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]