Daniel & Hannah Gibbons Burial Site at Lampeter Friends Meetinghouse
Daniel & Hannah Gibbons Burial Site at Lampeter Friends Meetinghouse is a historic site in Lampeter, 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.
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Is Daniel & Hannah Gibbons Burial Site at Lampeter Friends Meetinghouse haunted?
No claims are filed here — the record keeps this place for its documented history, not for a haunting on file.
The record — long form
In 1850, when the Fugitive Slave Act made harborers of the hunted into federal criminals, Daniel Gibbons took the family's blank book and burned it. For twenty-six years — 1824 to 1850 — he and Hannah had recorded every freedom seeker who came up the Mill Creek farm near Bird-in-Hand: names, ages, owners' names, the corner of the South they'd walked out of, and the new name the Gibbonses gave each one to carry north. Nearly a thousand entries. The book would have been the fullest single ledger of the Underground Railroad ever kept, which is exactly why it had to become ash.
What the ashes cost
One dictated recollection survived the burning: young men who ate supper with the Gibbonses remembered the counsel that came with the meal — Hannah telling them 'thee is free, thee must respect thyself, and thee will always be respected.' Fugitives were forwarded on to the network's next hands — the Bonsalls, the Coateses, the Whitsons, Jeremiah Moore at Christiana. Three generations of Gibbons ran the station; the 1815 stone-and-brick house on Beechdale Road did it until a temporary owner demolished it in the 1990s.
What's left is the 1728 graveyard at Lampeter Friends Meetinghouse, where Daniel and Hannah lie under small limestone markers. The Park Service put the graves on the Network to Freedom in 2024 — the file's entry being proof that a record you destroy to protect people can still be honored by the stones that outlast it.
Two accounts on file
HISTORIC_SITE
CEMETERY
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.
The Gibbonses’ graves—where the Lancaster conductors rest.
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing
NPS Network to Freedom
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 47PA01, source row 742. 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.
UGRR enrichment wave 2; VERIFY task auto-queued.
Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite.
Documented history
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'. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.
Verified historyNational Park ServiceDaniel & Hannah Gibbons Burial Site at Lampeter Friends Meetinghouse 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. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The record keeps it — history, not lore.
Verified historyNational Park ServiceThe Gibbonses’ work is documented. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. Sources including 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' carry the record. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest. The telling survives; the proof stays folklore.
Verified historyNational Park Service
Sources on file
- 01Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01National Park Service · government · A1
- 02NPS Network to Freedom listingNational Park Service · government · A1
- 03Underground RailroadWikipedia · encyclopedia · A4
Field notes & open questions
Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 47PA01, source row 742. 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.