Wilting in Wilmington– Part Two

As the name of these posts suggests…. it was about 100F and 100 humidity in Wilmington when were there at the beginning of July. Undaunted we braved the weather and went and visited one of the original inventive homes in Wilmington— the Bellamy mansion, finished in 1861, as the Civil War broke out. Here is a portrait of Dr. Bellamy (a medical doctor, who studied in Philadelphia, but owned a tar, pitch, and turpentine farm near Wilmington by which he made his fortune and could afford to build his mansion).

[N.B. for reasons I don’t get, this website’s media center refuses to rotate pictures as it ought to do— so my apologies on some of these shots. Don’t get a crick in your neck]

The house is Greek Revival style by and large and it had all the most modern conveniences— including gas lamps, indoor plumbing for baths upstairs (a huge water tank just above the the bathroom on the third floor supplied the water), and yes air conditioning of a sort—- namely the house was built so there was a central convection of the hot air up to and out of the cupola on top of the house, with the help of some fans.

Here is the slave house which is directly behind the main house on

Here is one of the gas lamps…..