John Dillard Bellamy III (1817 - 1896)

Born 18 Sep 1817 in Little River, Horry, South Carolina, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Eliza McIlhenny (Harriss) Bellamy — married 12 Jun 1839 in Wilmington, New Hanover, North Carolina, United States

Descendants

Died 30 Aug 1896 at age 78 in Wilmington, New Hanover, North Carolina, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Jane Naus [send private message]

Biography

John was born in 1817 to John Bellamy and Elizabeth Vaught.
'John Dillard Bellamy, M.D. married Eliza McIlhenny Harriss in Wilmington on June 12, 1839. Over the next twenty-two years Dr. and Mrs. Bellamy welcomed ten children to their family as John evolved from a town physician to a successful merchant, prominent planter, and one of the largest slaveholders in the state of North Carolina.' ^[1]

'The myriad business ventures required a vast number of workers---enslaved workers in this case---and by 1860 Dr. Bellamy owned 115 enslaved men, women, and children in three North Carolina counties. At "Grovely," 82 enslaved workers lived and toiled raising livestock and foodstuffs. At "Grist", (Columbus County), John kept 26 enslaved men between the ages of 18 and 40 as the tar and turpentine industry involved back-breaking work. At their Wilmington townhome, the Bellamys kept approximately nine domestic enslaved workers on a permanent basis.'^[1]

He passed away in 1896 and is buried in the Oakdale Cemetery in Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina.

Name

John Dillard /Bellamy/^{[2][3] [4] [5] [6] [7]}

Birth

18 SEP 1817, Little River, Horry County, South Carolina, US^[4]

Marriage

John Dillard Bellamy married Eliza McIlhenny Harriss 12 JUN 1839, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US^[8]

DEG

Medical Degree, 1839, University of Pennsylvania Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, US ^[5] Title: Dr.

Occupation

Physician - Partner with Dr. William James Harriss, AFT 1839, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US ^[5]

Physician, 1850, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US ^[5]

Member - Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, Board of Directors, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US ^[5]

Planter, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US ^[5]

Farmer, 1880, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US ^[7]

Residence

1850, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US ^[6][9]

1860 - Plantation: Grovely,^[1] Town Creek, Brunswick, North Carolina^[10][11]

1870, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US^[12]

1880, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US^[7]

Death

30 AUG 1896, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US^[3]

Burial

Oakdale Cemetery, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, US^[3][13]

Event

Event: VI

Type: Suffix ^[5]

Notes

From Modern Recipes From Historic Wilmington, Edited by Ann Hertzler & Merle Chamberlain, Lower Cape Fear Historical Society, Wilmington NC, November 2009:

BELLAMY MANSION

1859-1861

503 Market Street

Wilmington builder/architect James F Post designed this frame house, combining elements of Greek Revival, Italianate, and Classical Revival styles, for physician and landowner, Dr. John Dillard Bellamy. The Bellamy family moved to Robeson County during the Civil War and the house served as headquarters of General Joseph Hawley after the fall of Wilmington. The Bellamys reclaimed the mansion in the late summer of 1865. Daughter Ellen Douglas Bellamy lived in the house until her death in 1946. [2]

From DR. JOHN D. BELLAMY FAMILY PAPERS (on file at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) 1778 - 1865

John Dillard Bellamy, prominent physician, wealthy planter and slave owner, was born 18 Sep 1817 in All Saints Parish SC. He was the son of John and Elizabeth Bellamy, prosperous planters. The Bellamy family came to Charleston from Barbados in 1665. After moving to Wilmington in 1835, John Dillard took up the study of medicine under Dr. William J [James] Harriss. He received his medical degree from Jefferson College of the University of Pennsylvania (with honors) in 1839. Upon graduation, Bellamy returned to Wilmington and went into practice with Dr. Harriss. Bellamy married Dr. Harriss' daughter, Eliza McIlhenny Harriss that same year. Dr. Bellamy was very active in Wilmington business circles serving as a director in banks, and also as a director in the booming Wilmington and Weldon Railroad. Bellamy followed the family tradition and never held public office.

