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Hiring Out in North Carolina

7/1/2025

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William Benjamin Gould, an enslaved plasterer who worked at the Bellamy site around 1860-61, was 'hired out' by his enslaver, Nicholas Nixon, for the construction project. A piece of plasterwork by Gould, inscribed with his initials and which features on the museum tour, was hidden until a 1990s renovation. It revealed both his skilled work and his singular story.
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Hiring out was a common practice that could result in free and enslaved Black workers, including those hired out, appearing together on many types of work in antebellum Wilmington. In fact, enslaved artisans were central to the construction of much of the architecture of the antebellum South across the building trades. A large proportion of these men were hired out as part of an economic system that operated in most slaveholding states. Using North Carolina as an example, the following article explores their work, their experiences, and their often overlooked importance in building American towns. 

The article Hiring Out: Enslaved Black Building Artisans in North Carolina is shared by kind permission from its author, architectural historian Catherine Bishir, and publisher, the University of Minnesota Press. The press publishes Building & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. 

The article is available for free until the end of August 2025 and can be read through this link: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/911886. After that, should you be interested in reading more from Buildings & Landscapes, or if you want to learn about the Vernacular Architecture Forum, click here for more information: https://www.upress.umn.edu/journals/buildings-and-landscapes/
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"The Origin of Juneteenth: When Freedom Reached Texas at Last"

6/1/2025

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​President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." While it didn't abolish slavery nationwide, it led to the eventual passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, which permanently outlawed slavery in the United States.

Extending freedom to enslaved people in Confederate states depended on military victories by the U.S. Army and an ongoing presence to enforce them.
​​Actual progress happened more than two years later, on June 19, 1865, when U.S. Army troops led by Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, where Granger announced and enforced federal orders proclaiming that all enslaved people were now free in Texas -- the last state of the Confederacy with institutional slavery.
How was Texas the last holdout? When the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, enslavers in Mississippi, Louisiana, and other Confederate states fled with humans they considered their chattel for Texas, a state that afforded them greater chances of escaping the Union’s reach, according to Mitchell S. Jackson in Juneteenth: A Primer. "That dark exodus (all told, 150,000 enslaved people), initiated by those who paid Old Abe’s proclamation no damn nevermind, included processions so large that some witnesses described them as the second coming of the Middle Passage."

By 1865, there were some 250,000 enslaved people living in Texas in 1865, none of whom knew that their freedom had been granted two years prior. 
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Read Jackson's primer here.
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When Granger arrived in Galveston, he assumed command of the Department of Texas and the almost 2,000 members of the 13th U.S. Army Corps. He and his men marched through Galveston reading the then assassinated president's General Orders, No.3:
"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."
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Jackson wrote that the president’s order was read in various places -- at an antebellum home in the center of town, at Union headquarters, at the Custom House, at the courthouse, at the local AME Church, and, in time, at the farther-flung properties of enslavers. "Their audiences were sometimes stupefied to silence over freedom that must’ve seemed chimeric, but were more often animated into hoots and hollers and hallelujahs."
​He added: "Some waited, as was advised, to learn of the new employer-employee relationship. But there were also a number of freed people who grabbed whatever they could carry and, with the quickness, footed right off their plantations. That mass leaving became known as 'the scatter.' Those who opted for that alacritous pursuit of freedom faced peril. Some of them were caught on roads and beaten or bushwhacked or lynched.
"Even after Granger and the blue coats galloped into Galveston, scores of should’ve-been-freed Blacks were hoodwinked into working months or even years more for their enslavers; victims of, among other factors, the state’s large size, and the obstinance and audacity of its lost-cause racists, as well as a lack of enough Union troops to enforce the order."
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Austin American-Statesman – June 19, 1900.
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A celebration of freedom in 1900.
Before it was inaugurated as Juneteenth, the unofficial freedom holiday was often called"Jubilee Day" and celebrated by thousands of people with music, prayer and feasting. It was held on the day the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, January 1, but later corresponded with the date of General Granger's order on June 19.  During the Jim Crow era, those revelers had to move their socializing to the banks of rivers and lakes because segregation laws left them without public venues. Nonetheless, in 1872, enterprising local leaders raised $1000, purchased a 10-acre plot of land in Houston, and built their own public space: Emancipation Park.
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Smithsonian National Museum of African American History.
Juneteenth, which combines the words June and nineteenth, was unofficially celebrated by African Americans as early as 1866 and in 2021 was declared a national holiday. Today, Juneteenth is a day acknowledged as the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of legal slavery in the U.S. ​​
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​When did slavery end in North Carolina?
Despite its expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. While it did apply to enslaved people in the states that had seceded from the Union, North Carolina did not officially recognize it. And like Texas, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.
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African American workers on a Cape Fear rice plantation, etching, date and artist unknown. Courtesy, Library of Congress
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​In Wilmington, NC, w
ith its easy and safe access via the Cape Fear River, the port city was a popular destination for slave ships. Wilmington was actively engaged in slave trading and slave auctions were regularly held on the steps of the county courthouse. Although it lacked the large slave market of cities such as Richmond and Charleston, it still conducted a noteworthy interstate slave trade, according to James Redpath's Roving Editor: Or Talks with Slaves in the Southern States. The firm of D.J. Southerland and James C. Coleman, with a second office in Mobile, AL, was the leading slave trading company in Wilmington in the 1850s and early 60s. The 1860-61 city directory identifies the firm as a "negro mart."
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In a July 2020 StarNews article entitled "Wilmington has a long history of injustice, exclusion of Black residents," historian Chris E. Fonvielle Jr. explained that slaves made up the principal workforce in every industry in Wilmington. And it wasn’t just individuals who held slaves. “Institutions of all kinds owned slaves in Wilmington, including railroad companies and even churches." He added: "The town relied on slaves' abilities in carpentry, masonry, and construction, as well as their skill in sailing and boating, for its growth and success.”
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John D. Bellamy.
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Bellamy's 10,000 square-foot townhome on Market Street in Wilmington.
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Then identified as a "Negro House," the Bellamy slave quarters housed the enslaved domestic workers.

