It was March 31, 1952, when Emmett Hargrove Bellamy and his assistant, Lloyd S. Elkins, boarded the seventh-floor elevator of the Charlotte Law Building in Charlotte, North Carolina. Suddenly, a gunman, later identified as Albert Raymond Reinhart, 50, stormed the elevator and opened fire using a .38 caliber revolver. Elkins was injured in the shooting, but Bellamy was killed from a gunshot wound to the stomach. Bellamy was 61 years of age and Elkins, just 25.
 
Emmett H. Bellamy was born in Wilmington on February 12, 1891, to John Dillard Bellamy, Jr. and Emma May Hargrove. Bellamy attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his law degree from Columbia University. Additionally, Bellamy served in the military during World War I and was honorably discharged with the rank of First Lieutenant.

Upon his retirement from the military, Bellamy practiced with his father’s law firm, John D. Bellamy & Sons, based out of Wilmington. In addition to his work as a lawyer, Bellamy was a prominent political figure in North Carolina. The Democratic lawyer was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1921 and to the Senate in 1923. Bellamy also served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from 1940 to 1944.
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At the time of his murder, Bellamy had retired from politics and was practicing law in Charlotte. During police questioning, Bellamy's murderer, Albert Reinhart, was quoted as saying he was “incensed” at Bellamy over the handling of his case. Reinhart, a hotel owner from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, traveled to Charlotte to "show down" with Bellamy regarding the real estate deal in which he believed Bellamy had "taken advantage of" his elderly mother.

During the preliminary hearing, Reinhart made an insanity plea, but was ruled sane enough to stand trial upon examination by two Duke University doctors. In addition to a murder charge against him, Bellamy's assistant who was wounded in the shooting, filed a $100,000 damage suit against Reinhart. Reinhart was eventually found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

Emmett Bellamy is buried alongside his wife, Lillian Frances Maxwell, in Oakdale Cemetery in Wilmington, North Carolina.

http://politicalgraveyard.com/families/19514.html
http://cdm16072.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16072coll5/id/334/
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Written by Bellamy Mansion intern and UNCW English major, Sydney Simmons

​When people tour the Bellamy Mansion, one of the first things they notice when they enter the house is the elaborate plaster moldings in the more public parts of the house. The house, designed with Greek Revival and Italianate styling, was the product of the hard work and labor of  both enslaved skilled carpenters, and local, freed black artisans.

The skilled and unskilled enslaved workers in Wilmington were hired out and whatever wages they earned were given directly back to their masters. Unfortunately, we do not know the names of all of the black artisans who worked on the house. We do, however, know a great deal about one of these men thanks to his journal and the extensive work of his great-grandson, William B.
​ Gould IV. 

William B. Gould was born November 18th, 1837, to an English man and a slave woman in Wilmington, North Carolina. He was owned by Nicholas Nixon, who was a successful peanut planter and prominent member of the Wilmington Community. Around 1859, Gould began his work as plasterer and mason under the employment of Dr. John D. Bellamy for the construction of the Bellamy Mansion. Alongside other slaves and freeman, Gould created beautiful works of art within the molding of the house.

It was common practice for those who hired out slaves to clothe, feed, and shelter them for their duration of their work. So, it is more than likely that Gould resided in the slave quarters during his time at the Bellamy Mansion. As a credit to his hard work, Gould signed his name into the plaster of the house; forever cementing his place in the Bellamy Mansion’s history (pictured above). This is incredibly significant, because following a series of laws passed in 1830 it was declared illegal to teach slaves how to read or write in the state of North Carolina. It is probable that Gould learned how to read through the church. Nixon was Episcopal and they were notorious for looking the other way when it came to slave literacy. Peter Hinks writes, "perhaps the most common avenue to literacy for blacks was instruction by a white person who considered it their religious duty to teach their slaves how to read Scripture (2). Christopher Hager supports this claim, saying, "many slaveholders wished to make exceptions [to slave literacy laws] for religious instruction (usually by white preachers)" (114). 
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On September 21st, 1862, Gould, and seven other men, escaped off of Orange Street and into the Cape Fear River. Six days later they were picked up by The USS Cambridge and recorded as “contraband of war.” Gould began his three-year journal on September 27th, 1862, following his daily life in the United States Navy. After the Civil war he settled in Dedham, Massachusetts with his wife, Cornelia Read, and had eight children, six boys and two girls. He joined the Grand Army of the Republic in 1882 and held almost every position possible including the highest position, Commander. William B Gould IV, Gould’s great-grandson, wrote a book that includes Gould’s journals called Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor. In this book he writes about the history surrounding his great-grandfather’s life and discusses the chronology of Gould’s diary. 

Gould IV, William B. Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor. Standford University Press, 2002. 
Hager, Christopher. Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing. Harvard University Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central,
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uncw/detail.action?docID+3301209.
Hinks, Peter P. To awaken my afflicted brethren: David Walker and the problem of antebellum slave resistance. Penn State Press, 2010.

Written by Bellamy Intern and UNCW English major Moriah Yancey

With over 200 volunteers, the Bellamy Mansion Museum is able to operate daily. From conducting tours to working the cash register, the work the volunteers do at the Bellamy cannot be understated.
This month, we're shining the light on Angie Yelverton. Angie, along with her Rise and Shine group, have been volunteering at the Bellamy for 5 years. On the first Monday of each month, Angie and her crew make their way to the Bellamy and give it a cleaning from the inside out. Earlier this month, Angie spoke out about about her mission here at the Bellamy and what the Rise and Shine group has in store for the future. 
​Angie, a Virginia native and Virginia Tech alum, has been living in Wilmington for roughly 33 years. Angie says her desire to volunteer at the Bellamy Mansion arose when she kept driving by the home everyday, not knowing much about it, but wanting to get involved somehow. Angie's idea to create a volunteer group to clean the mansion came about when she spotted some dust on a banister as she was helping take town Christmas decorations, following the Bellamy's annual Christmas Stroll. And thus, the Rise and Shine group was born.
From roughly 9AM until noon, the Rise and Shine group, normally consisting of 6 to 8 people, get right to work cleaning the mansion. Even with a decent sized group, the Bellamy is no quick, in-and-out cleaning job. According to Angie, the most difficult and time consuming sections of the mansion to clean are the downstairs and basement.