From Bellamy Mansion Notes (Wilmington, NC):

Bellamy Mansion Museum, Wilmington [New Hanover County] NC

Bellamy Mansion Museum is one of North Carolina's most spectacular examples of antebellum architecture, built by enslaved and free black artisans, for John Dillard Bellamy (1817-1896) physician, planter and business leader; and his wife, Eliza McIlhenny Harriss (1821-1907). After the fall of Fort Fisher in 1865, Federal troops commandeered the house as their headquarters during the occupation of Wilmington. For the next 80 years, the Bellamy Mansion was the family residence until transferred to the non-profit Bellamy Mansion, Inc. In 1993, the Bellamy Mansion Museum of History and Design Arts opened as a stewardship property of Preservation North Carolina. Now as a museum, it is dedicated to interpreting the social and architectural history of the Bellamy Mansion and promoting a greater understanding of historic preservation, architectural history, landscape architecture and construction/restoration methods in North Carolina.

From Descendants of Mathias VAUGHT:

Recorded in the courthouse of Conway, [Horry County SC] is an agreement drawn between [Dr.] John Dillard Bellamy [VI] and Henry C Williams that John Dillard Bellamy agreed to pay Henry C Williams fifty dollars on signing the agreement, fifty dollars on their arrival at Augusta [Augusta-Richmond County] GA at which time he would supply said Henry C Williams with a train ticket to Macon [Bibb County] GA and fifty dollars for three months thereafter, if the said Henry C Williams would agree to stay out of the State of South Carolina and away from Elizabeth Vaught Bellamy Williams. Reason given was: Because of the worry and heartache you have caused my mother.

Contributed by Douglas Hester 3-6-99.

BELLAMEE FAMILY

Even before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, religious persecution of the French Protestants (Huguenots) became unbearable for many. They were brutally treated, imprisoned or killed because of their religious beliefs. Many fled to escape this persecution.

I Jean de Bellami (ca 1625)

II His son Jean Bellami (2) (1650)

III His son John Bellamee (3) (1675)

Because of the time factor, there was probably another John born about 1695.

IV His son John Bellamy (4) (1720)

V His son John Bellamy (5) (12 Apr 1750 -d Feb 1826)

VI John Dillard (18 Sep 1817) married Eliza McIlhenny Harris [Harriss]. Their children were Mary Elizabeth, Marsden, William James Harris [Harriss], Eliza, Ellen, John Dillard (7), George, Chesley Calhoun and Robert Rankin.

BELLAMY FAMILY NOTES

The Bellami [Bellamy] family is from Sommersetshire [now Somerset County] England. Even before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes religious persecution of the French Protestants (Huguenots) became unbearable for many. They were brutally treated, imprisoned or killed because of their religious beliefs. Many fled to escape this persecution.

JOHN I (ca 1625) Jean de Belami [de Bellami]

JOHN 2 (ca 1650) Jean Belami [Jean Bellami]

JOHN 3 (ca 1675) John Bellamie [Bellamee]

Because of the time factor there was probably a John born 1690-1700 but no record has been found yet.

JOHN 4 (1720)

JOHN 5 (1750)

JOHN 6 Dr. John Dillard married Eliza McIlhenny Harris [Harriss]. They had 9 children. John Dillard Bellamy was a Physician and Senator of Wilmington [New Hanover County] NC.

From Emily's Family Research Family Tree:

Medical Doctor

"John D Bellamy was born and reared in Little River Neck, moved to Wilmington, [New Hanover County] NC and read medicine in the office of Dr. William James Harris [Harriss], as was customary in those days for students who intended to go to medical college for their degrees. In 1839, he was graduated with honors from Jefferson Medical College of the University of Pennsylvania and returned to Wilmington to begin the practice of this profession.

Dr. Bellamy and his family resided in the former home of Governor Benjamin Smith from 1846 until they built their new home, a beautiful mansion that has been featured on television in modern times, at Fifth and Market Streets in Wilmington, in 1859.

Dr. Bellamy married 12 Jun 1839 Eliza McIlhenny Harris [Harriss] (6 Aug 1821 - 18 Oct 1907) daughter of Dr. William J. Harris [Harriss] and his wife, Mary Priscilla Jennings.

From www.digital.lib.ecu.edu.com, Eastern North Carolina Digital Library

Pictorial and Historical

NEW HANOVER COUNTY and WILMINGTON NORTH CAROLINA

1723-1938

Edited, Compiled and Published by

WILLIAM LORD DEROSSET Wilmington, N. C. 1938

pp32-33

DR. JOHN DILLARD BELLAMY

AN outstanding citizen of Wilmington in the early nineteenth century was Dr. John D. Bellamy. He was a native of South Carolina, born in All Saints Parish on the 18th of September, 1817, and died in Wilmington the 31st of August, 1896. He was of Huguenotish descent, a lineal descendant of John Bellamy, who was one of the party of adventurers headed by Sir John Yeamans, and named in the grant of 1665 giving to them lands in the Province of Carolina. The Colony first settled on the Cape Fear River at the mouth of Town Creek, which they called Charlestown, after King Charles, but the colony found the hostility of the Indians so great, and the location, by reason of malaria, so unhealthy, they abandoned the site and sought another location further south, between the Ashley and Cooper rivers, and there settled about 1671, the South Carolina settlement assuming the old name of Charlestown, which it first took at the Cape Fear.

