{"id":865,"slug":"basil-dorsey-and-thomas-h-jones-house-massachusetts","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Basil Dorsey was born Ephraim Costly in Frederick County, Maryland, promised freedom by an owner whose estate instead sold him for three hundred dollars. On May 14, 1836, he and three brothers walked out of slavery into Pennsylvania. Recaptured the next year, he told the court he would cut his own throat before going back — and won his freedom in law. By 1844 he was in Florence, Massachusetts, where the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, a utopian silk-mill community founded on racial equality, had made the village one of the few places a fugitive could buy land."]},{"heading":"A house that sheltered its own kind","paragraphs":["In November 1849 Dorsey bought a lot on Nonotuck Street — then called Bensonville — and raised a modest worker's cottage, finished in 1850, the year Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. That October, Northampton friends raised the money to purchase his freedom outright; he became a free man and a homeowner in the same season. In 1854 the house passed to Mary Jones, wife of Thomas H. Jones — an escaped North Carolina slave who had bought his family's freedom, fled by ship to Brooklyn, and published a narrative of his forty-three years in bondage. Both households used the address as a station, sheltering fugitives in a home owned by fugitives.","Florence in 1850 was about ten percent Black — sixty people who had, in most cases, walked out of the South the way Dorsey had. The house still stands at 191 Nonotuck Street, on the National Register: rare documented ground where the self-emancipated were the conductors."]}],"name":"Basil Dorsey and Thomas H. Jones House","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"A historic site in Florence, Massachusetts, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing, Basil Dorsey and Thomas H. Jones House is filed here for what the record attaches to it. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. It sits in the archive under dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. Access is restricted, and the file says so plainly.","address":"225 Nonotuck St","city":"Florence","county":"Hampshire","state":"Massachusetts","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":42.35046,"lon":-72.63769,"coord_kind":"COUNTY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"RESTRICTED","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: No. This is a listing snapshot; current arrangements still require confirmation.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 18MA01, source row 365. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":62.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Basil Dorsey and Thomas H. Jones House's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer the museum itself interprets. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' documents the entry. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Basil Dorsey and Thomas H. Jones House is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. Basil Dorsey and Thomas H. Jones House's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer the museum itself interprets. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The detail is preserved in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Their stories are documented. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. Sources including 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' carry the record. The record keeps it — history, not lore. The reports keep the address on the map.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access is restricted; check with the managing agency or landowner before visiting; check nps.gov for current hours and alerts.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Underground Railroad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The Florence house—where the self-purchased men lived.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"public_access","existing_value":"RESTRICTED","incoming_value":"PUBLIC","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"historic_designation","existing_value":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","incoming_value":"NPS Network to Freedom","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 18MA01, source row 365. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","incoming_value":"UGRR enrichment wave 3; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}