{"id":3576,"slug":"col-william-hubbard-house-ashtabula-ohio","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Hubbard House is the Underground Railroad's last stop — the 1841 brick house on Lake Erie where William and Katharine Hubbard hid the runaways before the boats to Canada. 'Mother Hubbard's Cupboard,' the code name was — the Great Emporium, the cellar that held thirty-nine at once, the barn with the tunnel to the water's edge.","The Hubbards were the abolitionists' terminus — the land agent and his brothers with the anti-slavery newspaper, the house two blocks from the harbor where the fugitives made the last leg. The museum keeps the land office and the cellar — the pocket door that hid the business, the basement that hid the people. The final station before Canada is the house that kept the last step to freedom.","The file keeps the Hubbard House: the Underground Railroad terminus, Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, the tunnel to the lake, and the museum.","Hubbard House is the archive's last-stop file — the house before Canada."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Hubbard House is the archive's last-stop file — the Underground Railroad's Lake Erie terminus.","A house keeps its cellar — the file's suggestion being that Hubbard's hold is the hiding: the thirty-nine in the basement, the tunnel to the boats, and the last step the runaways took."]}],"name":"Col. William Hubbard House","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","HISTORIC_SITE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","hauntings","historic-sites","legends"],"desc":"The lake terminus—where fugitives boarded boats for Canada.","full_desc":"Col. William Hubbard House is a historic site in Ashtabula, Ohio, an NPS Network to Freedom. The lake terminus—where fugitives boarded boats for Canada. The archive files it under Underground Railroad history, the Underground Railroad and African American history. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 3 documented facts — documented record and retelling kept side by side. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Ashtabula","county":null,"state":"Ohio","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":41.879462,"lon":-80.798482,"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":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":3959,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported figures at the house. The reports at Col. William Hubbard House are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. William Hubbard House's reports are the interpretation nobody scheduled. Witness accounts, no evidence file: the claim is anecdotal and stays that way. The apparition is the file's anchor — every other report orbits it.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Underground Railroad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"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 record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The record appears in 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01'. 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":"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":"Col. William Hubbard House is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. Col. William Hubbard 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 record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. 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}},{"description":"The house is documented as a Lake Erie terminus station. Col. William Hubbard House'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. Sources including 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' carry the record. 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":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}