William B. Gould I was born into slavery but escaped to his freedom in 1862 where he went on to join the Union Navy and fought against the Confederacy for the remainder of the Civil War. Three days after his escape from Wilmington he began writing a diary that he would keep for the duration of his service, and his diary is the only one known to exist that was penned by a member of the Union Navy who was an escaped slave. Gould is one of the known antebellum artisans who helped with construction of the Bellamy house, and it may have been one of his last projects in the South as an enslaved plasterer.

In 2002, William B. Gould's great-grandson, William B. Gould IV, published the diary, titled "Diary of a Contraband" because the escaped slaves taken aboard the Union blockading ship were considered missing contraband rather than missing people. On the cover of the book is a striking photograph of a bespectacled Gould with a greying goatee and a perfect Windsor knot in his silk tie. 

The cover image is a closeup of a cabinet card taken at the Beckford photography studio in Boston, Massachusetts, and possibly the first photograph taken of Mr. Gould. ​This image of Mr. Gould is not the only one used at the Bellamy Museum in the interpretation of his story, but it is the one used most frequently. Staff and volunteers could recognize it from one thousand yards, but the year it was taken and the photographer who captured his stoic portrait had not come up as a topic of research.

Over the last few years, Mr. Gould's story of enslavement, escape, enlistment, and entrepreneurship has begun to finally receive more regional and national recognition. Here in Wilmington, a state highway marker dedicated to Gould was installed in front of the Bellamy Museum in 2018. Plans to rename a park in Dedham, Massachusetts, the town Mr. Gould and his wife Cornelia settled in after the Civil War, came to fruition in September 2021 when the East Dedham Passive Park was renamed the William B. Gould Park, and his life story and obituary were featured in a "New York Times" article in June 2022. The grassroots organization responsible for much of this is the William Gould Memorial, and after years of planning and fundraising, the group just unveiled a life-size bronze statue of Mr. Gould situated in the park that now bears his name. 

Bolivian-born artist Pablo Eduardo studied photographs of Gould to create the memorial, and though depicting an older man that the one in the Beckford photograph, many features from that photograph jump out when looking at the clay model on the left--from the hairline to that Windsor knot in the tie. 

The Beckford photograph of this brilliant man and stalwart patriot is, to us, iconic and central to telling Mr. Gould's story, but I had never stopped to ask myself, "Who was Beckford? When was the photograph taken? What, if anything, could knowledge of the photographer help illuminate about Gould himself?"

What follows is a brief biography of David C. Beckford, a "colored" immigrant who went from working odd jobs when he arrived in the United States at age sixteen to one of the most renowned photographers in New England by the time he was in his mid-thirties. Ironically, no photograph of David C. Beckford is known to exist.

David C. Beckford (c. 1855-unknown) was born in Jamaica, West Indies, to William and Catharine Beckford. David sailed to America in 1872 around the age of sixteen, and he worked various jobs including as a claerk and cook in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1881, at the age of twenty-seven, David married Elvira P. Gott of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and in 1882 David became a naturalized American citizen. 

Sometime after becoming an American citizen, David went to work for Boston based Chickering Photography Company--established in the early 1870s--and around 1891 David C. Beckford took over the studio and renamed it Beckford's Photo Studio.

In a short time, Beckford's studio was renowned, and he employed four assistants. An 1892 publication, Boston: its Finance, Commerce, and Literature, called his studio "one of the best in the country" stating his portraits were "unsurpassed by any other house in New England."

A client could have their photograph hand-colored with "crayon, pastel, water colors, India ink, and oil." A Directory of Massachusetts Photographers states Beckford's studio was in operation until 1909, and it may be at that point David C. Beckford moved back to Jamaica.

Beckford was not only an entrepreneur in America, but he also maintained a hardware store in Kingston, Jamaica. He sailed back and forth between Boston and Kingston conducing business, and a 1905 passenger manifest from the ship Admiral Farragut lists David as the only "Colored" passenger aboard that voyage. 

