William Duckenfield was an English nobleman who arrived in North Carolina from Cheshire by June 1683. He originally settled on Little River in Perquimans Precinct, where he served on the North Carolina Council and in the colonial assembly. By 1699 he moved to a plantation on Salmon Creek in present-day Bertie County and later served as a justice on the Chowan Precinct Court. He died in North Carolina by February 1722.