Meet Elvin Artis: Bellamy House Foreman

Elvin Artis (1820-1886), a free black house carpenter, served as the carpentry foreman on the Bellamy Mansion project circa 1859-1861.

James Post’s assistant architect, Rufus Bunnell, wrote in his diary about Artis, saying: “...strange to ever keep in mind, that almost to a man these mechanics (however seemingly intelligent), were nothing but slaves and capable as they might be, all the earnings that came from their work, was regularly paid over to their masters or mistresses. A very few, as for instance, the mulatto 'Artis' on the Bellamy house construction, were freedmen made thus by will or purchased freedom; but even those were restricted by special laws made for freed negroes and were also subject if deemed necessary, to observation by the day and night patrol.”

Elvin Artis’s family traced their free status to the colonial period, and some of his ancestors served in the Revolutionary War. Elvin married Liza “Lizzie” (Green) around 1840, and between 1842 and 1858 the couple welcomed eight children, including three daughters -- Elizabeth, Jane (“Janie”), and Josephine. Two sons -- Hildred and Eldred -- were twins, and their other three sons were Champion, Sylvester, and John.

Elvin Artis was not a stranger to John D. Bellamy when he began work on Bellamy’s townhome in 1859. In fact, Artis bought property from John D. Bellamy in 1845 near Love Grove and Smith Creek -- north of Oakdale Cemetery. In 1859, Elvin bought property on lot 282 from John D. Love, at the corner of 7th and Brunswick Streets, and his family resided in a home there for over fifty years. Today, the lot where the Artis home stood is empty.

Elvin’s first wife, Liza, died sometime in the 1860s, and he married Caroline “Carrie” (Mitchell), a woman at least 15 years his junior, in March 1867.
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The city contracted Elvin for various projects throughout the 19th-century:

Elvin also ran a prominent Wilmington barber shop and hair salon off and on during the 1860s, '70s, and '80s. He advertised barbering and tonsorial services for both men and women, and he ran his business during the early 1870s from the Purcell House Hotel on Front between Market and Princess. The Purcell House Hotel was advertised as Wilmington’s only first-class hotel at the time.

While Elvin Artis never entered politics, it was not from lack of trying by his contemporaries. In 1882 he declined being nominated representative for the Greenback party’s county convention as he had, “no aspiration to attain political honors.”

All of Elvin and Elizabeth’s sons married between 1862 and 1871. Two of Elvin’s sons, Eldred and John, became barbers and worked with their father, and John was also listed as a carpenter on the 1870 and 1880 censuses. Champion was a local carpenter and fireman. Hildred moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he, too, was a barber. Two daughters -- Elizabeth and Jane -- married between 1868 and 1877. Josephine does not seem to have ever married.

Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church.

​Elvin died at age 66 on June 7, 1886, and his funeral was held at his home followed by services at Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church where he and his family were members. His widow, Carrie, was listed as a “nurse” on the 1910 census, and one of their granddaughters, Mary E. Nixon, was living with Carrie and was listed as a “trained nurse.” Carrie passed away in 1918, and she is buried at Pine Forest Cemetery.

​Prepared by Leslie Randle-Morton, Bellamy Museum historian and former Associate Director.