Mrs. James S. Bell, the donor of this Boston chair, was a descendant of Sir William Pepperell. Born in 1696 in Kittery Point, Maine, then a part of Massachusetts, Sir William was a successful merchant. In 1727, he was elected one of King George III's council for Massachusetts, and he also served as the commander of forces in the expedition against Louisburg in the French and Indian War. For his services in this campaign, William Pepperrell was made a baronet, one of a few New Englanders to be thus honored. A bill for this chair in the collection of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities indicates that upholsterer Thomas Baxter supplied ten walnut side chairs and two armchairs with "compass," or rounded, seats to William Pepperrell in 1739.