​One of Wilmington's wealthiest citizens, John Dillard Bellamy, was among the largest slaveholders in North Carolina with 115 enslaved men, women and children spread across three eastern counties -- Brunswick, New Hanover and Columbus. His townhome on Market Street was built primarily by enslaved Black artisans and served mainly by enslaved women and children.​​ Bellamy's turpentine operation thrived from the back-breaking work of young enslaved Black men and boys, and his sprawling Grovely plantation on the banks of Town Creek were tended by some 80 enslaved workers. As with other slaveholders across the Confederate states, not a single Bellamy slave was freed as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation. (And, by the way, the proclamation did not apply to slaveholders in the states that remained loyal to the Union!)  ​​
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​In a June 23, 1864 advertisement in the local newspaper, Bellamy offered a $1,000 reward for the capture of five of his enslaved workers from his Brunswick County plantation. He provided their names, ages, dispositions and skin color to aid in their apprehension, in addition to the locations where they may have gone. Such ads were quite common and continued nearly three years after the Emancipation Proclamation. 
By the end of the Civil War in 1865, over 360,000 enslaved people in North Carolina were freed, thanks to the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified in North Carolina later that year on December 4.​
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Eliza M. H. Bellamy, Antebellum Privilege and Power

5/1/2025

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Just 18 in 1839 and newly married to John Dillard Bellamy, Eliza McIlhenny Harriss Bellamy would have been well-trained in the role of a woman in the antebellum South. According to NC historian Alice Eley Jones, she was likely, "gracious, fragile and deferential to the men upon whose protection she depended; imbued with the proper manners and literacy required of a young lady in her station, as well as the necessary basic household skills like sewing, supervising the garden and putting up preserves.”
Born in 1821 and growing up in Wilmington as the first of eight children to Mary Priscilla Jennings Harriss and her husband Dr. William James Harriss, Eliza has been described as a "rather plain girl but blessed with a bright inquiring mind, serious nature, and sweet disposition," wrote local historian Diane Cobb Cashman in her 1989 report on the "History of the Bellamy Mansion."
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​After "dame school," primarily operated by women in their homes offering basic literacy instruction and skills like sewing and embroidery for young girls, Eliza went on to be schooled at Pittsboro Academy in Chatham County, NC, a favorite summer residence of many of Wilmington's old families.

She continued her education in New Haven, CT, traveling back and forth on a small sailing vessel, an adventure in itself. While at New Haven, she developed a serious interest in botany.​
Perhaps it was a mutual interest in science, per Cashman, that first kindled the romance which developed between Eliza and her father's young medical student, John Dillard Bellamy.

Eliza and John were married by the local Presbyterian minister on June 12, 1839, at the Harriss home on Dock Street. Sadly, Eliza's father died just a month later at age 42. The newlyweds' plans to take a honeymoon abroad and then move to Philadelphia, where Dr. Bellamy intended to start his practice, were set aside so that Eliza could care for her grieving mother and siblings. 
John took over Dr. Harriss's practice and he and Eliza moved into the Harriss residence on Dock Street. That household included Eliza's mother and seven younger brothers and sisters - all under the age of 15 - as well as fourteen enslaved workers. It was in that home where the first Bellamy children were born: Mary Elizabeth (Belle), Marsden, William (Willie) and Eliza (Liza).
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One can only imagine both the excitement and trepidation Eliza may have felt during her ocean voyages to New Haven aboard a small sailing ship. She may have traveled on a packet schooner or brig, which was a regularly scheduled shipping line carrying mail, cargo and passengers coastwise and across the Atlantic.
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​In 1846, the Bellamy family moved across the street and five more children were born. Ellen (1852), John Jr. (1854), George (1856), Kate, who died in infancy, (1858) and Chesley in 1859. By 1860, the Bellamy household included Eliza and John and their eight children, aged one to 19, as well as nine enslaved domestic workers. Eliza, as you would expect, would have assumed the mantle of mistress of the house.   ​

​We have only a few glimpses of Eliza's actual personality from letters and memoirs, but we do know that she lived a grand lifestyle as the wife of one of Wilmington's richest men. Only during the Civil War was their affluence interrupted for a time.​
As an enslaver, Eliza entrusted her children to a "nurse," delegating the most tiresome and routine tasks to her. That may well have included breastfeeding Eliza's babies. In her late 1930s memoir of childhood (Back with the Tide), Eliza's daughter Ellen identified an enslaved woman named Joan as serving as a nurse. Ellen also references "Aunt Betsy Kedar," who accompanied John and Eliza, their daughter Mary Elizabeth and baby Chesley, on their trip to New York City in 1860 to select new furnishings for their Market Street home. Aunt Betsy was "an old freed mulatto woman," as Ellen put it, her father "thinking it unwise to take our regular slave nurse [Joan] as the country was so excited just then on the slavery question."
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The Bellamy family's new home (shown here as a rendering by assistant architect Rufus Bunnell), completed in 1861, was located near the edge of town, "considered to be about the boundary," according to Ellen in her memoirs. Only a few blocks away, and indicative of the brutalities for much of the population at the time, there was once a hanging yard called Gallows HillI where Eliza as a child was sent with her enslaved nurse to witness "a negro woman hanged there." It was not uncommon for the local newspaper to post the dates and times of executions, and for huge crowds,  including children, to watch them.
Interestingly, this was a memory Eliza shared with her family. Ellen wrote: "The Gallows Hill was where the Old Ladies’ Home now is, corner 9th and Princess [there was more than one Gallows Hill over time]; when the sheriff asked what crimes the woman had committed, replied; "'Nothing but killing old Mrs. Bradley' (her mistress). But as the town began to build up, the gallows was moved down to South Front Street, Dry Pond.” ​​
Happier memories of wealth and travel included the Bellamy family spending May and June at their Grovely Plantation in Brunswick County and moving on to higher ground at Salem, Red Springs and Laurinburg. They caught the salt breeze at Smithville (now Southport) or the Sound for the duration of the summer, according to Cashman. School began traditionally in October so the family was then in residence in Wilmington; however, the family traveled to visit family and friends, go to fairs, school exhibitions, and weddings.

