BELLAMY MANSION MUSEUM

Ritual Concealments

9/1/2024

Contributed by Bellamy Museum Board Member Lynn Wood Mollenauer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of History, University of North Carolina Wilmington

The 1859 Bellamy Museum slave quarters is a rare surviving and interpreted example of this type of urban structure. During the multi-year restoration of the slave quarters, archeologists discovered a cache of small objects under the floorboards of the first story bedchamber. The assortment included buttons, a bead or two, an animal’s jawbone, a shard of pottery, and parts of a child’s doll. While we cannot definitively identify it as such, it is likely that this collection of seemingly mundane items is a ritual concealment.

The items are on display at the museum

A ritual concealment, sometimes called a spiritual cache, is a hidden collection of objects intended for protection. The objects are typically ordinary things that to modern eyes seem to lack religious or spiritual significance. Ritual concealments have been deposited for centuries across North America and Europe and are part of African cultural traditions as well. The earliest European examples are pre-Roman; deposits containing animal skeletons, coins, and bottles have been excavated from buildings that date from the Bronze Age forward. Concealments were secreted under windows and doorways to safeguard homes or embedded in walls and hearths during construction to ward off evil and misfortune. In North America, European colonists continued the long-standing practice, bricking up dolls, shoes, knives, pieces of clothing, horse skulls, and even dead cats in the belief that the hidden items would ensure the well-being of the building’s inhabitants. (We know the cats were placed deliberately, as they were often posed with rodents in their mouths.) Excavations on antebellum plantations reveal that enslaved peoples too left ritual deposits, which might contain beads, nails or other pieces of iron, and ceramic shards.

A concealed shoe found under a floor board in the historic home of the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. built in the 1880s.

A haint blue porch ceiling. The word 'haint' refers to a ghost or spirit and is related to 'haunt'.

In the 19th century United States these ritual practices continued, albeit usually — but not always -- without the cats. Archeological evidence demonstrates that both White and Black Americans across the country sought the sense of security that supernatural safeguards afforded. The inhabitants of North Carolina were no exception. In addition to using ritual concealments, Wilmingtonians scattered salt or seeds to deter witches (witches were believed to be so compulsive that they would stop to examine each minute grain) and nailed horseshoes over doors for good luck. Some painted their porch ceilings “haint blue” to ward off evil spirits. The practice derived from Gullah Geechee folklore, which held that spirits would mistake the pale blue color for water, which they could not cross.

Evidence from newspapers and novels suggests that North Carolinians also used amulets and charms for supernatural protection. In Charles W. Chestnutt’s 1901 Wilmington-based novel, The Marrow of Tradition, for example, the character Aunt Jane buries a charm in her employers’ backyard during a full moon. The charm, provided by a conjure woman living on the edge of town, is meant to keep the baby boy Aunt Jane looks after safe from harm. Its contents included calamus root, a bone from a black cat, and a vial of water in which the baby had been bathed. Amulets, sometimes called “conjure bags,” were charms that were most often worn around the neck. They were believed to ward off disease and other manifestations of ill will, as well as to help defendants in court. Newspaper articles from the time indicate that the use of conjure bags was not at all uncommon. As the Wilmington Messenger reported of accused arsonist John Braswell, “he had two conjure bags with him in court . . . and relied on them more than his lawyers.” (March 3, 1898) The reporter seemed to take some satisfaction in noting that John Braswell was nonetheless found guilty.

The slave quarters at the Bellamy site was built in 1859, mostly by enslaved workers, and sporadically occupied into the 1930s. It sat empty for decades and a new roof was placed by the family in the 1980s. When Preservation NC became involved in 1989 maintenance work occurred gradually as the museum evolved. The building has been featured on the museum tour since 1994 in various stages of repair. A complete restoration was undertaken in 2013-14 to return the building to its original condition. Intriguingly, the slave quarters of the Bellamy Museum may have even more ritual deposits hidden within its walls. Chunks of obsidian and shards of broken china, embedded in the mortar of the east and south walls, were discovered during the 2013-14 restoration. They too may be evidence of a ritual meant to protect the building’s inhabitants.

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An Art Legacy at the Bellamy

8/1/2024

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The Bellamy Museum is fortunate to be one of the most photographed and artistically rendered sites in Wilmington. The list of local notables creating images include Ben Billingsley, Bruce Bowman, Todd Carignan, John and Mary Ellen Golden, Claude Howell, William Mangum, Louis Orr, John Poon, Robert Powers, and many others. Several are in our collection, including a large-scale image by regionalist artist Chris Wilson that has been added recently. Also, countless fine photographers and 3D artists have approached the subject, along with more unusual renditions in woodcut, models, ice sculpture, and even cakes!

There are artworks of every size and shape on every wall of Kathy Wilson's apartment -- 28 pieces to be exact -- by her late husband Chris Wilson. Can you spot an image of the Bellamy?

Artist Chris Wilson: The Bellamy Through His Eyes
The moment you enter Kathy Wilson’s modern,1,300-square-foot apartment overlooking the Cape Fear River in downtown Wilmington, you are ensconced in a world of art and antiques. The walls are filled with “postcards” (small versions of much larger paintings), sketches, studies and other large-scale artworks, most of which were created by Kathy’s late husband J. Chris Wilson (1948-2023), an American Southern regionalist artist, best known for his paintings of North Carolina scenic landscapes. In her new living space, Kathy has lovingly curated selections of her husband's art to memorialize the span of their lives.

Chris Wilson was known for his very large paintings, placing the viewers in his paintings instead of only allowing them to view the subject matter from a distance. In the Wilson's spacious previous home on 5th Avenue, the six-foot wide Bellamy painting had plenty of room. That antebellum home (1854), as well as the Bellamy house (1861), were designed by Wilmington architect James F. Post.

