{"id":1645,"slug":"decatur-house-washington-washington-d-c","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Decatur House is the first house on Lafayette Square — the Federal brick mansion Benjamin Latrobe designed in 1818 for Stephen Decatur, the naval hero of Tripoli and 1812, built with his prize money as the city's first private residence near the President's Park. He had fourteen months in it: the duel with James Barron on March 22, 1820, the ball in the stomach, the death in the house's front parlor.","The house outlived the hero: Clay and Van Buren stayed in it, the social season ran through it, the slave quarters in back held the people the Decaturs' wealth was built on. It is the neighborhood's founding mansion — the first of the houses that made Lafayette Square the address it became, and the one whose owner never got to enjoy it.","The file keeps Decatur House: the Latrobe design, the fourteen months, the Barron duel, and the first residence on the square that became Washington's address.","Decatur House is the archive's Lafayette Square file — the naval hero's prize-money mansion and the duel that emptied it."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Decatur House is the archive's Lafayette Square file — the first private house, the Latrobe design, and the hero's fourteen months.","A hero's mansion keeps its brevity — the file's suggestion being that Decatur House's hold is the fourteen months: the hero who built the city's first society address and lost it to a duel before he could live in it."]}],"name":"Decatur House","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_HOUSE","type_label":"Historic House","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","historic-sites"],"desc":"House with a disputed window-apparition tradition.","full_desc":"A historic house in Washington, Washington, D.C., Decatur House is filed here for what the record attaches to it. House with a disputed window-apparition tradition. The name the accounts keep returning to is Stephen Decatur. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, every one filed as account rather than fact. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":"748 Jackson Place NW","city":"Washington","county":null,"state":"Washington, D.C.","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":38.904243,"lon":-77.016524,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","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":null,"research_notes":"Discovery or enrichment; earliest report and independent corroboration remain under research. Confidence measures source provenance, not supernatural reality.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":45.6,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.8,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":858,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Legend says Decatur appeared behind windows supposedly bricked to contain him. Witnesses name it Stephen Decatur; the name travels further than the proof. Decatur House wears the claim the way old houses do: visibly, and without comment. The account is disputed — even the folklore has factions. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting.","evidence":"DISPUTED","evidence_label":"Disputed","entity":"Stephen Decatur","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.75,"conflict_notes":"GW explains these were originally blind windows accommodating flues, not later ghost barriers.","source":{"name":"The True (-Ish) Stories behind D.C.'s Famous Ghosts","url":"https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/true-ish-stories-behind-dcs-famous-ghosts","publisher":"George Washington University / GW Today","type":"OFFICIAL_SITE","authority":2},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[],"entities":[{"name":"Stephen Decatur","claimed_identity":"Stephen Decatur","verified":null,"summary":"Legend says Decatur appeared behind windows supposedly bricked to contain him. The presence goes by Stephen Decatur. The house's rooms are where the accounts concentrate — old houses keep their stories in the walls they were built around. The account appears in 'The True (-Ish) Stories behind D.C.'s Famous Ghosts'. The lore has a face now: Stephen Decatur.","behavior":"Legend says Decatur appeared behind windows supposedly bricked to contain him.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"The True (-Ish) Stories behind D.C.'s Famous Ghosts","url":"https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/true-ish-stories-behind-dcs-famous-ghosts","publisher":"George Washington University / GW Today","type":"OFFICIAL_SITE","authority":2}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","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":"The True (-Ish) Stories behind D.C.'s Famous Ghosts","url":"https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/true-ish-stories-behind-dcs-famous-ghosts","publisher":"George Washington University / GW Today","type":"OFFICIAL_SITE","authority":2}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Decatur House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decatur_House","desc":"Historic house in Washington, D.C., United States","extract":"Decatur House is a historic house museum at 748 Jackson Place in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It is named after its first owner and occupant, the naval officer Stephen Decatur Jr. Built in 1818, the house is located at the northwest corner of Lafayette Square, about a block from the White House.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Decatur_House_north_side.jpg/330px-Decatur_House_north_side.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":108,"lat":38.90005556,"lon":-77.03816667},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":0,"entities":1,"sources":1}}