Interview with Heyward C. Bellamy, April 5, 2005 | UNCW Archives and Special Collections Online Database. Randall Library Special Collections. http://randall3.uncw.edu/ascod/?p=digitallibrary/digitalcontent&id=214

Heyward Bellamy: I was born in Conway, South Carolina. People think I'm a native because Bellamy's been an old name in Wilmington since a member of the same family came here in 1838, but I didn't make it until 1935. My folks has been in Horry County since the…practically the early days of settlement. I have the Bellamy land grant, the first one, dated 1765. They finally put it on record in 78 and covers three hundred acres on Buck Creek off Waccamaw River.

My Bellamy ancestor, Abraham was with Marion. He was one of Marion's lieutenants during the revolution.

Heyward Bellamy: And the…the early 1800's when Florida was open for settlement, my great-great-great-great-grandfather Abraham, ah, moved down there, so I'm kin to all of those Bellamys. And left his son William in Horry with the holdings there, and that was…is my tie back to the Bellamys. John, who came here, was the…the…in the family of the third brother John…John, Abraham, and Richard. And he came to Wilmington in 1838. Ah, they…they were prosperous by the standards of the day…the agricultural standards, and they were…they were land rich. Ah, that's mainly what they…they owned. They didn't build imposing mansions on the…the plantations. The one that I remember that my Bellamy ancestor built in 1775 was a…just a plain farmhouse. I should have gotten the picture I have of it out. It's torn down now. A cousin, I found out, who was also incidentally a superintendent of schools in South Carolina at King Street…he came to see me when he retired and told me he had torn down the house and used the timbers to build his retirement home at…at Lake Marion. So I told him that the next Bellamy reunion we were gonna put a contract on him. But he did save the…the timbers and the…the wood. And its still in the old house. But the houses, they…they…you could tell they didn't value that kind of material thing. The amassed a lot of land, owned slaves, ah, raised cotton, rice, tobacco, and apparently from what the old timers have told me, in the early days raised some indigo. Cause they'd point out the…the indigo bushes still growing wild in the…the forest down there.

Repository: UNCW Archives and Special Collections Online Database Found in: Randall Library Oral History Collection, 1990 - Present Series 2: Southeast North Carolina (SENC) Sub-Series 2.3: Notables Item 7: Interview with Heyward C. Bellamy, April 5, 2005

Abraham Bellamy