In 1907, the island of Jamaica suffered a 6.2 magitude earthquake--the epicenter of which was Kingston. It was one of the deadliest earthquakes in recorded history with around 1,000 people losing their lives. Every building in Kingston was damaged or destroyed including Beckford's hardware store and other properties.

What became of David and Ella Beckford after 1909 is currently uknown. There are no death or burial records for either, and there is no evidence they had any children. It is plausible they moved back to Jamaica after the earthquake where they remained.

David C. Beckford was a successful Black businessman in two countries. There were very few Black photographers in America when Beckford took the photograph of William B. Gould I around 1892-1895. It's quite a fascinating vignette to imagine this escaped slave turned Naval officer sitting for his portrait in a busy Boston studio operated by a young, up and coming Black immigrant. 

Written by Leslie Randle-Morton, Associate Director of the Bellamy Mansion Museum.

In 1886, a Black state teachers’ association demanded that people of color be admitted to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This caused anti-Black sentiments to skyrocket in North Carolina. Former slave holders did not want their former enslaved workers and descendants to be in school with their own children and grandchildren. Despite the rise in White supremacist and anti-Black sentiments, Henry Eppes, another Black senator from Halifax County,  proposed a bill for a college for Black citizens of North Carolina in 1887. He asked for $10,000 in funding the first year and $1,000 annually thereafter. It was rejected 37-1. In 1889, there were two additional attempts by Black legislators to pass a bill creating an agricultural and mechanical college for Black North Carolinians, yet they both failed as well.  ​

​It was not until the U.S. Congress passed the second Morrill Act in 1890 that White members of North Carolina’s General Assembly began to take seriously the notion of establishing a university for Black students. The first Morrill Act of 1862, set aside federal lands to create colleges to “benefit agricultural and mechanical arts.” It gave each state 30,000 acres of land to be distributed by state senators and representatives. This act was directly responsible for the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts-- known today as North Carolina State University. With the passing of the second Morrill Act, the U.S. Congress prevented federal dollars being distributed to states that did not have integrated institutions of higher education or at least a separate college for Black students. The 1890 Morrill Act allocated $15,000 to each state, which increased yearly by $1,000 for 10 years until it reached a maximum of $25,000 per annum. One stipulation was that the annual appropriations had to be divided equally between Black and White schools in states that maintained segregated universities.  ​

In 1890, Secretary of the Interior John W. Noble sent letters to North Carolina Governor Daniel G. Fowle asking three questions pertaining to agricultural colleges in North Carolina: Are there agricultural and mechanical colleges in North Carolina? If so, are they segregated? And if they are segregated, are there colleges for both White and Black students? Governor Fowle responded saying there was a university-- North Carolina State University—but it was segregated, and there was no equitable university for Black students. Secretary Noble then notified Governor Fowle that since there was no college for Black students, North Carolina did not qualify for the funding established in the Morrill Acts. Governor Fowle then notified the state legislature that for this reason, and this reason only, North Carolina needed to establish a Black agricultural and mechanical college. ​

On January 9, 1891, Isaac Alston, a Black legislator representing the 19th District of Warren County, introduced SB12 which would establish a Black college in North Carolina, but it was promptly denied. On March 5, 1891, John D. Bellamy Jr. sponsored SB12, where it easily passed its first, second, and third readings and was ordered enrolled by the House of Representatives the following day, March 6th. So why did the General Assembly deny all previously sponsored or introduced bills? A likely contributing factor was that every representative who had-- O’Hara, White, Alston-- were Black. John D. Bellamy Jr. was White. The Morrill Act of 1890 also backed North Carolina into a corner: either establish a Black college or lose all federal funding for the colleges already established. The state Senate had not wanted to support higher education for Black students, evidenced by their refusal to pass previous bills for Black universities proposed by Black Senators, but the idea of losing all federal funding for UNC-CH and NC State caused a swift about-face.  ​

