NATHANIEL DUCKENFIELD


  • The son of Sir Robert Duckenfield 1st Baronet

  • He was the chief Beneficiary of his uncle William Duckenfield from Chowan Precinct, Bertie County, North Carolina.

  • William's brother, Sir Robert Duckenfield, was the first Duckenfield Baronet

  • Nathaniel's Will dated 1746 leaves all his property in Utkinton to his wife Margaret

  • Leaves his friend Joseph Collett to dispose of all his Plantations, Negroes and Estate in North Carolina
NATHANIEL DUCKENFIELD
the fifth Baronet

  • Became the fifth baronet 15th May 1768

  • Decided to visit his mother who was living on the North Carolina Estate

  • Also with the dual purpose of finding a rich American wife to help support the financial strain of the Baronetcy

  • He proposed to Hannah Johnstone, but was refused. She later married his best friend James Iredell

  • In 1772 decided he was not cut out for plantation life (he owned 3,600 acres) and went back to England and purchased a Cornet's Commission in the Queen's Dragoon Guards and married Katherine Warde

  • When the Revolutionary War started he contrived to be left behind, but it did him no good, his lands were confiscated anyway

  • Not before he had managed to deed all his slaves to his mother before he left the colony

  • His land had been valued at £8,762. Later the London Claims Commission awarded him £3,000 for his losses

  • The money realised from the sale of the lands at Avoca was used to build the University of North Carolina

  • Avoca then passed into the Capehart Family for 150 years

  • The Wikipedia entry for Bertie county barely mentions the DUCKENFIELDS - lost in the mists of time.

  • I have a lovely description of AVOCA taken from a Southern Gentleman's Estate [the New England Magazine Volume 15, Issue 6 February 1894]

    Sources:

    biography of Nathaniel Dukinfield Fifth Baronet in the US Genweb Archives - Thomas Duckenfield

    Nathaniel Duckenfield's Will 1756

    A Southern Gentleman's Estate [New England Magazine. / Volume 15, Issue 6, February 1894]



Slavery / Early Slavery / New Haven / William Duckenfield / Nathaniel Duckenfield / John Duckenfield / Robert Duckenfield / Dukinfield Now /