Capt. William McLellan Sr. (ca. 1735-1815) was the son of an ambitious immigrant and jack-of-all-trades.
During the Revolutionary War, McLellan was owner and master of the sloop Centurian, one of the ships destroyed by the British during the Penobscot expedition in 1779. After the war, he was a leading merchant in town.
John Brewster Jr., the son of a Connecticut physician, painted the portrait. He was born deaf.
He trained as a painter and traveled the New England coast as an itinerate artist between 1796 and 1833.
Brewster advertised locally in 1805, 1806, and 1821. He eventually settled in Buxton.
