Below is an excerpt from the privately published Belser family history.
William Gordon Belser was born October 8, 1875, at the Woodside Plantation. He was educated at the Summerton High School and the South Carolina College (now University of South Carolina) from which he graduated with the degree of A.B. in 1895 with highest honors. He was President of the Euphradian Literary Society, and won the Euphradian Society medal for debate, the Roddwy medal for debate, the Carolinian medal for essay, and the Southern Intercollegiate Oratorical Association medal for oration. After his graduation form the University of South Carolina he taught school for one year (1895-1896) in Georgetown, S. C., where he was taking post-graduate work in English at the time of his father’s death in December, 1896. For the next two years he acted as administrator in the management and settlement of his father’s estate. In the year 1899 he returned to the South Carolina College for the study of law where he was graduated with LL.B. in 1900. He was admitted to the South Carolina Bar in 1900, and thereafter formed a partnership for the practice of law in the City of Columbia with his brother-in-law, William C. Melton under the firm name of Melton & Belser, and has continued until this date in the successful practice of law in the City of Columbia as a member of that firm. He has also been engaged more or less extensively in real estate operations, having been interested in a large development near the northern section of Columbia, and in the development of sections in and around Columbia known as Sherwood Forest, Hampton Terrace, Rosewood Gardens, Suburban Farms, and others. He is president and director of various corporations, – North Columbia Land Company, Argus Investment Company, Acme Building and Loan Company and several others.
William Gordon Belser is member of Pi Kappa Alpha and Omicron Delta Kappa fraternities, of Phi Beta Kappa, and of the South Carolina and Richland County Bar Associations. He is a member of Trinity Episcopal Church. His recreational interests are particularly horticulture and gardening, and travel.
In 1909, W. Gordon Belser married Mary Elizabeth Wilson daughter of Judge John Snowden Wilson, of Manning, S. C. On her father’s side she was descended from the Witherspoon and Snowden families of Williamsburg County, and on her mother’s side she was the granddaughter of Dr. John Ingram, prominent physician of Manning. Of this marriage there are six children.