To be sure, not all of the pieces that adorned the walls of the Wilson’s previous 6,000-square-foot home on Wilmington’s South 5th Avenue made the move to the smaller space, so they will reside in storage for now. One masterpiece, however, journeyed just two blocks down the street to the Bellamy Museum on 503 North 5th Avenue. It is a 48-inch by 72-inch oil on canvas depicting the Kenan Fountain in the foreground and the imposing mansion behind it.

Chris painted it in 2008, a few years after moving to Wilmington from Rocky Mount, NC, where he and Kathy, both college professors, restored the 18th-century Battle family Old Town plantation. It was purchased from Preservation North Carolina (PNC), and soon after added to the National Register of Historic Places. Passionate preservationists, they took three years to restore the Wilmington house, and Chris served a stint on the PNC board while Kathy was a member of the board of the Bellamy Mansion Museum representing PNC. During this time, Chris and Kathy were recipients of the Gertrude S. Carraway Award of Merit in 2011 from PNC for their contributions to historic preservation.

“My soul is sustained by what passes through my eyes...One of the motivations for my paintings is that I strive to create an object that, when it succeeds, has the capacity to bring that kind of visual pleasure to me and hopefully to others.”
J. Chris Wilson

Soon after Chris’ passing in late 2023, Kathy donated the Bellamy piece to the museum, where 22,000 annual visitors can enjoy the beauty of Chris’ interpretation of the iconic 1861 mansion and 1921 Kenan fountain. Kathy explains the donation is in honor of her husband's dedication to preservation, as well as that of recently retired PNC President Myrick Howard.

As to what drew him to paint the Bellamy, Chris has said: “I’m looking for extraordinary landscapes, things that are extraordinary in terms of visual interest, and that will make a really good painting. And so I’m not really seeking out the best known tourist sites in North Carolina and then doing those because it’s not the site that I’m after, it’s the composition and design I’m after, it’s what interests me.”

Chris Wilson's portfolio includes hundreds of artworks, which are held in public, corporate and private collections throughout the United States. Among them, approximately 30 have been on loan for more than ten years at the North Carolina Museum of History and the legislative building in Raleigh.

Several of Chris' landscape paintings reside in the NC House Chamber.

In the early 2000's, Chris began working on his most prolific project: "From Murphy to Manteo—An Artist's Scenic Journey," traveling across North Carolina numerous times, photographing and sketching potential compositions. His stated goal was to produce 100 large-scale canvases, some with dimensions approaching 16 feet, depicting scenes from the mountains to the sea. The series was named for U.S. Route 64, the longest highway in North Carolina measuring 563 miles. Chris passed away before that project was finished, but he has most certainly left behind an enduring legacy.

Shown here in his studio, Chris worked tirelessly to capture the many scenic wonders across the state in his landscape series: “From Murphy to Manteo." Among his last paintings for the series was "Looking Down Toxaway Falls, Transylvania County," completed in 2018. It measures a "mere" 58 inches high by 40 inches wide. Learn more about Chris Wilson and his artworks here: www.jchriswilson.com.

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Lights Up! Illuminating the Bellamy House

7/1/2024

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The front formal parlor of the Bellamy showing how light from the elaborate gasolier is reflected in the fireplace mirror.

Tours of the museum site often discuss the mechanics of daily life. Heat regulation and light in an era before electricity are common topics. In the parlors, the southern orientation of the house was a major factor, as were the tall pocket windows. Fires lit in winter in the parlors and bedrooms were another.

Throughout the house an expensive form of lighting for wealthy Victorians was by way of coal gas-fed fixtures, called gasoliers. These were a type of the historically candle-lit chandelier that was either specifically designed or upfitted for gas. They would have to be lit each day and turned down each night and, despite their price tag, would have required candles and lanterns to provide complimentary illumination around the house. Enhancing these various light sources were polished brass, lustered finishes and other shiny objects and treatments. Similarly, a simple way to accomplish light enhancement was with the aid of mirrors. The ornate ones in the parlors were bought, along with most of the fixtures and furnishings of the house, during an 1860 trip to New York by John and Eliza Bellamy.

Mirrors at the level of the gas fixtures were used, as were mirrors low to the ground. Sometimes they were built into furniture or into fireplace covers like the ones on display in the mansion. The covers, which were placed in front of the open fireplace any time it was not in use, were not used for women to check their ankle exposure, as an old wives' tale suggests, but to provide more light for everyone in the parlor. The entire Bellamy house was plumbed for gas when finished in 1861 and both wall-mounted and ceiling gas fixtures were placed in hallways and the nine bedrooms.

The Gasoliers
The popularity of gas lighting ballooned in the United States and Great Britain throughout the 19th century transitioning from simpler “bowl” designs reminiscent of oil lamps in the 1820s to the intricate multi-arm morning-glory patterned fixtures of the 1860s. The Philadelphia-based Cornelius Company was a juggernaut in the American gas lighting arena and was manufacturing lighting fixtures and apparatus by the mid-1820s. By the time Dr. and Mrs. Bellamy went on their 1860 shopping trip the company had become Cornelius and Baker and claimed “all the various capitols of the United States have been lighted by chandeliers manufactured at this company,” according to author J.B. Chandler in his, 'Description of the Establishment of Cornelius and Baker Manufacturers of Lamps, Chandeliers and Gas Fixtures, Philadelphia.'

"If we lift our skirts, they level their eye-glasses at our ankles." (Family Friend magazine, 1854) Cartoon expressing a mild Victorian dilemma -- it was often necessary for women to slightly lift up their skirts if they didn't want to drag their hems through wet or filth, but many males found the resulting display of ankles to be mildly titillating (since the ankle was the one part of the lower body which it was legitimate for women to show, but when dresses were floor-length, it wasn't often revealed except under necessity or accident).