Central to society was the church. Eliza -- and later her children -- remained staunch Presbyterians, while John, a strict temperance advocate, maintained his devotion to the Methodist faith.
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An outbreak of Yellow Fever in 1862 forced many Wilmington families to take refuge in a safer place. Eliza oversaw the gathering of their enslaved population and the packing up of their possessions into wagons headed for Floral College. This was a Presbyterian girls' school near the depot village of Shoe Heel (now Maxton) where the Bellamys remained until the end of the war. ​Although the Civil War (1861-1865) took its toll on the Bellamy family, like so many others, Eliza persevered and raised six boys and three girls. She saw two sons, Marsden and Willie, go and thankfully return from the battlefields. This period, away from the wealth and privilege of their former life, is described by daughter Ellen as one of relative privation. It was, however, only a brief change of circumstance.​
With the fall of Fort Fisher in early 1865, Union troops advanced toward Wilmington. Officers requisitioned some of the largest and finest homes, especially those whose owners had left town, including the Bellamys. From February through the summer, the Bellamy house served as headquarters for Union military staff. In the meantime, homes and properties owned by Confederate "rebels" were confiscated until they took an oath of allegiance to the United States. 
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For Dr. Bellamy, given his wealth and status as a "person of known disloyalty," gaining a pardon and regaining his properties were in the hands of General Joseph Hawley, who, together with his wife Harriet, and fellow officers occupied the Bellamy house until he was reassigned in June 1865.

While there, the Hawley's received a visit from Eliza Bellamy hoping to reclaim her home. There are two versions of how that meeting unfolded. One was described by daughter Ellen in her memoirs and the other as recollected by Mrs. Hawley. Per Ellen: Mother found it "most humiliating, and trying, to be entertained by Mrs. Hawley, in her own parlor.... During the call, she offered Mother some figs (from Mother's own tree) which Aunt Sarah had picked -- our old cook, who had been left in charge of the premises" -- and presumably had offered her services to the new occupants. Eliza Bellamy played her role with panache, sharing the stance of many southern women who held up their gentility as flags unbowed by defeat.

Per Harriet Hawley: "The lady [Eliza Bellamy] made herself as agreeable as possible, spoke of the General's occupancy and her own absence, much as people who had gone off to the sea-shore for the summer might speak of renting their town house till their return; intimating that she wouldn't hurry the General commanding for the world, and hoped that he would remain with his family until it was entirely convenient to remove, but suggested that she and her husband thought they would probably return in a couple or three months, when, of course, they supposed their house would be ready for them! Confiscation seemed to have no terrors for her; or, if it had, they were dexterously concealed under and air of smiling and absolute assurance."
 
Dr. Bellamy finally received a pardon to regain possession of his home in September 1865. In a letter to her daughter Belle, Eliza wrote: "I never saw so much dirt in my life" and the basement, site of the kitchen and dining room, was "more like a hogpen than anything else." After refurbishing the house, Eliza turned her attention to the garden, where she put to use her longstanding interest in horticulture. 

Having lost one baby (Kate) in 1858, Eliza gave birth to Chesley the following year. Sadly, Chesley succumbed to an unknown illness in 1881 at age 22. Based on the symptoms described in his obituary, it is believed he died from viral encephalitis contracted from contaminated water. Eliza's husband died in 1896 age 79, while her first child, Belle, died at age 59 in 1900.

​Alongside these difficult and tragic experiences, Eliza was well-loved and cared for by her husband and family and mostly enjoyed a life of privilege. Daughter Ellen wrote in her memoirs: While at Grovely, "the fruit was in its glory and I would follow my father in the orchard culling the most choice which he always deposited in front of mother. He wanted the very best for her; he was always the most devoted husband and his love and attention never failed to the very end, although married 57 years.”
“In civil and political affairs, American women take no interest or concern, except so far as they sympathize with their family and personal friends….”

Catherine Beecher
"A Treatise on Domestic Economy
for the Use of Young Ladies at Home, and at School" (1845)
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During the 1898 white supremacy campaign across the state of North Carolina, which led to the rigged election of Eliza's son John Bellamy Jr. to the U.S. Congress, the takeover of Wilmington's duly elected biracial city government (the only coup d'etat in American history), and the massacre of an untold number of Black citizens, one can only wonder what Mrs. Bellamy and her two unmarried daughters (Liza and Ellen) were witnessing from their windows. 

According to Bill Reaves’ Strength Through Struggle: 
The Chronological & Historical Record of the African-American Community in Wilmington, North Carolina, 1865-1950, available online: ​
"By this time, the town was tense with a riotous atmosphere. A deadly quiet had spread over the city. Both blacks and whites remained at home behind closed doors or left town. Businesses and schools were closed. Churches provided shelter for many frightened blacks, while others fled into the woods and swamps surrounding the city.

​Martial law was proclaimed and military units were sent from cities around the state. Two hundred local white policemen were sworn in to keep the peace. The Mayor and Board of Aldermen were summoned to City Hall, where they were forced to resign. They were replaced by an all-white board of Democrats. The chief of police and the entire police department was forced to resign. Several prominent black and white Republicans were rounded up and forced to spend the night in jail. The next day, they were escorted to the railroad depot and made to board northbound trains. During the ensuing weeks all government jobs held by blacks, from fireman to City Hall janitor, were vacated and given to white employees."
Following these violent events, John Jr. took his seat in Congress. In 1900 a North Carolina constitutional amendment creating a literacy test was passed. It was part a series of so-called Black Codes that disenfranchised Black voters and ended an era of Black political participation. Like most others among Wilmington's social and economic White leadership, members of the Bellamy family believed that life had been returned to "a reign of justice and peace," as daughter Ellen put it, at last.  

Only a few years later, in ​October 1907, the Wilmington Messenger reported the death of Mrs. Eliza Bellamy, age 87, "the oldest living white resident of Wilmington."
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The Southern Magnolia

4/29/2025

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At the Bellamy Museum we are stewards of historic buildings and the stories told through them. The site wouldn't be the same, however, without the gardens around them. According to Ellen Bellamy's late 1930s memoir, Back with the Tide, the fenced gardens were laid out around 1870 in a French 'parterre' style. Parterre translates as 'on the ground' and, in landscape design, refers to formally laid out gardens of flowerbeds with symmetrical patterns of paths, hedges, and plantings. They are usually meant to be viewed from the elevation of a building's porch or upper windows.

