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The Legacy of Edmond Cussings Bellinger: Planter, Confederate, and the Quiet Echoes of a Divided South

By James Seidel | CC News Network | Crime & Cask Carolina

BARNWELL, S.C. — Hidden behind the moss-draped trees and decaying outbuildings of what was once a thriving Lowcountry estate lies the complex legacy of Edmond Cussings Bellinger, a wealthy South Carolina planter, Confederate loyalist, and patriarch of a family name etched into both Southern aristocracy and the painful memory of American slavery.

Born the son of Joseph Bellinger and Lucia Georgiana Bellinger, Edmond belonged to one of the most prominent plantation families in Colleton and Barnwell Counties. He married Harriet Elizabeth Crider around 1837 and fathered two daughters, Mary Edmunda Bellinger and Margaret Gertrude Bellinger. But his legacy is far greater than any family tree might suggest—it lives on in the voices of those once bound to him in chains.

Through the Eyes of the Enslaved: The Harriett Gresham Testimony

In December 1936, the Federal Writers’ Project interviewed Harriett Gresham, a formerly enslaved woman born on Edmond Bellinger’s plantation in Barnwell, S.C. near the Ashepoo River, on December 6, 1838. Her vivid recollections, recorded in Jacksonville, Florida, offer an unfiltered glimpse into life behind the grandeur of the “big house.”

Harriett, the child of the plantation seamstress and a driver, lived in the house and played daily with the white children of the Bellinger family. “Honey, I ain’t know I was any different from de chillen o’ me mistress ’til atter de war,” she said, reflecting on the blurred childhood innocence that slavery eventually shattered.

She described Edmond Bellinger as strict, proud, and fiercely loyal to the Confederacy—a man who, despite showing kindness, “was very severe when his patience was tried too far.” His wife, Harriet Bellinger, was remembered with deep affection by her enslaved workers. She gave out sweets made from beeswax and handed down her dresses for plantation weddings and quilting bees.

Fictional Image of the Edmond Cussings Bellinger Plantation in Barnwell, SC

Life on the Bellinger Plantation

Bellinger’s estate was a self-contained economic machine. Enslaved workers cultivated cotton, rice, sugarcane, corn, fruits, and vegetables. They spun thread, wove fabric, sewed garments, tanned leather for shoes, and prepared food that fed both the enslaved population and the white family.

Religion played a dual role: a public face of submission, with enslaved preachers urging obedience, and a hidden world of secret prayers for liberation. Harriett recounted how the slaves were never sold off. “All the slaves were considered a part of the estate,” she said. “To sell one meant it was no longer intact.”

️ The War Arrives—and the Master Never Returns

When Edmond left to fight for the Confederacy, his slaves gathered around the Bellinger home and wept. “Many of them wept as he left the home to which he would never return,” Harriett recalled. He died in service of a cause now universally understood as one defending slavery.

When Union troops finally reached the plantation, they found everything orderly. Slaves were called from the fields to be informed of their freedom—news they met with prayer, song, and gratitude. Harriett recalled the last time her mistress blew the plantation horn, signaling not the end of a workday, but the end of an era.

A Legacy Woven in Letters and Memory

Harriett Gresham later married Gaylord Jeannette, a Union soldier. She eventually moved to Florida, where she lived into her 90s. Even into old age, she continued writing to one of the Bellinger children, both now elderly women—one formerly enslaved, the other once her mistress.

In their letters, they did not deny the past but instead seemed to share a fragile understanding of it, one shaped by memory, pain, and strange intimacy. “Each in her letters helps to keep alive the memories of the life they shared together as mistress and slave,” her interviewer noted.

Reconciling the Record

Today, Edmond Bellinger’s name is buried in family archives, church registries, and Confederate rosters, but his truest legacy may live on in Harriett’s words—preserved not in stone, but in the oral histories that outlast monuments.

In a time when America continues to wrestle with how it remembers its past, the story of Edmond Bellinger reminds us: the grandeur of the Old South was built not only on cotton, but on bondage—and its ghosts still speak.

James Seidel is the founder of CC News Network and host of the investigative series Crime & Cask Carolina. He documents forgotten Southern stories, criminal justice legacies, and the enduring power of memory.

For interviews, archives, or follow-ups: jim@crimeandcask.com