Ezekiel Beasley was a resident of Craven County, North Carolina sometime after 1745. After is father's death in about 1759, Ezekiel inherited the family's plantation on Rattlesnake Creek. He served in the North Carolina militia during the War of Regulation and was killed during the Battle of Alamance on 16 May 1771. His mother, Fearnaught Beasley, successfully petitioned the North Carolina Colonial Assembly for a widow's pension following his death, claiming that she was too "old and infirm" to support herself without him.