On March 9, 1891, the North Carolina General Assembly founded the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race—now known as A&T University. Since its founding, A&T University has been recognized as a premier university in North Carolina. The university’s second president, James B. Dudley, was from Wilmington. John Jr. bragged Dudley’s appointment by the General Assembly was a “compliment” to himself.  In 1928, the university opened its’ doors to female students. And in 1945, then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the campus. A&T University has won seven HBCU football national championships, and notable alumni include Rev. Jesse Jackson, astronaut Ronald McNair, and United States Army Nurse Corps Clara Leach Adams-Ender. ​

The university eventually played an important an role in the American Civil Rights Movement, and Greensboro became nationally known for both peaceful protests and violent clashes. On February 1, 1960, four A&T students: Ezell Blair, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, and David Richmond sat-in at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, an all-White restaurant, beginning the nationally known Greensboro sit-ins that lasted until July of 1960 and spread to many other segregated cities in the South. In 1969, the university was involved in the 1969 Greensboro Uprising, wherein the National Guard infiltrated the university after mass protests erupted over a student body election at the nearby all-Black James B. Dudley High School. The event has been described as “the most massive armed assault ever made against an American university” which left two A&T students dead and eighteen injured. Bellamy likely could never have imagined how prestigious the university would become nor the impact A&T would make on the Civil Rights Movement as a whole though he remained proud of his part in founding the university until his death. ​

In John Jr.’s 1942 autobiography, Memoirs of an Octogenarian, which he wrote during his last year of life, he boasted that, “many other bills...were passed” during his time in the General Assembly, but he only went into detail about his role in establishing A&T University explaining he “drafted the charter for the Negro Agricultural College at Greensboro.”  John Jr. never explicitly stated why he suddenly supported SB12; if he was taking it on because he truly believed in a need for a Black college or if he was simply supporting it to secure federal funding for other colleges, but it is most likely at the intersection of myriad reasons he chose to support SB12. Regardless his motivations, the outcome is that A&T University is celebrating 130 years as North Carolina’s first institution for higher education for Black students, and we at the Bellamy Museum say, “Go Aggies!!” ​

There are many other Bellamy related buildings around Wilmington that also have plaques such as the Grant-Thompson house right next door to the Bellamy Mansion Museum at 513 Market Street. Built in 1847 by James Thompson for local merchant James Grant. Robert R. Bellamy purchased, remodeled and enlarged the house in a Queen Anne style in 1890, and it remained in the family for fifty-six years. Today it houses the law firm of Kohut & Adams. At 121 S. 2nd Street stands the Ballard-Potter-Bellamy House built for Jethro Ballard in 1844 and acquired by Mary Bellamy, wife of William J.H. Bellamy, in 1884. This house remained in the Bellamy family for 80 years and remains a private residence.

​A commercial building associated with the Bellamy family that boasts a plaque is the Robert R. Bellamy Building at 7 N. Front Street. Built as a rental property for Robert, it originally housed a boot and shoe store. The building remained in the Bellamy family until 1988 and today is the downtown location of Slainte Irish Pub. To find out more about the plaques around Wilmington, you can visit the Historic Wilmington Foundation’s interactive plaque map. 

     To be eligible for a hand painted plaque from HWF, a property must first be 75 years of age or older. However, at Kure Beach, Wrightsville Beach, and Carolina Beach buildings more than 50 years old do qualify. If a building or property is of an age to qualify for a plaque, the application process can then begin. The plaque application on HWF’s website leads property owners through the process of researching the property and they have information on local researchers if the owner prefers to hire a professional to carry out their research. The cost for members of Historic Wilmington Foundation is $345 and non-members pay $395, but the plaque includes a family membership! Already have a plaque but need it repainted? HWF extends the member rate of $345 for anyone needing repainting or multiple copies of a plaque. If you have any questions, email Blair Middleton at HWF.