{"id":2965,"slug":"crawford-notch-harts-location-new-hampshire","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Crawford Notch is where the mountain took the family and spared the house — the 1826 landslide that killed all nine Willeys while their inn stood untouched behind a boulder. The Bible on the table was open to the 18th Psalm: 'The foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke.' Hawthorne wrote it into a story; the tragedy started White Mountains tourism.","The notch was the passage — the turnpike through the mountains, the Crawford family who promoted the region, the railroad that was blasted through the cliffs. The Willeys built a stone refuge above the house and ran to it when the slide came; the mountain split around the house and buried them where they'd fled.","The notch is still there — the state park, the site of the Willey House, the mountain that still bears the slide scar. The file keeps the tragedy: the 1826 slide, the untouched house, and the event that made the White Mountains a destination.","Crawford Notch is the archive's disaster file — the Willey slide, the spared house, and the tragedy that invented the tourism."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Crawford Notch is the archive's disaster file — the 1826 landslide, the family the mountain took, and the tourism the tragedy created.","A slide that spared the house keeps its Bible — the file's suggestion being that the notch's hold is the irony: the refuge that became the grave, the house that stood, and the disaster that made the White Mountains famous."]}],"name":"Crawford Notch","aliases":[],"type":"NATURAL","type_label":"Natural","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","LOCAL_FOLKLORE","NATURAL_WONDER"],"groups":["dark-history","legends"],"desc":"The notch where the avalanche killed—and the railroad still climbs.","full_desc":"A natural site in Hart’s Location, New Hampshire, Crawford Notch is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The notch where the avalanche killed—and the railroad still climbs. It sits in the archive under natural wonders, dark history and local folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Hart’s Location","county":null,"state":"New Hampshire","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":44.21861111,"lon":-71.41166667,"coord_kind":"WIKI","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":null,"current_use":"Historic site / park","research_notes":"NE2 batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":2776,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence in the notch. Open country keeps its stories differently — Crawford Notch in Hart’s Location, New Hampshire files its reports in weather and distance. The reports are anecdotal — consistent enough to record, thin enough to stay unproven. Sources including 'Crawford Notch' keep the claim in circulation. It is the sighting the place is known for, and it hasn't stopped.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Crawford Notch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawford_Notch","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The notch’s history is documented; the railroad is real. The landscape's recorded history gives the file real substance underneath the lore. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'Crawford Notch'. 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":"Crawford Notch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawford_Notch","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Natural site; conditions vary seasonally—check the managing agency for access.","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":"Crawford Notch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawford_Notch","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Crawford Notch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawford_Notch","desc":"Major pass through White Mountains in New Hampshire, US","extract":"Crawford Notch is a major pass through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, located in Hart's Location. Roughly half of that town is contained in Crawford Notch State Park. The high point of the notch, at approximately 1,900 feet (580 m) above sea level, is at the southern end of the town of Carroll, near the Crawford Depot train station and Saco Lake, the source of the Saco River, which flows southward through the steep-sided notch. North of the high point of the notch, Crawford Brook flows more gently northwest to the Ammonoosuc River, a tributary of the Connecticut River.\nThe notch is traversed by U.S. Route 302, which closely follows the Saco River southeast to North Conway and less clo","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/A_View_of_the_Mountain_Pass_Called_the_Notch_of_the_White_Mountans_%28Crawford_Notch%29-1839-Thomas_Cole.jpg/960px-A_View_of_the_Mountain_Pass_Called_the_Notch_of_the_White_Mountans_%28Crawford_Notch%29-1839-Thomas_Cole.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":89,"lat":44.21861111,"lon":-71.41166667},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}