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The grand parterre gardens at Versailles
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At the Bellamy Museum, the modestly-sized gardens that surround the main house feature five heritage trees likely from that original planting and design. They are Magnolia grandiflora, commonly known as the Southern magnolia, a tree symbolically rich and biologically ancient. Native to the southeastern United States and found as far west as Texas, this evergreen species belongs to one of the most primitive families of flowering plants, the Magnoliaceae. With a lineage over 95 million years, magnolias evolved before bees existed, relying instead on beetles for pollination. The grandiflora varietal was one of the many species first described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1759 and the genus name honors French botanist Pierre Magnol. It typically grows to 60 to 80 feet tall with a pyramidal to rounded crown, a spread of 20 to 40 feet wide, and a trunk diameter of 3 feet. Grandiflora is derived from the Latin grandis (big), and flor (flower). 
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 There are numerous types of magnolia and a sixth tree in our gardens is actually a dwarf varietal called 'Little Gem'. The grandiflora's glossy leaves, large white flowers, and dense oval seed pods distinguish it as both a botanical relic and an icon of the South. They begin to bloom in this area in late April and early May. In Southern U.S. culture, the magnolia is woven into the region’s identity. The magnolia's lush, highly fragrant, blossoms often evoke a romanticized South, appearing in literature, art, and music as emblems of longevity and tradition. Yet, the tree also exists in complex proximity to histories of slavery, segregation, and the rise of plantation culture.

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In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the presence of this tree sets a scene of beauty and tension, “The night was still. I could hear his heavy breathing, and I could smell the heavy sweetness of the magnolia blossoms.” William Faulkner's novels, often set in Mississippi, bring more beauty but often with elements of decay. Flora often sets a scene, such as, “The air was full of the smell of honeysuckle and magnolia and sweet shrub” in The Sound and the Fury. His 1841 essay, The Magnolia at Lake Pontchartrain, is direct, "Nothing at the south had affected me like the Magnolia ... I stood astonished as might a lover of music." In Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter, the blooms become a metaphor, “The magnolia’s white flowers were like ghosts of summer in the tree.” For Zora Neale Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God, it's a reflection on femininity and resilience, “She was a wind on the ocean. She had come back with the sun and the magnolia trees.”
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Magnolia grandiflora have also been linked to the interesting idea of witness trees — living trees that have stood through significant historical events. The White House grounds have a number of these. For example, the Andrew Jackson magnolia stood for nearly 200 years until it was removed for safety reasons on April 7, 2025. Another magnolia from a seedling replaced it the next day. Jackson is reputed to have planted the original in memory of his late wife, Rachel, and the tree appears on the back of the $20 bill. 

Our area features bald cypress on the Black River that are thousands of years old. The spectacular live oak at Airlie Gardens is 500 years old. At the Bellamy site, our magnolias are over 150, a venerable age for the species. They feature in Wilmington's Heritage Tree program and receive much love and care at the museum.

Many trees have silently borne witness to moments of national significance and remain in place. A black walnut stands on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, a white oak in Arlington National Cemetery, an American elm survived the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and is now part of a national memorial. At this museum, the magnolias will have been there for Wilmington's short-lived progress in Reconstruction, the accomplishments in World War Two, the 1960s downturn and the post-1990s growth. They saw the arming of a mob 100 yards away on November 10th, 1898 that denoted a racial massacre, part of the only successful coup in American history. The trees were there for the march from Williston school to the County courthouse on April 5, 1968, the day after Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. He should have been speaking at Williston at the time of his death. They would have reflected the firelight on March 13, 1972, when an arsonist set a blaze in the Bellamy house for reasons we still don't know.

Trees can serve not only as biological survivors but as living testaments to history. A witness tree, by simply enduring, becomes a symbol of continuity, memory, and resilience. They can be fixtures of natural beauty and quiet observers.
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Trees on the $20
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The current Mississippi flag features a magnolia blossom
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The Bellamys Paid Their Taxes

4/1/2025

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by Leslie Randle-Morton, Associate Director & Research Historian, Bellamy Mansion Museum
Tax records for John Bellemee of South Carolina, father of Dr. John D. Bellamy, reveal some fascinating details about this family's wealth. In 1784, when South Carolina devised its first tax structure, it was based on differing values for different types of land, which the legislature revised in 1815. By 1824 (the tax year represented in the record shown below), these valuations were still in effect. Along with land, residents were taxed on the number of slaves they owned -- listed as “Negroes,” the number of “Free Negroes" and "Mulattoes,” and even Theatrical or Public Shows, which were taxed at a hefty $20 per day.

In his 1824 tax assessment John Bellemee was taxed on 4,320 acres of land and 29 slaves in Horry County, South Carolina. John Bellemee paid anywhere from 20 cents an acre on his least valuable land all the way to $4.00 per acre on his most valuable. He paid a total of $27.92 for taxes on his town lots and enslaved workers. John Bellemee was the fifth largest landowner in Horry County according to the 1824 tax assessments, and he possessed a considerable number of enslaved people for the number of acres he owned.
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1824 tax record for John Bellemee, All Saints Parish, Horry County, SC.
By comparison, another Horry County taxpaying resident, John Rogers, owned 14,000 acres and enslaved 39 people.

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Although individual states, including North Carolina, had experimented with income taxation during the 19th century, it was not until 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln and Congress established a Commissioner of Internal Revenue that the country’s first income tax was levied to help with the mounting costs of the Civil War.​
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George S. Boutwell, the first Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The income tax rate was progressive, taxing 3% on incomes between $600-$10,000 and 5% on incomes of more than $10,000. Changes in 1864 increased the tax and lowered the ceiling levying a 5% tax on incomes between $600-$5,000 and 10% on incomes of more than $5,000. This first income tax effort raised around $55 million for the war effort, and paying income taxes was viewed by Unionists as a patriotic duty.

The Confederacy also collected income taxes. The Confederate Congress levied its first income tax measure in 1863. The tax was a graduated income tax which exempted wages up to $1,000, levied a 1% tax on the first $1,500 over the exemption, and 2% on all additional income. Numerous Confederate states did not collect these taxes effectively, if at all, so it is unclear whether Dr. Bellamy ever paid any taxes to the Confederacy. Seceded states, such as North Carolina, were not subjected to federal income taxes until Union forces took control.
In reference to wealthy men like Dr. Bellamy, the Committee on Ways and Means, begun in 1789 and the the oldest tax-writing body in the U.S. House of Representatives, stated,
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"Owners of carriage valued at over $300, and gold watches and silver plate, are among those persons best able to contribute something to the support of the Government under whose protection they have been able to acquire articles indicative of wealth and assured means of support.”
Luxury taxes had been repealed in 1817 after being levied to help raise revenue during the War of 1812, but with the escalating Civil War came the return of such excise taxes. During the Civil War specific items such as carriages, gold and silver plate, billiard tables, pianos, and even watches were all taxed as luxury items. Civil War excise taxes on luxury items were all repealed by 1871, except those levied on liquor and tobacco which remain to this day.
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The 1865 tax assessment above shows Dr. John D. Bellamy paid luxury taxes on several items at his Wilmington home. He was taxed $2.00 on one carriage, $2.00 on one watch, $4.00 on one piano, and $1.50 on a 30 ounce silver plate for a total luxury tax of $9.50.
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The Bellamy parlor piano, built in 1854 for $400 (which was the price of an average home) was subject to a luxury tax.
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This document is an 1866 Brunswick County tax assessment for Dr. John D. Bellamy. He was assessed a three cent tax for every pound of cotton produced. In 1866, Dr. Bellamy paid a total of $228.39 on 7,613 pounds of cotton produced at his Grovely plantation. The cotton tax was considered unfair and even illegal by many Southern men who paid it between 1862 and 1867. Some considered it unfair because it affected the deep South states more than northern ones, and its continuation after the conclusion of the Civil War left many Southern planters, like Dr. Bellamy, contemplating whether the cotton tax was even punitive in nature.
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19th Century Medicine Cabinet or Growing Your Own Drugs.

