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.
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.
[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
0 Comments
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.”
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.
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.
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.
|
Older Blog Posts
To see all previous blog posts, please click here. Blogs written after summer 2020 will be found on this page. AuthorOur blogs are written by college interns, staff, and Bellamy volunteers. Archives
November 2024
Categories |