{"id":1639,"slug":"amstel-house-new-castle-delaware","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["John Finney built the Amstel House after purchasing the New Castle property in 1738 — a Georgian mansion in Delaware's colonial capital, among the town's grandest surviving houses. The file's documented register includes the people the record usually omits: Hannah and Betty, the enslaved workers whose labor the house was built on — named in the file where the archive keeps them.","The house became a museum — the file's spine being a colonial mansion preserved, its history including both the merchant who built it and the people he enslaved."]},{"heading":"The Finney apparition","paragraphs":["The archives describe an apparition — associated also with the nearby David Finney Inn, the ghost shared between the family's two New Castle houses. The file's haunting is thin on proof and long on persistence — a figure reported in the old town's oldest houses, the Finney family's presence reportedly spanning both properties.","The shared apparition is the file's register — a ghost that moves between the family's house and inn, the colonial dead reportedly still on their own streets."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Amstel House is the archive's colonial-Delaware file — a 1738 mansion that names its enslaved workers in the record and keeps an apparition shared with the family inn. The documented Hannah and Betty are the record; the wandering figure is the lore.","A house that preserved its enslaved workers' names keeps its ghost between two addresses — the file's suggestion being that New Castle's colonial dead are still walking the town they built."]}],"name":"Amstel House","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_HOUSE_MUSEUM","type_label":"Historic House Museum","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","institutions"],"desc":"Historic house museum with a shared-apparition legend.","full_desc":"Amstel House is a historic house museum in New Castle, Delaware. Historic house museum with a shared-apparition legend. John Finney built the house after purchasing the property in 1738. Enslaved workers included Hannah and Betty; it became a museum in 1929. Local lore holds that Archives describes an apparition also associated with nearby David Finney Inn.","address":null,"city":"New Castle","county":null,"state":"Delaware","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":39.670017,"lon":-75.566519,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":"https://www.newcastlehistory.org/amstel-house","phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Discovery or enrichment; earliest report and independent corroboration remain under research. Confidence measures source provenance, not supernatural reality.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":69.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":851,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Archives describes an apparition also associated with nearby David Finney Inn. The reports at Amstel House are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. It circulates as local folklore — the kind communities keep rather than verify. 'Amstel House — Haunted Delaware exhibit' carries the account. The apparition is the file's anchor — every other report orbits it.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.75,"conflict_notes":"Supposed connecting tunnel unverified. Caption chronology for the inn is unreliable.","source":{"name":"Amstel House — Haunted Delaware exhibit","url":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/delawarepublicarchives/52377122889/in/album-72177720302319003","publisher":"Delaware Public Archives","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"John Finney built the house after purchasing the property in 1738. Enslaved workers included Hannah and Betty; it became a museum in 1929. Amstel House's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer beneath whatever lore attaches. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The record appears in 'Amstel House'. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Amstel House","url":"https://www.newcastlehistory.org/amstel-house","publisher":"New Castle Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Archives describes an apparition also associated with nearby David Finney Inn. Amstel House's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. The report is preserved in sources like 'Amstel House — Haunted Delaware exhibit'. Legends accrue where records go silent; this one filled the gap and stayed.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Amstel House — Haunted Delaware exhibit","url":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/delawarepublicarchives/52377122889/in/album-72177720302319003","publisher":"Delaware Public Archives","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"opening_hours":"Museum weekends through December 27,2026: Saturday 10–4, Sundaynoon–4; last tour 3. Amstel tours begin on even hours.","admission_fee":"One-house admission adult$8.50, age 6–12$4; under 6 free.","accessibility":"First floor accessible; alternatives offered for second-floor interpretation.","photography_policy":"Personal photography welcomed; professional sessions require arrangement.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-14T10:36:21+00:00","source":{"name":"Plan Your Visit","url":"https://www.newcastlehistory.org/plan-your-visit","publisher":"New Castle Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Amstel House","url":"https://www.newcastlehistory.org/amstel-house","publisher":"New Castle Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2},{"name":"Amstel House — Haunted Delaware exhibit","url":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/delawarepublicarchives/52377122889/in/album-72177720302319003","publisher":"Delaware Public Archives","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Plan Your Visit","url":"https://www.newcastlehistory.org/plan-your-visit","publisher":"New Castle Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Amstel House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstel_House","desc":"Historic house in Delaware, United States","extract":"Amstel House, also known as Dr. Finney House, is a preserved building in New Castle, Delaware, United States, built in the 1730s. The decline of New Castle in the 19th century meant that many owners of homes could no longer afford to make changes to them, which is why so many buildings were preserved. That changed, however, when New Castle was \"rediscovered\" during the Colonial Revival phase of the 1920s and 1930s and old buildings began to be torn down and replaced by new construction.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Amstel_House_May_10.JPG/330px-Amstel_House_May_10.JPG?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":108,"lat":39.66061,"lon":-75.564853},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":3}}