{"id":802,"slug":"belmont-mansion-pennsylvania","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Belmont is the Fairmount Park mansion where the founders dined and freedom seekers hid. William Peters — the Penn family's land agent — built the house in 1745 on the estate above the Schuylkill, with the formal gardens that Pierre du Simitière drew, cherry trees and gravel walks and a Chinese temple. His son Richard inherited it — the judge who served as Washington's secretary, who hosted Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Lafayette at the table above the river.","The house's second history is the one the museum now centers. Richard Peters was an abolitionist — the first non-Quaker in the movement — in a family that had also held enslaved people. Cornelia Wells, whom Peters purchased in 1811, bought her own freedom and her daughter Jane's; she was given Boelson Cottage on the estate, and the cottage became a station — freedom seekers coming up the river were brought from the boats to Boelson, and from Boelson up to Belmont, where they were hidden in the attic of the house where the nation's founders had dined.","The mansion became part of Fairmount Park in 1869, hosted Centennial entertaining in 1876, and was nearly demolished before Audrey Johnson-Thornton's research revealed the Underground Railroad history that saved it. The American Women's Heritage Society has run it since 1986 — the house museum that tells both stories: the founders at the table and the fugitives in the attic.","Belmont is the archive's two-histories file — the mansion where Washington dined and where the people Washington's nation enslaved were hidden in the attic, in the house that held both the republic's architects and its fugitives."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Belmont Mansion is the archive's attic file — the 1745 Fairmount Park estate where the founders dined downstairs and freedom seekers were hidden above, the house saved from demolition by the discovery of its Underground Railroad history.","A house with fugitives in the attic keeps its stairs — the file's suggestion being that Belmont's hold is the double use: the dining room where the republic's architects ate and the attic where the people it excluded hid, in the same house above the Schuylkill."]}],"name":"Belmont Mansion","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_ESTATE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Belmont Mansion is a historic site in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. 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 — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors.","address":"2000 Belmont Mansion Drive","city":"Philadelphia","county":"Philadelphia","state":"Pennsylvania","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":40.009376,"lon":-75.133346,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: Yes. 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 12PA01, source row 260. 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. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The record appears in 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","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":"Belmont Mansion is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","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":"The 1745 mansion is documented. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' documents the entry. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.","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":"Historic site; verify hours and access with the managing agency 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 Fairmount Park mansion—where the Peterses sheltered the fugitives.","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 12PA01, source row 260. 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 2; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Belmont Mansion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_Mansion","desc":"Topics referred to by the same term","extract":"Belmont Mansion may refer to:\n\nBelmont Mansion (Philadelphia), a historic house museum\nBelmont Mansion (Tennessee), listed on the National Register of Historic Places","img":null,"score":67},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}