The gasolier in the Bellamy's family parlor, shown below left, was made by Cornelius and Baker of Philadelphia. It is especially appealing with little cherubs blowing horns and decorative elements, including circus elephants. Given Dr. Bellamy's politics, it may be no coincidence that this gasolier is quite similar to the one also made by Cornelius and Baker in the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. (1861-1865). This gasolier is possibly one of seven attributed in 1896 to the original furnishings of the White House.

Cornelius and Baker's most stunning remaining piece is found in the Philadelphia Academy of Music. It weighs 5,000 pounds and contained 240 gas jets when that grand concert hall opened in 1857. In 1900 it was converted to electricity. Somewhere between 1905-1910 the Bellamy family converted their house to that power source and the gasoliers were wired for electric lights. Gas fixtures draw heat up and can cause some ventilation by circulation. Coal gases do not burn cleanly, however, so the fixtures and the ceilings and molding above them would have to be cleaned for soot and often repainted.

The Mirrors
Each mirrored fireplace cover in the Bellamy parlors has the maker’s mark “T. Bent & Son N.Y No. 18” on its back. Thomas Bent established the Globe Iron Foundry in 1843 in New York, NY. The company was well known for their stable and kennel fixtures and fittings. In 1860 Dr. and Mrs. Bellamy may have visited the Globe Iron Foundry at their 26th Street Manhattan shop to purchase not only the fireplace covers but also stable fittings for the carriage house and possibly decorative iron benches for outside. Thomas Bent died in 1870 and his son Samuel took over the company. By 1890 Samuel had moved the foundry from New York City to Port Chester where it became Samuel S. Bent & Son. (Source: The Iron Age, Vol. 46, September 1890.)

1940s

Today

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Enslaved workers at the Grist property

6/1/2024

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North Carolina turpentine distillery. North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.

Slave schedules for the 1860 U.S. Federal Census reveal Dr. John D. Bellamy enslaved 24 teenagers and men on his turpentine operation at "Grist", a small settlement in Columbus County, NC, 60 miles west of Wilmington near the town of Chadbourn. Ranging in age from 17 to 40 and collectively living in nine "cabins," these enslaved workers, together with 82 at his "Grovely" plantation in Brunswick County and nine more at his residence in Wilmington, totaled 115 men, women and children. This meant Bellamy was one North Carolina's largest slaveholders in 1860.

Although Bellamy identified himself as a physician to a census taker in 1850, he listed himself as a merchant in 1860. In 1854, John paid $4,500 for the large tract of pine forest, convenient to railroad lines, at Grist. While the word grist refers to grain for milling into products like flour it was not grain but this turpentine distillery, using the labor of the enslaved workers, that proved lucrative.

Much of the work involved cutting boxes, or holes approximately six to eight inches, to collect resin in barrels placed at the base of trees.

North Carolinians are nicknamed Tar Heels, originally as a pejorative for perceivedly lowly work with pine resin (the 'tar'). During the Civil War, however, soldiers took up the name and post-war it became a symbol of state pride [1]. For many people the manufacture of pitch, tar, rosin, and turpentine was critical for a variety of uses and for the revenue produced. Turpentine, for example, was put into everything from makeup to medicine in the mid-19th century.

A lonely, dirty, dangerous business:
Extracting this 'pine tar' is described by historian David Cecelski; "A 'boxed tree' was one that had a section of its bark cut away so that the resin flowed into the hollow in the tree where it could be collected. To make 'spirits of turpentine,' the woodsmen and women (often enslaved laborers) collected and distilled that resin, not terribly unlike making liquor." [2] Given that pine resin featured in so many products, plus preserved wood and waterproofed ships, it was unsurprising that North Carolina, one of the world's leading sources, accumulated so much wealth from its pine trees.

As lucrative as it was for the White land owners, the industry could be solitary and physically taxing for the enslaved workers. The industry used the task system. An overseer assigned enslaved workers a task, or multiple tasks, and they were responsible for completing them. This meant an enslaved naval stores worker could continue with limited or no supervision for several days at a stretch.

Shoes, hats and blankets were often the only items enslaved workers on these turpentine farms had that were not made on site. Different from plantation life, where families were often housed together, laboring in a turpentine operation could be more solitary with perhaps only a small number of female enslaved cooks with the male laborers. Working conditions were harsh. Summer heat, mosquitoes, poisonous snakes and poison ivy, among much else, were prevalent and led to a variety of maladies. Wet ground and forests made it difficult if not impossible to move carts led by mules.

Enslaved men working the pine forests were often subjected to cruel punishment at the hands of overseers and agents who managed the operations for men who lived in other counties. Runaways were not uncommon. Housing was another difficulty. Workers in the naval stores industry primarily lived in crude lean‐tos, sometimes no more than four feet high. More than a few suffered illnesses caused by breathing the fumes of the portable copper turpentine stills. [3] There were several methods for distilling, including tar kilns and pits, and using fallen and burnt logs as well as boxed trees. If not by rail or wagon, the North Carolina river system brought the products to the coast for use or sale. [4]

Collecting pitch from pine trees in North Carolina. Image courtesy of UNC Chapel Hill.

When enslaved people would stir pine tar, pitch and turpentine, it was often in huge cauldrons that required them to stand on the edge and use a long stirrer, almost like an oar. One slip could lead to severe burning. In this case, being a “Tar Heel” was certainly not a good thing. In 1850 there were 1,144 distillers of pine tar products in the state, and most had businesses in Wilmington. By 1860 the value of this trade was over $5 million. [5] To that point, an unproven story, likely an apocryphal boast but certainly indicative, relayed by John Bellamy Jr. in his manuscript, Memoirs of an Octogenarian (readable here), was that one year's profit from one of his father's plantations paid for the Bellamy house in Wilmington. As with cotton and rice plantations on the Cape Fear the hard work of enslaved Black workers was central to this egregiously unequal economy and society.

