Daniel Akehurst was born in England in about 1653. A Quaker, he arrived in North Carolina by the 1680s, when he became a member of the North Carolina Council as a deputy for proprietor John Archdale. In addition to handling Archdale's affairs in the colony, he also served at various times as a customs collector for Pasquotank, as a justice of the North Carolina General Court, and as a diplomat charged with investigating and settling disputes with the colony of Virginia over the boundary, as well as treating with various American Indian nations. He died in Virginia in about December 1699.