The hardware store on North Street opened in 1951. It is still run by the same family — and still sells nails by the pound. Seventy-five years later, the wooden bins near the front counter hold the same galvanized roofing nails, finish nails and common spikes they always have, and the brass scale that weighs them was bought secondhand the year the doors opened. On Saturday, the store marked its anniversary the only way its owners know how: by staying open, cutting keys and handing out free coffee to anyone who wandered in.
Bellamy Hardware sits on a corner in the Old North End, a neighborhood of tightly packed triple-deckers, corner groceries and families who have lived in the same houses for decades. The store is narrow and deep, with creaking floors and aisles so close together that two customers have to turn sideways to pass. Paint chips hang beside seed packets. A hand-lettered sign above the register reads, “If we don’t have it, we’ll find it.” And a gray-and-white cat named Bolt sleeps most afternoons in a cardboard box behind the counter.
Three generations
The founder’s granddaughter now runs the store with her son. Ruth Bellamy, 64, started sweeping floors here when she was nine years old, back when her grandfather, Harold Bellamy, still wore a canvas apron and kept a pencil behind his ear. Her father took over in the late 1970s. Ruth bought out her siblings’ shares in 1998 and has been behind the counter nearly every day since.
Her son, Nate Bellamy, 36, joined full time six years ago after a decade working construction jobs around the state. He handles ordering and the store’s modest website, which mostly exists to post holiday hours. He also, his mother says, has a much better memory for where things are than she does now.
People come in for a screw and stay for twenty minutes of conversation.
Ruth Bellamy, owner
That is not an exaggeration, according to regulars. On a weekday morning this week, a retired electrician spent a quarter of an hour at the counter discussing the best way to patch plaster in an 1890s house. A young couple who had just bought their first home left with a box of picture hooks, a stud finder and a hand-drawn diagram of how to hang a heavy mirror. Nobody tried to sell them anything they didn’t need.
A neighborhood that changed around it
When Harold Bellamy opened the store, North Street was crowded with family businesses: a butcher, a shoe repair shop, two bakeries and a movie house. Most of those are gone. The neighborhood has seen waves of new residents over the decades, including refugee families who arrived in the 1990s and 2000s and young professionals priced out of other parts of the city.
Through each change, the hardware store adjusted. In the 1980s it added a small plumbing section after Ruth’s father noticed how many old houses in the area had failing pipes. In the 2000s it began stocking hand tools and garden supplies requested by newer neighbors who wanted to grow vegetables in their backyards. Today the shelves include a short aisle of bilingual signs, a rack of bike tubes and a growing collection of weather-stripping supplies that sell out every October.
“You can’t stay open seventy-five years by being stubborn about what people need,” Nate Bellamy said. “My mom says the store belongs to the neighborhood. We’re just the ones who unlock the door.”
The cat named Bolt
Bolt arrived as a stray kitten in 2017, wandering in during a snowstorm and refusing to leave. He now has his own fan base. Children ask for him by name. A local artist painted his portrait on the store’s front window last year, and customers have been known to bring him treats. Ruth Bellamy insists the cat has never caught a single mouse. “He’s in customer service,” she said.
Why it survives
Advice, keys cut while you wait and a willingness to order anything. Those three things come up again and again when regulars explain why they keep coming back instead of driving to a big-box store on the edge of town.
Here is what customers told Maple & Main they value most:
- Advice from people who have done the work. Both Bellamys have spent years fixing old houses, and they will tell you honestly when a project needs a licensed professional.
- Keys cut on the spot. The key machine near the register handles house keys, padlock keys and mailbox keys in about two minutes.
- Small quantities. You can buy three screws, a single hinge or a pound of nails instead of a blister pack of fifty.
- Special orders. If something isn’t in stock, the store will order it, usually within a week, and call when it arrives.
- Repairs. The store still sharpens mower blades, rescreens windows and rewires old lamps.
Prices are sometimes a little higher than at large chains, Ruth Bellamy acknowledges. But many customers say they save money in the end because they leave with the right part the first time.
Hard years and close calls
The anniversary was not a sure thing. The store nearly closed twice. The first time was in 2009, during the recession, when sales fell by roughly a third and Ruth Bellamy took a second job working nights to keep the lights on. The second was in 2020, when the pandemic forced the store to shift to curbside pickup for several months.
Both times, the neighborhood stepped in. In 2009, a group of longtime customers organized a “Buy Local Saturday” that brought in more business in one day than the store usually saw in a month. In 2020, neighbors phoned in orders for paint and caulk so they could tackle projects at home, and Nate Bellamy delivered them by bicycle.
“I don’t think we’d still be here without those people,” Ruth Bellamy said. “They kept us going when the numbers said we shouldn’t.”
The city’s small business office, which has tracked storefront turnover on North Street, describes the store as one of a handful of “anchor businesses” in the neighborhood — the kind that keep foot traffic steady for the shops around them.
A party with a cash register
Saturday’s celebration was modest by design. The store stayed open its usual hours, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. A long folding table near the door held coffee, cider and a sheet cake decorated with a frosting hammer. A neighbor brought a box of photographs from the store’s early years, and customers spent much of the morning leaning over them, pointing out old cars and familiar faces.
The original cash register — a heavy brass machine with round keys — was polished and placed on the counter for the day. It still works, though the store hasn’t used it for sales since the 1990s. Children took turns pushing the “No Sale” key just to hear the drawer ring.
Several customers brought gifts. One left a framed print of the storefront. Another dropped off a bag of cat treats with a note addressed to Bolt.
The next seventy-five years
Asked whether the store will reach its hundredth birthday, Ruth Bellamy laughed and pointed at her son. Nate Bellamy says he plans to stay. He has ideas — a weekend workshop series on basic home repairs, a tool-lending shelf for neighbors who need something once a year, and a few more varieties of garden seed — but he does not want to change what makes the place work.
“The nails stay,” he said. “The scale stays. The cat definitely stays.”
Key takeaway: In a neighborhood that has changed many times since 1951, a family hardware store has lasted by listening to its customers, keeping its prices honest and treating every small sale like it matters.
Bellamy Hardware is open Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed on Sundays. Keys are cut while you wait. Bolt is usually available for visits after lunch.