William H. Duckett
(1870? - ?) U.S.A.
Helper
Bill Duckett, a teenage boy who boarded briefly with Walt Whitman and his housekeeper Mrs. Davis, were together from 1884 to 1889. Duckett often accompanied Whitman on his drives. Duckett sometimes served as driver for Whitman's phaeton - a gift from his prominent friends, which he received in September 1885 and kept until September 1888. As a carriage driver and companion, he held a role in some ways similar to Peter Doyle and Fred Vaughan. Yet it is doubtful that Duckett meant anything like what Doyle or Vaughan meant to Whitman.
 Although Whiman supposedly quit teaching because of his dislikes of the job, there were other rumors. These rumors suggested that Whitman had sodomized a student and was fired from his teaching job.
There is some evidence that he lived with a student of his, Bill Duckett, for years without anyone knowing it. This, of couse, was more proven than the incident that supposedly got him fired from his school teaching job. There are in fact pictures of Whitman and his young lover Bill together out in public. Even no one knew for sure, it was obvious that something was going on between Whitman and Bill.
Duckett was a friend, driver, and helper for Whitman and traveled with Whitman extensively around this time, escorting Whitman on stage for his Lincoln lecture in New York in 1887, for example.  There later were troubles with Duckett, but Whitman recalled in 1889 that "he was often with me; we went to Gloucester together; one trip was to New York: ... then to Sea Isle City once; I stayed there at the hotel two or three days - so on; we were quite thick then: thick: when I had money it was as freely Bill's as my own; I paid him well for all he did for me. ... I liked Bill; he had good points; is bright - very bright."
Charley Shively has identified Bill Duckett as one of Whitman's lover. Whitman was photographed with the youth in one of those noteworthy pictures (akin to "wedding poses") in which he appears with various younger men - Doyle, Stafford, and Duckett himself - creating an iconography for relationships based on calamus friendship. This tintype, with Bill Duckett, has been dated by early biographer Thomas Donaldson as October 1886 and attributed by Donald Edge to Lorenzo F. Fisler, a Camden photographer at Fisler & Gaubert on Federal Street.
Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), Male nude, ca. 1889 (the sitter might be Bill Duckett)
Eventually, the friendship with Duckett soured. Mrs. Davis, Whitman's housekeeper, took Duckett to court for nonpayment of his boarding bill, though the young man claimed he owed nothing since the poet invited him into his house.
The nude pictures are by : Thomas Eakins (1844-1916)
The picture of Walt Whitman and Bill Duckett 1886, is from Ohio Wesleyan University, Bayley Collection.
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