3/1/2025

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By Wade Toth, Bellamy Mansion Interpreter & Volunteer Committee Chair
When we think of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, their aromas are usually setting a mood by wafting from the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. Herbs are primarily thought of as culinary today by most Americans, but that was not always the case.
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In the 1800s English folksong "Are You Going to Scarborough Fair," made famous in 1966 by Simon and Garfunkel's version, each herb represents a virtue. Parsley=Comfort. Sage=Strength. Rosemary=Love. Thyme=Courage. These four herbs, native to the Mediterranean basin, were used for centuries to treat a variety of afflictions. Parsley was thought to cure digestive disorders, bronchitis, and cure urinary tract problems. Sage was taken for ulcers, a sore throat, and to stop bleeding. Rosemary was seen as a memory enhancer, relieved migraine headaches, and thwarted nervousness. Thyme was a pain reliever, an antidote for poison, and had antiseptic properties. Even today, thymol, the active ingredient in thyme, is used in mouthwashes, toothpaste, and hand sanitizers.
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Theophrastus
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Albert Sabin
In fourth century Greece, the scientist and philosopher Theophrastus (371-287 BC), known as the “the Father of Botany,” classified 500 medicinal plants known at the time in his Historia Plantarum. Plants in his list included cinnamon, the rhizome of the iris, mint, pomegranate, and cardamom. He noted that some species had toxic levels and encouraged people to gradually increase dosing as they became more accustomed to the plants’ effects on the body.
Nineteenth century Americans relied on herbs for culinary purposes in backyard kitchen gardens, but also as cure-alls because current knowledge of medicine was only in relative infancy. An influential early book on the subject was American Medical Botany by Jacob Bigelow, published between 1817 and 1820. Throughout the 20th century advances in medicine skyrocketed. Penicillin, the first naturally occurring antibiotic drug, became available in limited quantities in 1928. Erythromycin, a sulfa drug combating bacteria, was developed in Germany in 1935. Jonas Salk (in 1955) and Albert Sabin (in 1961) introduced their polio vaccines to Americans. The first measles vaccine was licensed for public use in 1963. Smallpox, one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases, was first vaccinated against by Englishman Edward Jenner in 1796. It persisted, killing some 300 million people in the 20th century alone, but was declared eradicated in the United States in 1980 thanks to the widespread adoption of the smallpox vaccine.
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​Dr. John D. Bellamy (1817-1896) was a trained medical physician who studied at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and graduated in 1839. The subject of his essay (a thesis today) was 'Hysteria'. The first known mention of hysteria as a female-specific medical issue dates back to ancient Egypt, around 1900 BCE, in the Kahun Papyrus. This medical text describes symptoms believed to be caused by a displaced or "wandering" uterus, a concept developed further by Hippocrates (5th–4th century BCE) that influenced medical thought for centuries. Hysteria as a diagnosis, therefore, was the first mental disorder attributed to women, and only women. It was a catch-all term for symptoms including, but by no means limited to, nervousness, hallucinations, emotional outbursts and various sexual urges thought to be caused by this movement of the womb to various parts of the body. The 'condition' remained as part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association until it was eliminated in 1980.

The kitchen garden in the backyard of the Bellamy mansion is filled with herbs that would have been used for cooking, and also for medicinal purposes. Dr. Bellamy may well have studied the efficacy of such herbs while apprenticing under his future father-in-law Dr. William Harriss and thereafter in medical school. 
               ___________________________________________________________________________________________
Medicinal Plants in the Bellamy Herb Garden
Click here for a complete list in our garden brochure:
 
https://www.bellamymansion.org/uploads/2/3/2/1/23216980/gardentourbrochurefinal.pdf
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Garlic: Medieval folk believe that vampires were frightened of garlic, so this garden staple was worn around the neck as a talisman. Records also indicate that as late as the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, a garlic posy was worn for protection. More likely some individuals were repelled by the fragrance of the herb and kept their distance from others. While garlic is much revered in cooking today its uses in 19th century medicine included curing infections and colds, easing coughing, ridding you of worms, working as a diuretic, and improving asthma.
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Joe Pye Weed: Doctors promoted its use to dissolve gall stones, for dropsy (more commonly known as edema), neuralgia, and impotence.
Marjoram: If diagnosed with tension or headaches take marjoram for relief.
Savory: Oil derived from this herb was a treatment for toothaches.
Dill: Chewing the seed of this herb was said to freshen breath, and the green of the plant was prescribed for new mothers to increase the flow of breast milk.
Hops: We associate this traditional herb with beer making, but it too was considered a medicine. A tea made from hops was used commonly for relaxation and considered helpful for insomnia.
Butterfly Weed: The plant, though not thought of today as an herb by most people, was considered to have a curative use for diarrhea and rheumatism. Its benefit came from the root of the plant.
Lavender: It was used to treat insomnia and as a relaxing agent. Crushed leaves and flower heads were tucked in bed pillows or oil of lavender was applied directly to the specific locations on the head, arms, and feet.
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Valerian: As noted, Dr. Bellamy’s essay at the University of Pennsylvania was on female Hysteria. One plant grown in the Bellamy kitchen garden is valerian. It was widely used in the 18th, 19th & 20th centuries for symptomatic treatment of hysteria.
Turpentine from Long Leaf Pines: Certainly not an herb but plant-derived, turpentine was considered to have medicinal qualities. Turpentine was made from the resin of pines including the Long Leaf Pine found in coastal NC. Smelling the vapors was believed to ease chest congestion. 
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Internally, turpentine was prescribed to treat worms, especially tapeworms. The belief was that it was a natural insecticide and, therefore, it would kill internal worms too. ​Used as a topical liniment, it was applied to the body for relieve muscle and joint pain. Turpentine was widely used during the American Civil War for these various purposes. North Carolina was a leading exporter of pine derived products ("pine tar", hence Tar Heel state) in the 18th and 19th century. Dr. Bellamy made a great deal of his fortune from their production.

