{"id":1161,"slug":"burial-of-perry-sanford-at-oak-hill-cemetery-battle-creek-michigan","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["On Easter Monday night in 1847, Perry Sanford was among twelve freedom seekers who slipped out of Kenton County, Kentucky, crossed the river at Covington, and reached Michigan with two dollars and fifty cents of holiday wages between them. Months later, on the morning of August 17, a party of thirteen Kentuckians hit the Quaker farms of Cass County — a planned raid, fed by a spy, that dragged nine freedom seekers out of their fields. Sanford was one of the nine."]},{"heading":"The raid that failed","paragraphs":["What happened next reached the newspapers: Black and white farmers intercepted the Kentuckians on the road and forced the whole party into court, and while the case ground on, the prisoners in the county jail 'escaped' by slow degrees until the raiders went home with nothing. Erastus Hussey rode down from Battle Creek trying to warn the farms, an hour too late. The fury in Kentucky over the failed raid is part of the record that produced the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.","Most of the rescued party ran on to Canada. Sanford chose Battle Creek — work at the Nichols and Shepard factory, the Workingmen's Society, the Black Masonic lodge, organizing Emancipation Day celebrations. In 1884 he told the Sunday Morning Call the whole story for its 'Out of Bondage' series, and in 1905 he died a free man in the town he'd chosen. The grave marker in Oak Hill Cemetery is the last physical evidence of the journey — the file's entry is, literally, the stone."]}],"name":"Burial of Perry Sanford at Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","CEMETERY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"A historic site in Battle Creek, Michigan, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing, Burial of Perry Sanford at Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek is filed here for what the record attaches to it. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. The archive files it under dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. The site is open to visitors.","address":"255 South Avenue","city":"Battle Creek","county":null,"state":"Michigan","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":42.299176,"lon":-85.229267,"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 48MI01, source row 752. 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. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The detail is preserved in 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01'. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.","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":"Burial of Perry Sanford at Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.","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":"Sanford’s work is documented. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. Sources including 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' carry the record. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.","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":"place_type","existing_value":"HISTORIC_SITE","incoming_value":"CEMETERY","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The conductor’s grave—where Sanford rests.","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 48MI01, source row 752. 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}}