This ancient family of South Carolina is descended from the Bellinghams of Bellingham, in Northumberland, in the days of William the Conqueror, and the Bellingers have kept their identity separate and distinct since 1475, when Walter Bellinger was created Ireland King at Arms and granted the following coats-of-arms, "Argent, a Saltire en grailed sable, entre four roses, Gules, of [sic].

The Bellinger family played a prominent role in 17th and 18th century South Carolina.  Edmund Bellinger, Sr., was a landgrave and this hereditary title was passed down several generations within his family. Landgraves were given their titles and baronies from the Lords Proprietors; the baronies themselves were 12,000 acres in size.

Captain Sir Edmund Bellinger, of Westmoreland County, England, arrived in the Colony of Carolina and settled upon James Island in 1674.  He commanded the ship Blake, in August 16, 1697, and was appointed Surveyor General for the two Carolinas, April 1, 1698, and created Landgrave May 7th, 1698.  He was also appointed Receiver of Land Rents August 14, 1700. He married about 1680, Sarah Cartwright, in England, and had the following children: [Thomas, Margaret, Edmund, John, Elizabeth, William, Lucia, and Ann]
   
 Edmund Bellinger was the First Landgrave of Tomotley and Ashepoo Baronies in South Carolina, which were established in 1698.

Of the four Baronies originally granted to Capt. Edmund Bellinger, one of 13,000 acres in St. Helena's Parish, Granville County (later in Prince William's Parish, Beaufort District), known as Tomotely Barony, included the 50 acres on which Sheldon Church was built.  This church is located between the towns of Yemassee and Beaufort on the Old Sheldon Church Road.  Prince Williams Parish Church (Sheldon) was built between 1745 and 1755 on land (Poco Sabo Plantation) donated by Edmund Bellinger. The name Sheldon was used to honor the Bull Family who had a plantation nearby and their ancestral home in Warwickshire, England were called Sheldon Hall.

The other three baronies were in Colleton, Craven and Berkeley Counties.  The town of Edmundsbury, laid out in 1740 on the Ashepoo River, was on part of the grant in Colleton County.  All that now marks the site of the town are the graves of members of the Pinckney family and others which surrounded the church, built in 1753 as a Chapel of Ease for St. Bartholomew's Parish.  Even the ruins of the brick walls, which existed until fairly recent years (re: 1953), have been carried away for other purposes.

In addition to the plantations on the Ashepoo, there were Bellinger holdings on the Ashley River, in St. Andrew's Parish.  The second Landgrave acquired Stony Point plantation at Ashley Ferry in 1728, and this remained in the family until final division and sale in 1834.  The will of Edmund Bellinger, III, July 20, 1783, leaves "to my son, William 49 acres of land at Ashley Ferry, that the Brick House stood upon."

For information on these baronies, see Henry A. M. Smith's chapters "Ashepoo Barony, from Vol. XV (1914) 63-72" and "The Tomotley Barony, from Vol. XV (1914) 63-72"  in The Baronies of South Carolina: Articles From The South Carolina Historical (and Genealogical) Magazine (Spartanburg, SC: The Reprint Company, 1988).

Charles H. Lesser's South Carolina Begins[:] The Records of a Proprietary Colony, 1663-1721 (Columbia: South Carolina Department of Archives, 1995) 437 contains the following:

Edmund Bellinger, a ship's captain from Westmoreland County, England, had been attorney general in the colony. He became a landgrave a month after he was commissioned surveyor general in March 1698. Bellinger would also serve as collector of customs and receiver and exchequer.

According to these records Bellinger was commissioned as surveyor general on March 31, 1698 and served from 1698 until February 1703.

The following entry is from Agnes Leland Baldwin's First Settlers of South Carolina 1670-1700 (Easley, SC: Southern Historical Press, 1985), p. 20:

Bellinger, Edmund (Esquire, Landgrave, Captain, Commander, Lord Proprietors' Deputy)

Arrived before 7 March 1689. Bellinger was commander of the ship Blake. His official positions were Surveyor General, Deputy Judge of the Admiralty, member of Commons House of Assembly, Receiver General, and "Deputy Governor" in 1699. The following is from Joseph Gaston Bulloch's A History and Genealogy of the Families of Bellinger and De Veaux and Other Families (Savannah: The Morning News Print, 1895), pp. 6-7.

He was married to Elizabeth Cartwright.

Edmund Bellinger was also fictionalized in William Gilmore Simms' The Yemassee. A Romance of Carolina, New York: Harper, 1844.