
With regard to the discrepancy between the year of death on this Profile and the date of death on William's FindaGrave Memorial, I suggested an edit to FindaGrave, and received the following message from Eric McGuire, on 24 Jan 2020:
"William Pepperrell (39641914)
I strongly suspect the difference in death dates is the confusing work of the transitioning between the older Julian calendar and the newer Gregorian calendar. This switch has had me baffled for a good number of years even though I understand the reason behind it. Dates that fall within the first couple of months of a year when the transition occurred are often given both years in some cases. For instance, if one looks at the end of Pepperells will/probate records, it states. . . "Probated 6 March 1733-34". Both years are given.
"Since FindaGrave is designed to document what is actually chiseled on grave stones, I would prefer to leave the death date as 1733, but note that confusion has arisen because of the Julian/Gregorian calendar conflict. If one looks at Ancestry.com, it is clear that researchers are using both dates for Pepperrell's death, and not even noting this calendar conundrum. Sometimes stone masons would note "OS" or "NS" for Old System and New System. Other times they would incise double dates. Needless to say, the whole thing is quite confusing."
As far as I'm concerned, it is unlikely that this discrepancy will ever be resolved.Vaughan-3997 16:35, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Sources
↑ Scales, John. Piscataqua Pioneers: Register of Members and Ancestors, 1623-1775, page 156. Salt Lake City, UT: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1973. https://archive.org/search.php?query=external-identifier:"urn:oclc:record:1050781049".
↑ 2.02.1 Howard, Cecil Hampden Cutts. The Pepperrells in America. Salt Lake City, UT: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1986.
↑ "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N568-CYN : 11 February 2018, William Pipperell, 05 Sep 1648); citing , index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 917,560.
↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Church of St Peter the Poor Fisherman, Revelstoke," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Link (accessed December 2, 2019).
↑ Find A Grave, database and images (accessed December 11, 2019), memorial page for Col William Pepperrell (1646–15 Feb 1733), Find A Grave: Memorial #39641914, citing Pepperrell Family Plot, Kittery Point, York County, Maine, USA ; Maintained by Eric McGuire (contributor 46925829) .
↑ Howard, Cecil Hampden Cutts. The Pepperrells in America. Salem, Mass: Essex Institute, 1906. Original from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, digitized September 18, 2007. Page 3.
↑ PARSONS, Usher. The Life of Sir W. Pepperrell, Bart., the Only Native of New England Who Was Created a Baronet during Our Connection with the Mother Country. 3rd ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1856. Original from Harvard University, digitized on November 16, 2005. Chapter 1, page 1.
Thank you to Sue Fitzpatrick for creating WikiTree profile Pepperrell-3 through the import of fitzmaster032511.ged on 27 March 2011.
Thank you to William Vaughan who originally adopted this profile 5 November 2019.
Click to the Changes page for the details of edits by Phil Pepperrell and others.
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I have a book, Pepperrell Posterity by Virginia Browne-Wilkinson, that states that ".. it is likely, though not certain, that the first William was born in 1648. Certainly the place of his birth was Revelstoke, a fishing village near Plymouth. No trace of the village remains except ... the shell of the church where he was christened, and where his parents Andrew and Joan had signed the marriage register with a mark. It is called the church of St Peter the Poor Fisherman." The church can be found on Wikipedia.
I have a registered Pepperrell/Pepperell one-name study registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies and am planning to setup a study space on WikiTree soon. Any collaboration would be most welcome.
Pepperell-7 and Pepperrell-19 appear to represent the same person because: Pepperrell-19's years of birth and death are vague guesses. The only other significant data on his profile is that he had a son named William Pepperell. This is probably Pepperell-7. I apologize for creating another Profile for him.
William Pepperrell was an English settler of Welsh descent who began his career as a fisherman's apprentice and married in 1680 Margery Bray, daughter of a well-to-do Kittery merchant. Wm became a shipbuilder and fishing boat owner in business in Kittery, Maine. It became one of the most prosperous mercantile houses in New England with ships carrying lumber, fish and other products to the West Indies and Europe. The Pepperrells sank their profits into land, and soon they controlled immense tracts. They made made many gifts to the First Congregational Church at Kittery Point, ME, the oldest church in Maine.
Parents Andrew Pepperell and Joan Uln. (lost my reference)
-partially from Wikipedia's notes on son Sir William Pepperell.
(I've forgotten how to add this into the bio.) Cheers
Mar
I have a registered Pepperrell/Pepperell one-name study registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies and am planning to setup a study space on WikiTree soon. Any collaboration would be most welcome.
BY subscription https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/9069/images/007703709_00289?usePUB=true&_phsrc=eiB880&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=8089378
Parents Andrew Pepperell and Joan Uln. (lost my reference)
-partially from Wikipedia's notes on son Sir William Pepperell.
(I've forgotten how to add this into the bio.) Cheers Mar