This piece of 'chevroned' longleaf pine can be viewed at the Bellamy Museum. It was presented to the museum by Old Growth Riverwood, a company that salvages wooden buildings and, as in this case, recovers old growth woods from the Cape Fear River.

Clearly seen are the many marks of years of cutting this tree to drain the resin. Longleaf pines uptake water through their dense, damp interior rather than their bark, so 'boxing' a tree can take place over many years. These trees can live to 300 years old and their range was once 92 million acres from coastal North Carolina to Texas. Now less than 5% of that ecosystem remains. [6]

[1] William S. Powell (March 1982). "What's in a Name? Why We're All Called Tar Heels". Tar Heel magazine
[2] David Cecelski (reviewing 1809 diary excerpts from English traveler Holles Bull Way), Coastal Review article, July 2018, coastalreview.org.https://coastalreview.org/2018/07/pitch-pines-and-tar-burners-a-1792-account/
[3] Dr. Lloyd Johnson. https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/naval-stores/
[4] David Cecelski (reviewing 1809 diary excerpts from English traveler Holles Bull Way), Coastal Review article, July 2018, coastalreview.org.https://coastalreview.org/2018/07/pitch-pines-and-tar-burners-a-1792-account/
[5] Dr. Lloyd Johnson. https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/naval-stores/
[6] Article, WUFT Public Media, Veronica Nocera. May 9, 2024. www.tuft.org/environment/2024-05-09/the-trees-truth-once-dominant-longleaf-pines-face-the-growing-threat-of-climate-change

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Don Floyd: Our 45-Year "White House" Fixer

6/1/2024

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1980s Don Floyd in the early days of the site's restoration. Here he's creating molds for recreating the decorative plaster. The blackened plaster was fire damaged in 1972 and was used to make the mold and create replacement pieces for sections too badly damaged to reuse.

Best described as a “multitalented craftsman,” Don has been involved in restoration projects at the Bellamy Mansion Museum for nearly a half century, including everything from the etched glass around the front door to huge mirror frames, parlor gasoliers, crown moldings, brass window valances, and even skeleton keys.

Don now works closely with museum site manager Bob Lock, who rediscovered a newspaper article written about Don 45 years ago! Writing in the 1980s, Helen Sharpe, a journalist for The Robesonian newspaper, was reminiscing about her fondness for the Floyd Hardware store on West 2nd Street in Lumberton, NC. Her focus quickly turned to Don. She wrote, “I couldn’t believe he knew so much about light fixtures, especially old ones. He did a lot of reading about them, knew how they were put together and how they should be maintained. When lovely old homes of the community would be taken down, he would be on hand to salvage an especially lovely fixture.”

The unrestored mansion as it looked when Don spotted it during a trip to Wilmington.

Don’s fascination with the Bellamy Mansion began in 1968, Sharpe observed, when he traveled to Wilmington for the Azalea Festival air show. As he rode past the mansion it captured his imagination. At that time there was a store, Divine Antiques, run by Virginia Jennewein, in the basement. The rest of the home was unoccupied. He stopped to look in but was refused permission to see the rest of the interior. In response, he made the rash statement that he would etch and donate the glass for the front door should it be restored. The woman in the antique store replied, “Anybody that damned crazy can go in.”

A few years after that, Sharpe remembers visiting Floyd Hardware and found Don in a state of alarm. "He was grieving that the Bellamy mansion in Wilmington had been the victim of arsonists. The fire in the mansion which occurred during the early ‘70s came at a time of racial troubles, and Don deeply feels the irony of this because the house is an example of the genius of Black artistic craftsmanship, one of the finest Greek revival buildings in the entire South.”

After the devastating 1972 fire at the mansion, Don was instrumental in the painstaking repairs to fixtures and other house features.

Among his projects back then was to repair the etched glass above the front door. Don recalls that he recreated the design in the lunette (or half-moon) window from his imagination. A few years later, he saw a picture of the original entrance and his design was virtually identical! Nearly five decades later, in 2019, Don revisited his previous work to re-etch some pieces of glass in the lunette and in the sidelight windows that had cracked over time.

More recently, Don took on the task of reproducing skeleton keys for the four adult bedroom level closets. The term ‘skeleton key’ refers to any key that can open multiple locks. Incidentally, closets were present in Europe from the 1500s but were usually whole rooms. America refined the idea into reach-in closets within walls in the mid 1800s. Early clothes closets employed pegs, although Thomas Jefferson reputedly had a hanger device in Monticello. One fine story of invention is that in 1903, Albert J. Parkhouse of the Timberlake Wire and Novelty Company in Jackson Mississippi, couldn't find a spot to hang his coat and upgraded the clothes peg idea by twisting wire into the shape we recognize as the modern hanger. Whatever the truth of these details, the Bellamy's locking closets, like the gasoliers and fixtures Don also fixed, were part of the ever-evolving world of domestic living.

Perhaps Don's longest project, and one has which led him to introspection on the history embodied by the site, was the restoration of the parlor mirror frames. They had been blackened and damaged in the 1972 fire. Also, water from the firehoses, having hit the hot mirror glass, had caused it to crack.

Back in 1860, John D. and Eliza Bellamy took a trip to New York and bought furnishings and fixtures for their new house. These included the gasoliers by Philadelphia company Cornelius and Baker, the piano by the Knabe company of Baltimore, and the large mirrors.

