Urban Slavery at Work: The Bellamy Mansion Compound, Wilmington, North Carolina

Excerpt: 

“WBG”

In swirling script William Benjamin Gould wrote his initials in the wet plaster, making his mark on the fresh product of his craft, a section of ornately molded ceiling cornice. In 1860 Gould and his fellow plasterers were putting the finishing touches on the Bellamy House in Wilmington, North Carolina. Soon the men attached that section of cornice to the ceiling, concealing Gould’s inscription from view for more than a century. Not until the end of the twentieth century were Gould’s initials seen again and recognized as those of one of the many enslaved artisans who built and finished the grand, columned mansion.

Besides revealing Gould’s hand, his initials suggest the complexity of the Bellamy House in both the story of its construction and the nature of its design. The construction and finishing of the entire compound depended on the skills and labor of enslaved and free men of color whose identities and roles have been rediscovered only recently. Moreover, just as the enslaved artisan’s initials lay hidden behind the public face of the ornate plaster, so the imposing public facades conceal the deeper character of a house and complex planned for discreet, enslaved domestic service.

Although it is well known that black artisans were involved in construction during the antebellum period and that many slave-owning families planned their houses to accommodate enslaved service, the example of the Bellamy House encapsulates these important patterns in especially vivid and specific detail. Because of the survival of the house and its slave quarters and grounds, together with memoirs and documents recalling both the construction and use of the house, the Bellamy Mansion offers an unusually rich individual story of urban slavery at work.

Bishir, Catherine W. “Urban Slavery at Work: The Bellamy Mansion Compound, Wilmington, North Carolina.” Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum Vol 17, No 2 (Fall 2010): 13–32.