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. ​

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. 

​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."

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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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.