John Bellamy's plantation was above Charleston, in St. John's Parish, the location being given on a map of one of the old Charleston year books. His descendants gradually migrated to the Town of Charleston, thence upwards along the Santee River, near Georgetown, in Georgetown, and finally Horry County.

Dr. Bellamy was educated at the old Marion Academy, the South Carolina College and University of Pennsylvania. Being an only surviving child, he inherited great wealth in slaves and real property, and took with him his slave property to Wilmington, to which place he emigrated in 1835. He there married Eliza McIlhenny Harriss, a daughter of Dr. William James Harriss, a very prominent physician, who was Mayor of Wilmington when he died, a few years after Dr. Bellamy married his daughter. Having large plantations still in South Carolina, in Brunswick County, on Town Creek, and in Columbus County, at Grists, now called Chadbourn, where he conducted a very successful turpentine business, from which alone he received an enormous income annually. He always cherished great affection for his native State. He was a secession democrat of the John C. Calhoun school. For many years, nearly twenty, prior to the Civil War he was head and chairman of the Democratic organization of this section, and he always said he never sought office and always declined it when pressed by his associates to accept it, declaring that a private post was the post of honor. So intense was he a South Carolina secession democrat that when South Carolina passed her ordinance of secession, a few days prior to Christmas in 1861, Dr. Bellamy at his own expense purchased all the tar barrels procurable in Wilmington, and had and headed a great torchlight procession celebrating the event, and carried by his side his son, by the same name, to instill in him the principles of secession. When the War Between the States broke out he was easily the wealthiest man in the Wilmington section, having about one thousand slaves distributed on his three plantations respectively, in South Carolina, Brunswick County and Columbus County, North Carolina, and so great was his affection for the Confederate cause that he volunteered to the Government the use of all his able bodied male slaves to assist in throwing up the great sand fortifications at Fort Fisher, where they worked for a considerable period until the work was accomplished, and he furnished two sons to the Confederate cause in Virginia.

At the outbreak of the war Dr. Bellamy was a director in the old Bank of Cape Fear, one of the principal builders of the Wilmington & Manchester Railroad, which ran into his native State, a director in that road, the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad, and one of its largest, if not its largest stockholder, and the North Carolina Railroad, extending from Goldsboro to Salisbury.

For his advocacy of secession and the cause of the South, when the war terminated, as a penalty for his course the Federal Government seized his handsome residence, on the corner of Fifth and Market Streets, which was converted into and occupied as headquarters for the Federal Generals occupying Wilmington, Generals Porter, Terry, Colfax and Hawley. They seized all his plantations and real property, from which he was ejected and to which he was never restored until after he received a pardon from President Johnson, restoring him to his civil rights, who exacted as one of the conditions of the pardon that he should never own another slave and that he should make a bill of sale to the United States Government for all of his slaves by name, which he could recall, and all others whose names he could not recall, which bill of sale is still on file in the State Department at Washington.

Dr. Bellamy practiced medicine for a number of years, but his business interests became so large and extensive that he had to abandon his practice. He died at about the age of eighty years, and was survived by his widow and eight children, five sons and three daughters. His sons were all prominent in their professions; Marsden Bellamy, a lawyer; Dr. William J. H. Bellamy, a physician; John D. Bellamy, Jr., lawyer and business man, a member of the North Carolina senate and a member of the 56th and 57th Congress of the United States; George H. Bellamy, a prominent farmer and member of the house and senate from Brunswick County and United States Marshal appointed by President Wilson; and Robert R. Bellamy, a successful pharmacist; Mary E. Bellamy, who married William J. Duffie, of Columbia, S. C., and Misses Eliza Bellamy and Ellen D. Bellamy.

It was said of Dr. Bellamy that he was one of the most modest, honorable and conscientious men that resided in the Wilmington section. He was a Christian gentleman, and one of the founders of the Front Street Methodist Church.