The original mirror frames were finished with gold leaf. During the 1970s and 80s, while restoring the frames in his home workshop, the gilt would catch Don's eye and take his thoughts back to those original glory days of the house. He added that thinking of that Civil War era also called to mind the quote from Winston Churchill that, “History is written by the victors.” While considering the thousands of lives that were lost on both sides, Don laments there are no victors in war. In his view, both Confederates and Yankees came away physically and mentally crippled. Taking on an historic preservation project, which takes much time and attention to detail, often leads to reflection on the lives of those who came before.

Another tricky project was the restoration of the molding above the gasoliers. The parlor gasoliers were lit with coal gas, a by-product of naval stores processing. The medallions above the gasoliers were decorative, but served a practical purpose in hiding soot from the coal gas. The original medallions above the front parlor gasolier were, Don notes, "shaken loose by a group of kids on a tour in the house jumping up and down on the floor of the room above.” They had to be cleaned up and, in some cases, recast in plaster.

Don shared some memories about restoring these and the similarly involved crown molding in the foyer. Doing the work at home, it attracted the attention of some neighborhood kids who asked if they could help. He let them pour some of the molding material and before it dried, he invited the kids to put their names on the backs of the molds. That idea came from the discovery, during Preservation NC's 1990s restoration, of the 'WBG' initials on the back of an original piece of plaster in the house. The story of it's discovery and the man who inscribed it is a mainstay of museum tours today. WBG was William Benjamin Gould, an enslaved plasterer who worked on many antebellum homes in the Wilmington area, including Bellamy's, and made a daring escape downriver in 1862. Letting the kids etch their names was a nod to this fascinating history and Gould, the skilled enslaved craftsman who had originally created this beautiful plasterwork in 1860.

Unlike many enslaved people, Gould was educated and literate. He was also a highly skilled plasterer. Consequently Gould's owner, planter Nicholas Nixon, hired him out and profited from those skills.

Speaking of the crown molding, Don says the design in the formal parlors is a dogwood pattern. The space behind is hollow. It would have been too heavy if that molding had been solid. He says the original had “shivers” (a.k.a. slivers) of heart pine mixed into plaster to make it stronger. Chuckling about his version of fortifying the new moldings he adds, "I used toothpicks.”

Check out some pictures of the mansion and slave quarters restoration. Our website features a before and after gallery here. There you can appreciate Don's decades of work, as well as that of many other preservation experts.

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Two Lost Bellamy Houses

5/2/2024

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The Robert R. Bellamy House.
Of Eliza and John Bellamy's 10 children, Robert Rankin Bellamy (1861-1926) was the only one born in what is now the main house of the Bellamy museum at 503 Market St. He grew up in the house and became a successful drug store owner and pharmacist in downtown Wilmington. Robert had his own Queen Anne style home built next door to the original Bellamy mansion around 1895. Robert married Lilly Dale Hargrove (1862-1934) and they had one child, Hargrove Bellamy (1896-1994) in the house at 509 Market St. The picture below is approximately 1905. As you can see, it was a large and imposing structure.

The Rachel Thompson house (513 Market St., far right in the historic image above and painted yellow in the present day image below) was bought by Robert Bellamy in 1890 as a rental property. He enlarged that house over time.

Robert's house burned on Christmas Day in 1980 while in use as a home for children with disabilities, according to the local paper. At that time the building was known locally as the Tabb mansion. The building was lost but no-one was hurt.

Image above from the Wilmington Star News, Dec. 27, 1980. Credit Joe Nesbitt. Other historic images from Bellamy Museum archive.

The visible remnants of the property, now the museum parking lot, are the iron fencing and low, granite-topped wall. The Rachel Thompson House, 1849, survives and is owned by the Bellamy Museum/Preservation NC.

While a tree obscures quite a bit of this colorized streetscape postcard from the early 1900s, you can get an idea of the Bellamy mansion, Robert's house, and the Rachel Thompson house from this image.

Robert Bellamy's drugstore was in this building - modified but still standing - at the northwest corner of Front and Market sts.

The John D. Bellamy Jr. House.
One block away from the current museum site, at 602 Market St., sat the John D. Bellamy Jr. house. John Jr. (1854-1942) grew up in what is now the museum's main house. He was an attorney and politician whose election to the US House of Representatives was an integral part of the 1898 massacre and coup. Bellamy had acquired an imposing Italianate, James F. Post designed, 1858 house (Wright-Harriss-Bellamy) on the south east corner of 6th and Market sts. in the 1890s. Around 1899 he massively remodeled it in an extravagant, late Victorian, Queen Anne style. A tower, referred to locally as the ‘German helmet’, and decorative porches were added. The renovation, by noted local architect Charles McMillen, was equally grand on the inside. The local newspaper marveled at the elaborate oak, cherry, and mahogany interior woodwork, a ball room that was created on the top floor, and paneled silk, onyx fireplaces and tapestries by decorators Duryea and Potter of New York.

The Italianate house owned by John Bellamy Jr. at 602 Market St. in the 1890s. The only visible Italianate elements from this house that remain after the remodel were arched, hooded window treatments, on the northwest and west elevations.

A circa 1901 image shows the enormous changes to the house. As well as the tower, chimneys, porches, roof, gables and many other features that were rebuilt, there was interior paneling, wainscoting, ceiling beams, and mosaic tiles in both the vestibule and new conservatory. Walls and ceilings were either painted with floral designs or covered with paneled silks or tapestries.

An image of the house from the 1960s.

On Monday, March 13 ,1972 the original Bellamy mansion, now the museum, suffered an arson attack. While there was no evidence of arson, John Jr.'s house burned down on Wednesday, August 23rd, 1972. John Bellamy Jr's grand-daughter, Emma Bellamy Williamson Hendren (1902-1992) lived in the house at the time. Again, fortunately, no-one was injured.