​Photo: This bottle of mentholated white pine compound syrup was the 19th century equivalent to modern day cough syrup. The mixture in this bottle was prepared specifically for one of Dr. and Mrs. Bellamy's sons, Robert Bellamy, who became a pharmacist. It contained ingredients like chloroform, alcohol, three kinds of tree bark, and of course, pine tar.
Finally, The Unusual: SNAKE OIL
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A discussion of 19th century medicine would not be complete without Snake Oil remedies. One was Hamlin’s Wizard Oil (1861) and another Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment (1893). These cure-all elixirs were so named for the belief that fatty oils from various vipers, especially the rattlesnake, could cure illness. The deceptive marketing practices made no use of actual snake oil but rather mineral oil.
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The Wizard’s advertisement lists supposed curative qualities. Active ingredients included: alcohol, camphor, sassafras oil, clove oil, turpentine, ammonia, and chloroform. The company even went so far as to promote its use for cancer. A case was brought against Hamlin’s in Illinois for that cancer 'treatment.' The company was found guilty of false claims and fined $200.
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30 Years of Museum Innovation

2/1/2025

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By Gareth Evans, Director, Bellamy Mansion Museum

In the late 1980s, Preservation North Carolina (PNC) had the vision to explore social history and design arts through a museum consisting of two side-by-side historic buildings in Wilmington, NC, the 1861 Bellamy house and the 1859 building that housed enslaved workers. Volunteers and staff believed the site was ideally situated to educate the public about preservation and architecture, while discussing interconnected themes in American history like race, wealth, and war.

​Thirty years later, we've accomplished that goal well beyond our initial expectations, routinely seeing over 22,000 annual visitors from across the US and around the world.


These incredible buildings are the artifacts that allow us to show and interpret a complex history. Since the 1994 opening of the museum, we've committed to engaging visitors in thoughtful exploration of the topics at hand. Our volunteers are trained as historical interpreters, and we couldn't function without their generosity and wisdom.
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In the beginning, PNC decided that this site should be more of a "museum in a house" than a traditional house museum, which was innovative at the time. Instead of filling space with Victorian ephemera, some rooms are set up as historic vignettes, while others are galleries for rotating art and history exhibits. As a result, the space is dynamic rather than static, and the art shows, family days, lectures, and jazz concerts we host give the community a reason to keep coming back.

Through the years, we've adapted to changing audiences. These days, we offer an accessible, virtual on-site tour as well as neighborhood walking tours. Our self-guided tour features smartphone narration, and written versions are multilingual. Our guided tours use Bluetooth headsets to make sure everyone is able to the hear the guide. We collaborate with teachers across New Hanover County to align our school tours with changing curriculums, and work with neighboring museums on cross-disciplinary programs for the community.

However, the innovation I'm most proud of is the fact that we continually strive to be honest about history. We talk about the history and legacy of both white supremacy and Black achievement. Our daily tours begin the slave quarters and integrate the stories of everyone who lived and worked in the site. We host talks about charged topics like slavery, the Wilmington 10, and the 1898 massacre in the parlor of a house built by enslaved craftsmen for 1898 leaders in front of descendants from all sides of those events. Our volunteers and staff engage in direct discussions about these topics every day, because truthful stories are the most interesting and useful.

Museums like this one provide people with a nuanced, layered understanding of our shared history, which in turn helps to inform our future. We do not and cannot always get the scope and language of social history right. But I am confident that we give it our best shot on a daily basis. We find that almost all our visitors respond positively to a complicated story, truthfully told. One of my favorite quotes is attributed to American anthropologist Margaret Mead. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

For more visuals, including many before and after photos, check out Our Story on our website here.

Below are two video discussions on the 1859, interpreted, urban slave quarters. One describes the building and its restoration. The other highlights urban and rural enslavement and details the builders and workers originally at the site.

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The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and its Local Impact

1/1/2025

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Wilmington is believed to be the first city in North Carolina hit by the infamous wave of "Spanish Flu" influenza in 1918. Its carrier likely contracted it from a ship in the port sometime before Sept. 19 that year. At the time, the city of around 30,000 people was a manufacturing hub for shipbuilding and a supplier of both wartime materials and young military personnel – all sent to various parts of the world during WW I. [1, 2]
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A concrete ship is launched from Wilmington's Liberty Shipyard at the foot of Greenfield Street in 1919. The two ships built there as part of the war effort were launched sideways into the Cape Fear River. The concrete ships soon sank. Photo: NHCPL.
​William A. Wright was the first local victim of Spanish flu, dying on Sept. 21 just a few days after contracting it. The 29-year-old was described in the news as a popular man who left behind a widow and two sons. This virus was called Spanish Flu not because it originated on the Iberian Peninsula, but because Spain remained neutral in World War I, and unlike the Allied Powers and the Central Powers engaged in war, did not suppress the information about the disease.
This hadn’t been the first time a crippling epidemic had snuck into Wilmington under the distraction of war. An epidemic of yellow fever in the fall of 1862 had claimed more than 650 lives in Wilmington while the Civil War raged across the country. John D. Bellamy, his wife and nine children escaped the ravages of the epidemic by leaving town and taking refuge some 90 miles northwest in the town of Floral College. During the Spanish Flu pandemic, the Bellamy family members still living in 1918 -- daughters Eliza and Ellen and sons John, George and Robert -- survived again through that deadly outbreak.
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Beyond Wilmington the Spanish Flu (a.k.a. La Grippe), first appeared on American soil in March of 1918 at the US army base of Fort Riley, Kansas. Within five weeks, 1,000 men were infected and 47 were dead. One “preventive measure” as seen in the image above was gargling with salt water.  With no vaccine to protect against the virus, people were urged to isolate, quarantine, practice good personal hygiene, limit social interaction, and wear masks.
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The worst outbreak of the entire pandemic for any U.S. city occurred in Philadelphia. A massive outdoor parade with an estimated attendance of 200,000 had been scheduled to take place on September 28, 1918, to promote the sale of war bonds to the public in support of The Great War. The city’s health director, Wilmer Krusen, refused pleas from medical professionals to cancel the parade, and thousands lined the parade route.