This magnificent mansion was built in the early 1850's by Dr. Bellamy and occupied by his large and cultured family, and is now Wilmington's outstanding attraction to visitors. Its beautiful and harmonious lines, its massive columns and dignified architecture invariably create comments of admiration.

Upon the capture of Wilmington in 1865 it was seized and made the headquarters of the military commander, General Joseph R. Hawley, who became Provost Marshal General of the Wilmington district.

Slaves

John & his brother Marsden were left the following enslaved people of Horry county, South Carolina in their father's 1824 Will:

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} The Bellamy Mansion Museum [1]
2. ↑ Source: #S466 Data: Text: 5 OCT 2003
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} Author: Craig Smith, craigsmith@@sc.rr.com Title: Family Tree, FamilyTies Database Repository: #R624 5 OCT 2003
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Author: Joann Fairbourn, lfairb@@aol.com Title: Family Tree, Carroll Family Repository
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6} S626 Historical Services, Legislative Resource Center, 202-226-5200 Title: Biographical Information, John Dillard Bellamy #R625
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M4BD-YWT : 24 December 2020), J D Bellamy, Wilmington, New Hanover, North Carolina, United States; citing family , NARA microfilm publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1 7.2} Year: 1880; Census Place: Wilmington, New Hanover, North Carolina; Roll: 974; Family History Film: 1254974; Page: 100D; Enumeration District: 144; Image: 0437. Data: Text: Record for Jno. D. BellamyFree Image
8. ↑ Source: #S466 Data: Text: 5 OCT 2003
9. ↑ "United States Census (Slave Schedule), 1850 ", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:HRW7-TR3Z : 23 February 2021), J D Bellamy in entry for MM9.1.1/MVC5-L9N:, 1850.
10. ↑ "United States Census, 1860," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9BSD-41X?cc=1473181&wc=7QSN-D5Q%3A1589432691%2C1589432819%2C1589432823 : 24 March 2017), North Carolina > Brunswick > Town Creek District > image 20 of 20; from "1860 U.S. Federal Census - Population," citing NARA microfilm publication M653 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
11. ↑ "United States Census (Slave Schedule), 1860", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:WK55-GF3Z : 16 October 2019), J D Bellamy, 1860.
12. ↑ "United States Census, 1870", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MW8G-GQW : 29 May 2021), roll 1151, page 340, image 388. , J D Bellamy, 1870
13. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 18 July 2021), memorial page for Dr John Dillard Bellamy VI (18 Sep 1817–30 Aug 1896), Find A Grave: Memorial #34674074, citing Oakdale Cemetery, Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina, USA ; Maintained by John Evans (contributor 47071981) .
14. ↑ 1824 Will. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9PY-47BK

• Source: Author: Ancestry.com Title: 1870 United States Federal Census Publication: Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2003; Repository: #R2227 NOTE1870
• Repository: R2227 Name: HR-1005-BGR Address: www.ancestry.com
• 1880 United States Federal Census Publication: Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2005; Repository: #R2227 NOTEUnited States of America, Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1880
• Source: "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M4BD-YWT : 24 December 2020), J D Bellamy, Wilmington, New Hanover, North Carolina, United States; citing family , NARA microfilm publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
• Source: S466 Author: Stephanie Murray, stephm14@@carolina.rr.com Title: Family Tree, Thompson, Bellamy, Johnson Repository: #R465 NOTESource Medium: Internet CONT
• Repository: R465 Name: HR-1002-FTR Address: www.rootsweb.com E-Mail Address: Phone Number:
• Source: S621 Author: Joann Fairbourn, lfairb@@aol.com Title: Family Tree, Carroll Family Repository: #R620
• Repository: R620 Name: HR-1036-FTR Address: www.ancestry.com
• Source: Author: Craig Smith, craigsmith@@sc.rr.com Title: Family Tree, FamilyTies Database Repository: #R624
• Repository: R624 Name: HR-1040-FTR Address: www.ancestry.com E-Mail Address: Phone Number:
• Source: Author: Historical Services, Legislative Resource Center, 202-226-5200 Title: Biographical Information, John Dillard Bellamy Repository: #R625
• Repository: R625 Name: HR-1041-BGR Address: www.ancestry.com

Acknowledgements

• Bellamy-836 was created by Jane Naus through the import of Harriss-Naus-Cotton-Haefele-Ancestors-Descendants_2014-12-22.ged on Dec 22, 2014.