1972 image from New Hanover County Public Library by way of Beverly Tetterton's book, Wilmington: Lost But Not Forgotten. The Wilmington Morning Star for August 24, 1972 reported, "The German helmet is gone now. It was among the first sections of the house to fall. The 'spike' atop the 'helmet' toppled down into the body of the building."

While the digital reproduction of the August 24, 1972 newspaper page is poor, you can make out flames, damage, and the owner, Emma, watching on.

The 602 Market St. property today. The low surrounding wall and curved driveway are remnants of the historic buildings on the site.

In the rear of this private property sat, until very recently, the walls of an extant building. Some years ago, with the owner's permission, Bellamy staff and preservationists examined the brick and woodwork and surmised it was an historic structure. Carriage houses and slave quarters were not unusual in Wilmington and it is possible - but certainly not proven - that this was such a structure for either John Bellamy Jr's house or the 1858 house he bought and modified. It doesn't appear to be standing today.

Family members have several salvaged parts of the John Bellamy Jr. house. The most visible of these belonged to Hugh MacRae II. Hugh was another grandchild of John Bellamy Jr. and owned businesses and properties including the Hanover Center shopping mall on Oleander Drive. When the owner of J. Michael's Philly Deli became a tenant, Mr. MacRae provided them the front door of 602 Market St. as their entrance. It remains there today.

Credits for information and images to Beverly Tetterton, Wilmington Lost But Not Forgotten (2005), Susan Taylor Block, Cape Fear Lost (1999), New Hanover County Library North Carolina Room collections, the Wilmington Star-News archives, and the Bellamy Museum archives.

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Teaching Hard History and Learning in the Process

5/1/2024

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Since 2015, the Bellamy Mansion Museum has conducted free, place-based school tours in February and March for New Hanover County 5th graders. Staff and volunteers showed students both the 1859 slave quarters and 1861 main house to describe how life looked before electricity, or even running water.

"As the 5th grade curriculum changed, tour attendance dropped, so we decided to revisit the program," explains Jen Fenninger, Education & Engagement Director. "In collaborating with New Hanover County Schools, [headquartered in Wilmington, NC], museum staff learned that the 1898 Wilmington Massacre and Coup has become of increased emphasis in the 8th grade social studies curriculum. With that in mind, recalibrating the tour to target 8th graders became a major initiative in the last year."

Professional development day with local 8th grade teachers.

With financial support from Bellamy Mansion Museum board members, local 8th grade teachers were invited to the museum and offered a paid day of professional development. The conversation focused primarily on the enslaved individuals who had lived on the site and extended to the 1898 massacre and coup. The Bellamy site lends itself directly to the teaching of these local history topics. During the development session, teachers were offered a 90 minute tour, an 1898 presentation, resource guide materials, and museum staff perspectives on how to teach topics of historical slavery and race through the site.

"We had a great discussion and gained information about the topics to target and they how they can be paralleled with the curriculum content," Jen says. "In subsequent months, we rewrote our script to be appropriate and useful to the 8th grade classes."

Driven by unfounded fears of "negro domination," Wilmington's White businessmen, including John Bellamy Jr., devised a plan to rig the 1898 election and overthrow the local government. They also purchased a Colt rapid-fire for the Wilmington Light Infantry to use against the city's Black citizens. On November 10, 1898, the militia towed the gun through the streets to terrorize Blacks.

Through this process, Jen notes, "we were also able to increase our collaboration with colleagues at the nearby Cape Fear Museum (CFM). CFM has an 1898 field trip at a similar time of year that includes a mapping activity and timeline of events. The Bellamy site and CFM's artifacts and documentation blend well into a more complete picture of this period of history and the themes that arise. The new partnership has widened our reach within the county. From our day with local teachers, we learned that it is difficult for them to complete a field trip that isn't a full day out of their school building. Now, with students attending both museum locations, they experience a fuller, more versatile field trip, and learn in buildings where enslaved people once lived and worked."

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" I cannot say thank you enough to everyone who played a part in the field trip! It was so well organized and put together. The adults and students really had a great time! I spoke to many of the students, and most of them said it was a 9 out of 10. Overall, the experience was incredible!"
Trask Middle School teacher

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Bellamy staff is supporting further efforts to educate teachers not only locally, but across the state by participating in symposiums held by the North Carolina History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction out of Fayetteville, NC. With instruction coming from local historians, including Leslie Randle-Morton, associate director of the Bellamy Museum, the center held a two-day symposium last month in Wilmington.

The purpose of the symposium is to teach historical perspectives on the war - its central point being that it was fought to preserve the system of enslavement. The Center reinforces this proven fact and ensures today’s school children learn the truth about the motivations behind the Civil War. The overall mission of the NC History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction is to tell the stories of all North Carolinians and create a comprehensive, fact-based portrait of history that spans the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction periods.

The Center is planning to hold a total of 12 symposiums as a lead up to the opening of a state historic site at the Fayetteville Arsenal where U.S. General William Tecumseh Sherman destroyed the Confederate Army’s ability to make weapons. Once the center is complete, which is expected in 2027, it will be turned over to the state and be housed within the museums division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

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Bellamy Mansion Museum: 30 Years and Counting!

4/1/2024

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Backyard of the Bellamy during restoration.

In the late 1980s, Preservation North Carolina (PNC), fondly referred to as "the animal shelter for old houses," was first approached about the possibility of working with the Bellamy site by descendants of the family. At that time many people thought that preservation was synonymous with house museums, according to former PNC President Myrick Howard. In the 1970s and 80s, PNC's experience was that many North Carolina towns considered renovating their oldest, biggest or fanciest houses into a museum. This might save them from urban renewal or changing economics, but financial sustainability in the long-term was a tricky proposition.

