{"id":3670,"slug":"choptank-river-denton-maryland","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Choptank River is Harriet Tubman's river — the Eastern Shore waterway that drains the country she escaped from and returned to, its marshes and bends the landscape of the Underground Railroad's most famous conductor.","The file's documented spine is the NPS Network to Freedom listing: the river's role in freedom-seeking is on record — the Choptank's waters carried the people who crossed them toward liberty, the marshes hiding the routes the enslaved took north."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Choptank is the archive's Tubman-landscape file — a river whose marshes were the Underground Railroad's terrain, its Network to Freedom listing being the record's weight. The file has no legend layer: a river that carried freedom needs no ghost.","A river that hid freedom-seekers keeps their passage — the file's suggestion being that the Choptank's marshes remember the people who crossed them running north."]}],"name":"Choptank River","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD","RIVER"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"The river—where Tubman’s route ran.","full_desc":"Choptank River is a historic site in Denton, Maryland, an NPS Network to Freedom. The river—where Tubman’s route ran. It sits in the archive under Underground Railroad history, the Underground Railroad and African American history. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Denton","county":null,"state":"Maryland","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":38.879421,"lon":-75.824452,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"NPS Network to Freedom","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"UGRR enrichment wave 1; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":67.9,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"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 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":"Choptank River is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. Choptank River'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. 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' documents the entry. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.","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 river’s UGRR role is documented. Choptank River's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer the museum itself interprets. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The detail is preserved in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.","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":[],"wiki":{"title":"Choptank River","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choptank_River","desc":"River in Delaware and Maryland, United States","extract":"The Choptank River is a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay and the largest river on the Delmarva Peninsula.  Running for 71 miles (114 km), it rises in Kent County, Delaware, runs through Caroline County, Maryland, and forms much of the border between Talbot County, Maryland, on the north, and Caroline County and Dorchester County on the east and south.  It is located north of the Nanticoke River, and its mouth is located south of Eastern Bay. Cambridge, the county seat of Dorchester County, and Denton, the county seat of Caroline County, are located on its south shore.\nIts watershed area in Maryland is 1,004 square miles (2,600 km2), of which 224 square miles (580 km2) is open water, so ","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Choptank_River_Denton_MD.jpg/960px-Choptank_River_Denton_MD.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":104,"lat":38.63457222,"lon":-75.32661389},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}