The consequence: 20,000 died in Philadelphia. Deaths mounted so quickly that even burials in mass graves dug by steam shovels weren't quick enough to avoid bodies decomposing in the streets. Families that could find cold storage units waited weeks for undertakers to prepare for funerals. 
The virus was indiscriminate, so all suffered. This included the rich and well-known, as noted in a New York Times article on September 20, 1918:
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“F. D. Roosevelt, Spanish Grippe Victim, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Stricken with Influenza on Shipboard Taken to Mother’s House."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, who has been abroad for two months, arrived in New York yesterday and taken to the home of his mother, Mrs. James Roosevelt, suffering from a slight attack of pneumonia caused by the Spanish Influenza which he contracted on the ship. Mrs. Roosevelt said last night that Mr. Roosevelt was progressing favorably, but it would be several days before he would be able to go to Washington.”
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The Leviathan was a WW I troop transporter between New York and France. A fateful voyage on September 29, 1918 resulted in 80 crew members who died from the Spanish Flu while in transit and 2,000 more sickened, including the young Franklin D. Roosevelt. Among the crew as well was Chief Quartermaster Humphrey Bogart!
America would see a flattening in the number of cases after October of 1918, but a second wave during the winter of 1918-1919 resurfaced. When the disease finally abated in 1920, 675,000 Americans lay dead from the influenza, and it is estimated that 50 million died worldwide. The number of North Carolinians was 13,700.
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With no clear-cut knowledge of how the flu spread other than being in close contact with individuals, alerts like this one on a Philadelphia streetcar warned of the dangers of spitting.
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Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call
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The aftermath: World War I ("The Great War") and the Spanish Influenza turned 1920s America inward toward isolationism. Despite pushing for a League of Nations, the United States did not join. Citizens became fearful of the world and what the world seemed to offer - including ideologies like bolshevism and communism. America First rose as a new motto.

The 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote passed, but misogynistic comments didn't disappear in this jazz age … “Bobbed hair! Painted faces! Smoking cigarettes! Hemlines at the knee! Wearing brassieres! Having jobs outside the home! All sure signs of a harlot!” That recently won right of women’s suffrage, to some, was abhorrent. [3]
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Returning African-American soldiers who fought to liberate Europe, now sought to continue their fight for equal rights as American citizens. They were faced with continued federal and state sanctioned government discrimination and Jim Crow Laws, coupled with the exploding growth of the Ku Klux Klan to deny Blacks these inalienable rights. As the decade of the roaring 1920s moved forward, America looked backward to what some believed were the good old days. [4]

Prepared by Wade Toth, Bellamy Mansion Museum Volunteer Committee Chair, during the COVID-19 pandemic (with updates). Original publish date: August 2020.

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Pandemic notes: 
The word quarantine — which means restricting the movement of people or goods — is rooted in the Latin word for “forty days,” a reference to preventative measures taken in Venice during the Middle Ages to stop the spread of the bubonic plague. Ships arriving from areas affected by the “Black Death” were required to anchor for 40 days before the crew could disembark. Centuries later, hundreds of Wilmingtonians were dropping dead from a yellow fever epidemic in 1862, also referred to as the "Black Death."   Both yellow fever and the bubonic plague were infectious diseases spread by bites from two different infected insects (mosquitos vs fleas). Blackened tissue due to gangrene was caused by the bubonic plague while black vomit resulting from internal bleeding was caused by yellow fever, hence the homonym. Learn more about the 1862 yellow fever epidemic here: 
a-scope-into-the-speculation-wilmingtons-yellow-fever-epidemic-of-1862

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Prior to the 1850s, most people blamed foul odors ("miasma") and evil spirits for spreading disease. It was not until the second Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries that indoor plumbing and sewer systems were becoming increasingly common as advances in microscopy confirmed that microorganisms are passed person-to-person and through contaminated drinking water. Before then, it was typical for raw sewage to flow out of buildings and directly onto city streets. It is believed that John D. Bellamy's son Chesley,  who died while still in college approaching his 22nd birthday, succumbed to viral encephalitis likely stemming from the consumption of contaminated water.

Infectious diseases like typhoid, cholera, tuberculosis, polio, the Spanish flu and, more recently, COVID-19 have had a major impact on the way we live. Today, we take for granted running water and flush toilets, but do you know why homes are built with half-bathrooms, typically referred to as the "powder" room? The latter term originated in the 17th century when aristocratic citizens would use a private space to freshen their wigs. Wigs were often made of real human hair and required regular "powderings" to maintain their appearance. In the early 20th century, as the importance of hand washing to prevent the spread of diseases became well known, these “powder rooms” offered a place for guests to wash their hands as they entered a home, and also for delivery workers dropping off items like milk, coal, and ice to wash up.

Sources: [1] Building Ships for Government, Sept. 2017. NC Dept. of Cultural and Natural resources. 
https://www.dncr.nc.gov/blog/2017/09/21/building-ships-government
[2] World War I Left Enduring mark on Southeastern NC, Oct. 2013. Star News/Wilbur D. Jones. https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/news/2014/10/30/world-war-i-left-enduring-mark-on-southeastern-nc/30970559007/
[3] National Association Opposed to Women's Suffrage. National Women's History Museum.  https://www.crusadeforthevote.org/naows-opposition/
[4] An Anatomy of Isolationism. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/excerpt-isolationism

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The enslaved experience at Christmas

11/15/2024

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The Christmas season experience for enslaved women, men, and children was somewhat paradoxical as it could be a time of relative abundance but also a time of heightened emotion and concern. Narratives from those formerly enslaved document people not celebrating at all to others having Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day not working. 
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Many enslavers encouraged or even forced slaves to celebrate Christmas as a way to reinforce the ideals of Christianity. Slave quarters could be found decorated with Christmas trees, garland, and other recognizable holiday décor.