Bellamy family members had formed a charitable corporation in 1972 named Bellamy Mansion, Inc. to assure the preservation and restoration of the site. However, that year arson in the main house caused this undertaking to be vastly more costly and complex than anyone could have anticipated. Meanwhile, PNC was oriented toward finding private buyers who would restore needy properties into homes or adaptive uses such as offices or B&B’s. They were not really in the business of museums, but the Bellamy site offered a unique challenge and opportunity.

The slave quarters prior to restoration.

Damage to the family parlor from the fire set by arsonists on March 13, 1972.

The site was completed in 1861 and in 1946 the last member of the original family, Ellen Bellamy, passed away in the house. The property was in some disrepair, although it still comprised the house, gardens, former slave quarters and the carriage house. The latter was in such poor shape that it was bulldozed by the City just after Ellen died.

Ellen Bellamy and her sister Eliza (1920).

In her will, Ellen paid special attention to the family possessions in the house, including her father’s portrait, her sister Mary Elizabeth's ("Belle") paintings, and the treasured silk damask parlor draperies, which by this time she had stored in the attic. Most of the furnishings were divided among family members.

For a year and a half after Ellen’s death, Lina Stallings, employed since 1931 as Ellen’s housekeeper and companion, remained in the house, occasionally welcoming visitors. The many Bellamy heirs faced several issues with the estate, including payment of taxes on the property and the larger problem of the future of the old house. World War Two had transformed Wilmington into a military hub. Post-war economic and societal changes spurred more automobile suburbs, social mobility, and ideas of urban renewal. Older buildings in downtowns were not necessarily desirable and it was possible, even suggested in the local paper, that such a prime corner lot could become, say, a gas station?

Lillian Bellamy and architect Leslie N. Boney Jr. held their wedding reception in the mansion's formal parlors in 1954.

By 1951 a plan to preserve the house was organized by two of John D. Bellamy Jr.’s children, attorney Emmett Bellamy and Eliza Bellamy Williamson. They arranged an auction sale, the house sold, and was then deeded to members of the next generation, Emmett’s eldest daughter Lillian Maxwell Bellamy and Eliza’s daughter Emma Bellamy Williamson. During the 1950s and 60s, these two women and their cousin Hugh MacRae II (also a grandchild of John D. Bellamy Jr.), strove to maintain the house. They employed a caretaker and in 1953 leased the basement rooms as an antique shop, which operated there for some 20 years.

During those decades, Bellamy Mansion, Inc. held fundraising campaigns to stabilize the slave quarters, make essential repairs to the house, had the exterior painted, completed much exterior restoration and raised funds toward restoring the interior. Ideas reported locally for the site included a library, teen center, or an art museum. The family maintained the site and, in 1989, to broaden the identity of the Bellamy property as a public rather than a family treasure, they asked PNC to partner on the project. In 1993 it was donated to become a stewardship property of PNC.

PNC spent four years working with the board of Bellamy Mansion, Inc. to help raise funds for site restoration. The plan was to restore the main house and then the whole site. PNC was committed to doing a “museum in the house” rather than a traditional house museum. This meant not completely furnishing the site but instead leaving room for exhibits, special events and programming. The idea became a hybrid that allowed for both a community hub and place-based learning.

April 1994 marked the official opening of the site as the Bellamy Mansion Museum of History and Design Arts. Festivities kicked off on April 9 with a gala opening, a black tie fundraising event at the museum drawing more than 250 guests from Wilmington, the state and around the country. Music from the USMC 2nd Division Band in their dress blues filled the house. Over $25,000 was raised from the event to help pay for restoration work.

The next day, a Sunday, the general public was invited to join in the Grand Opening Celebration and ribbon-cutting. Playing a key role in the planning, volunteers had worked for eight months to get the museum open to the public. Lillian Boney, a founding member of the Board and great granddaughter of John D. Bellamy, cut the ribbon symbolizing completion of the interior restoration.

Source: StarNews, July 2019, "Myrick Howard 'Birthday Bash' will observe Bellamy Mansion Museum's 25th year"; Catherine Bishir's The Bellamy Mansion.

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Fixing a column

3/28/2024

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In the late 1930s Ellen Douglas Bellamy, the last member of the original family to live in the mansion, completed her memoir, Back With The Tide. In it, she mentions her sister, Mary Elizabeth, as having admired the Clarkson house in Columbia, SC while in college. Mary Elizabeth had reportedly sketched it to send to their father as a suggestion for a design type he might use for their new family home at 5th and Market sts. in Wilmington. The sketch is lost to time and the Clarkson house was burned by Gen. Sherman's army in 1865. However, we might imagine it had some of the Greek Revival style features that - along with Italianate elements - were drawn by architects James Post and Rufus Bunnell for John Bellamy. The house, slave quarters, and carriage house were built by enslaved and free Black artisans. Their skill is evident in the longevity and high style of the site. The buildings are the artifacts of the site and their preservation honors the stories of all those who built them.

The architectural features include the fourteen Corinthian columns on the house porches. In 2022, during a painting project, we discovered a good deal of rotten wood on one near the west corner of the house. All the columns are original and approximately 26 feet tall, including bases and capitals. They are cypress, a wood that is both water and termite resistant. The damage was to a bottom section that seems to have been patched many years ago. Water may have intruded through nail holes and failing paint over time. Some of those nails were the original handmade ones. The columns stand on square concrete plinths that don't allow drainage if water gets inside. Water can wick back up the wood and cause damage.

