Career
He purchased Seven Springs, North Carolina from Buckskin Williams, the father of Benjamin Williams, the Governor of North Carolina. He was a son of William Whitfield I, the patriarch of the Whitfield family of the United States. James Whitfield (1791-1875), the 18th Governor of Mississippi, 1851-1852 was his grandnephew, while Henry L. Whitfield (1868 -1927), the 41st Governor of Mississippi, was his great-great-great grandson.
The former was a clerk to Colonel Caswell and the other a private in the Light Horse Cavalry, taking prisoner General McDonald, who was the Commander of the Tories.
William was a Dobbs County member to the 1761 and 1762 North Carolina General Assembly held in Wilmington. He was later a Colonel.