​Some enslavers frowned upon giving gifts to the enslaved, but many did give gifts of material goods, time away to visit family, and sometimes elaborate meals. For the most part, enslavers gave gifts to show their family had wealth. Even during the Civil War, enslavers who struggled financially gave gifts. The most common gifts they provided for enslaved workers were new shoes.
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Picture"Plantation Frolic on Christmas Eve" Library of Congress
Articles of clothing such as pants, hats, frocks, handkerchiefs, ribbons, socks, cravats, and hand-me-downs were given. Also, tobacco, beads, toys, candy, blankets, pocket knives, pipes, and sometimes money.​

​Some enslavers gave their enslaved workers a feast. According to different slave accounts, the enslaver provided the food, or they allowed the enslaved to go hunting. Occasionally enslavers provided liquor, and some foods and drinks they gave at Christmas included:
  • Roasted oxen, pigs, turkey, sheep and wild game like raccoons, rabbits, and possums
  • Whiskey, eggnog, brandy, cider, wine, or beer
  • Some even received desserts like peach cobbler or apple dumplings
Enslaved people might have dances that lasted for most of the night and were incorporated with the feasts that enslavers allowed. Watching these festivities was a form of entertainment for the slave-holding families themselves. ​

PictureJohn Canoe (Jonkonnu, JonKanoo) Dancers, Jamaica, 1838; Image Reference Belisario01, as shown on www.slaveryimages.org.
In North Carolina, some enslaved people had a holiday traditional celebration called Jonkonnu. The celebration has roots that go back to the Caribbean and West Africa. Wilmington and New Bern were the main places in which the celebrations occurred, but similar versions of Jonkonnu could be found in coastal South Carolina and Georgia dating to the 1700s.

​During this celebration enslaved men and women would dress up in colorful outfits and parade around performing music for their enslavers “demanding” gifts. The enslavers’ families then participated by giving out small gifts.

PictureJonkonnu reenactment at Bellamy Museum
Often enslaved individuals had relatives enslaved by other families on neighboring plantations or in nearby towns. In order for slaves to travel to visit family, the enslavers distributed passes. During the holiday season, enslavers issued these passes more often than during other times of the year.
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Why did enslavers give these gifts of goods, time off, and even visits with family members? One major reason was to try and prevent enslaved individuals from revolting or running away. The holiday season meant “hiring out” of slaves for contracted work was nearing. Enslavers negotiated these contracts on or near January 1st each year and a contract could be for many months or even a full year. Individuals and businesses contracted enslaved men, women, and children to engage in often backbreaking and dangerous work. For example, the railroad company "hired out" many men and even offered insurance policies to enslavers in case of injury or death to the workers. It's possible the stress of this impending change was deliberately defrayed by the slight loosening of the usual order within slavery during the holiday season.

-Bigham, Shauna, and Robert E. May. "The Time o' all Times? Masters, Slaves, and Christmas in the Old South." Journal of the Early Republic 18, no. 2 (Summer, 1998): 263-288. https://search- proquest-com.liblink.uncw.edu/docview/220950705?accountid=14606.
-Blassingame, John W. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940.
-“Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938.” Library of Congress, online collection. 
-Wiggins, D. “Good Times on the Old Plantation: Popular Recreations of the Black Slave in Antebellum South, 1810-1860.” Journal of Sports History 4. Fall 1997. 260-284.
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Some Notes on the William Knabe & Company Square Grand Piano

11/1/2024

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In 2015, film producers turned the main house at the Bellamy Museum site into a setting for what would eventually become the 2019 movie Bolden. The movie was about New Orleans cornet player Buddy Bolden (1877-1931), who became a key figure in the birth of jazz in the early twentieth century. Before any action could take place, however, the formal parlors were rearranged to suit the film company’s needs, and that meant moving the original, and rather large, Knabe square grand piano. To move it properly and carefully, Site Manager Bob Lock all but disassembled the piano and removed the case from the legs.
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On top of leg number 4, Bob located the piano’s serial number. The leg is just one place makers put the serial number signifying the year that the piano was made. On grand pianos, the serial number can often be located on the soundboard or under the logo. On upright pianos, the serial number is often stamped on the piano's frame in line with the middle octave.

The Antique Piano Shop in Friendsville, Tennessee, helped determine the piano was manufactured in 1854 by looking up the serial number in The Pierce Piano Atlas. 
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In 1839, William Knabe (born Valentin Wilhelm Ludwig Knabe in 1803 in present day Germany) and William Gaehle formed the piano manufacturing firm of Knabe & Gaehle in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1854, Knabe took control of the business and changed the name to William Knabe & Company. The first pianos were manufactured in November 1854, making the square grand at the Bellamy Mansion Museum one of the first produced by the company. There is no bill of sale or easy way to determine when John and Eliza Bellamy actually purchased the piano, and the square grand was often a combination of a custom case sat atop pre-manufactured legs chosen by the buyer.

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Square grands were the piano of choice for nearly 150 years, and in mid-19th century America could easily cost upwards of $800.00. This was a sizable sum considering an average home could be purchased for the same amount of money. By the late 1880s, a shift to the upright piano was taking place. The square grand just took up too much space in more modest homes and eventually became obsolete. Sadly, many were literally chopped up for firewood.

​In the twentieth century, William Knabe & Company was purchased by other musical instrument makers, and today the Knabe piano headquarters is in South Korea.
 

​The most famous Knabe piano, 
Francis Scott Key's square grand, is in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, TN. The Knabe piano is reputed to produce tones closest to those produced by the human voice. It was the official piano of the New York Metropolitan Opera for decades and is still the official piano brand of the American Ballet Theatre.
Article by Wade Toth, Bellamy Mansion Museum Volunteer Coordinator and Leslie Randle-Morton, Bellamy Mansion Museum Associate Director.

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​Bellamy Mansion Museum
of History & Design Arts

503 Market Street
Wilmington, NC 28401
910.251.3700

​​
​Leashed service dogs only.
Free parking lot on Market St. side.
​
Ticket Sales
10:00 am - 4:00 pm daily
  • Self-guided tour must begin by 4 pm. Must be completed by 5 pm
  • Smartphone needed for audio tour. Earbuds or headphones make for the best experience.
  • Premium guided tours at 10 am, 12 pm, and 2 pm when available. Call to check.
​Office Hours
Monday-Friday 9:30 am- 5 pm
Admission Prices (tax not reflected)
Self-guided
  • Adults (ages 17-64): $15 
  • Seniors (65+): $14
  • Active/Retired Military ID: $14 
  • Students (ages 6-16): $7.50 
  • Children (ages 0-5): FREE
​Guided
  • Adult Premium Tour: $20**
  • Student Premium Tour: $10**
**when available
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