These columns were shipped from New York during the house's construction in 1860-61. They are in sections, essentially three hollow cylinders stacked on top of each other. The tapering of the column narrows as it rises and features entasis - a classical term for a curved surface that adds aesthetics and strength to structural elements. Despite being essentially hollow they are load-bearing for some of the weight of the porch roof. The rotting lower third and base (pictured below) of this particular column was supporting very little weight and clearly needed replacement. We had braced it and, as we're a preservation organization, the idea was to salvage as much as possible and rebuild using similar materials and techniques.

Jason Moore, a carpenter and owner of Trimight LLC, is known locally for meticulous work on historic detail of this kind. E.B. Pannkuk at Stature Engineering created drawings of the construction and Jason took extremely careful measurements of all parts of the column. Each column is slightly different due to them being made with hand tools and machinery over 160 years ago. Any repairs would have to be similarly custom. A good deal of geometry and math is needed as the bottom third has to correspond exactly with the section above when they meet. The joint is not a straight line but a series of interlocking cypress boards. The column is actually twelve boards at the bottom section that have beveled edges which can be placed together to create the cylindrical shape. Between a number of these boards are tiny shims - wafer thin pieces of wood that allow for expansion and contraction. There are also four wooden disks inside the column to which the boards are nailed to form the cylinder. These disks are at the base, at seven feet, then sixteen feet, and at the capital. Due to tapering the circumference of the column shaft is 26 inches at the base and 24 at the top.

While initially the replacement boards could be machined, all the refinement to get them to fit exactly were pared with hand planes and chisels, plus careful sanding. The exterior of the column is an overlay of fluted, hand-shaped cypress wood. That fluted veneer is tacked to the underlying boards and also has to be recreated by hand. Each indent of that fluting is fractionally different as they were handmade to fit the board underneath. The base, which had also all but rotted away, has a maximum circumference of thirty-one inches but is actually three differently-sized, ornamentally curved, rings placed on top of each other. It almost goes without saying that those had to be very carefully hand finished as well. Sealant and oil-based primer finished the job after several months of detailed work. Over four hundred hours went into this project from start to finish. A benefit of our new knowledge and templates is that as other issues come up, we know what to do. For this particular column, we hope to get at least another century out of it.

Huge thanks are due to a slew of supporters who helped us with very generous gifts from 2021 onwards as we figured out what was going on and how to properly fix it. Also our gratitude to the Cannon Foundation of Concord, NC for a preservation grant that spurred the work forward at a critical moment. Historic preservation work is a collective effort.

The last word goes to Jason Moore, who notes he tried to use original methods, "so as not to limit the imagination of those that view the house after us. Getting to know Bellamy has been a humbling experience. The integrity of what has been built before can only be honored by putting forth a similar effort of excellence. Every house has a soul, Bellamy’s soul is awe inspiring."

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After the Fire: The Work of a Master Plasterer

2/20/2024

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Following in the tradition of the original enslaved plasterers, William M. Hill, a second-generation master plasterer from Clinton, NC, and his team of artisans repaired extensive plaster damage resulting from the 1972 fire at the Bellamy Mansion. During 1992 and 1993 — 20 years after the blaze set by arsonists — they restored the ornamental plasterwork and fabricated the missing parts by hand.

Bellamy plasterers Johnny Allen and Durand McCollum (back row); Ray Wynn, William Hill and Chester Wynn (front row).

Hill's journey to become a master of his craft was a fascinating one, as uncovered by historian David Cecelski in a 2006 interview with Hill, then age 77, published in The Raleigh News & Observer. According to Cecelski, Hill was “a soft-spoken, spiritual man” who described the work of the Bellamy’s enslaved artisans as “unsurpassed.”

Following are excerpts from the article, in William M. Hill’s words:

My daddy was in building, and I’m guessing it was just in my blood. He didn’t finish the second grade, but he became a master plasterer. People beat a path to his door because he was good. He knew how to work. The appearance of his work was good. It was solid, it was sturdy. I learned everything from him. I stayed just as close to him as his underwear. I started with my daddy when I was 11 years old. My brother and I were there, there wasn’t anybody to keep us, so daddy carried us to the job.

Plastering is as old as Time. It was done in biblical days. It was a means of covering up wood studs and wood ceiling joists, and it was done by hand, and still is. It hasn’t changed much.

It takes four years to get from apprentice laborer to plasterer. But you never get above labor. You never get above that common job: making up that mortar, pushing a wheelbarrow, building a scaffold.

You learn how to mix the mortar. Your plaster material is a rock, a mineral that comes out of the earth, and you mix it with sand and water. You learn how to put it on the wall or a ceiling with a trowel. It’s something that you learn the feel of with your hands.

When I was 19 years old, he (Hill’s dad) turned the business over to me, lock, stock and barrel.

William Hill works to restore the intricate plasterwork damaged by fire in the Bellamy Mansion's front parlor. He successfully preserved the "unsurpassed" work of the original enslaved artisans.

In my younger years, I liked newer buildings: hit them and go. But I realized, in my older years, it is a challenge to go in something like the Bellamy Mansion, a building that is 150 years old. You have to get into the minds of those plasterers and they’re dead. If you don’t, you can’t redo what they’ve done.

Now, to John Doe it might not mean a thing. But for me to go in there and take this stuff that is damaged by fire and time and restore it identical, that’s a challenge.

He described his perfectionism to museum staff as standing in the center of the room, staring at the plaster, climbing up and down a ladder to retouch with a putty knife, for hours, inch by laborious inch, to get it right. A wood and metal template fabricated by the team, and used to get the curvature of crown molding, was one sign of Mr. Hill's aim to do this work in a similar manner to the original plasterers. William Hill (pictured below in 2008) worked on hospitals, city halls, courthouses, jails, schools, banks, theaters, and churches. His work can be found in buildings on the campuses of both UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State, and his plasterer's tool is forever immortalized in the Bellamy Museum northwest library. He died in 2022, aged 92.