Whitfield family of the United States

The family is most connected to the U.S. State of North Carolina, but had extended land ownership, slave trade, business activities and public service to Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Florida.

[3] Born in Lancashire, England, patriarch William Whitfield I moved to Nansemond County, Virginia.

The former was a clerk to Colonel Richard Caswell and the other a private in the Light Horse Cavalry, taking prisoner General McDonald, who was the Commander of the Tories.

[6] Whitfield II was a Dobbs County member to the 1761 and 1762 North Carolina General Assembly held in Wilmington.

In 1779 he was a member of Governor Richard Caswell's Council held in New Berne, and a Justice of Peace for Johnston County, North Carolina.

Gaineswood, which still stands today, was the most significant remaining examples of Greek Revival architecture in Alabama.

Whitfield is known to have designed most of the house from pattern books by James Stuart, Minard Lafever, Nicholas Revett and others.

When Gaines was serving as the US Indian Agent, he is said to have met with the famous chief Pushmataha, of the Choctaw Nation, under an old post oak tree on what would become the Gaineswood estate.