Submitted by Descendant: Harriet Holmes RAFFO
William Bellamy was born in South Carolina in 1802 and settled in the Jacksonville (Cowford)-St. Augustine area with his parents. After a couple of years his father and mother along with the children moved to Leon County and then to Jefferson County. The land and traditions of middle Florida resembled the familiar lands of South Carolina and Virginia. He married Emmala (Emily) Simkins of Edgefield, S. C. in 1835 and they had four daughters: Elizabeth, Margaret, Emmala, and William.
In 1845, William Bellamy was listed as a registered voter of Florida in Jefferson County. William Bellamy was a planter and inherited his father’s wealth. The Bellamy family contracted to build the first road between St. Augustine and Tallahassee. In William Bellamy’s obituary it states:
“In the death of Mr. Bellamy, not only his wife and family, but the whole community has sustained an irreparable loss. In all the relations of life, he was able, distinguished for his goodness at heart and propriety of conduct. As a husband he was tender and affectionate, as a father, fond and devoted, as a man and citizen, he was honest, upright, useful, and attentive to business. And being a man of few words and retiring in his manner, it was in the walks of private life that his virtues excelled. His means ample, his hand and purse were always extended and open to a friend in need and adversity.”
William Bellamy was first established as a Florida Pioneer in 2001