{"id":1030,"slug":"faneuil-hall-massachusetts","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Faneuil Hall is the building where Boston practiced being America. Peter Faneuil — the Huguenot-descended merchant who was one of the city's richest men — offered in 1740 to build the town a market, and attached a meeting hall upstairs to sweeten a proposal that passed by only seven votes. The fortune that built it was Atlantic commerce in full: Faneuil owned enslaved people, traded in slave-produced goods, and his capital funded voyages to purchase enslaved Africans off Sierra Leone. The Cradle of Liberty was built with slave-trade money — the contradiction is not a footnote, it is the foundation.","The hall upstairs became the room where the Revolution was argued into existence — the town meetings that defied the Stamp Act and the tea duty, the speeches of Samuel Adams and James Otis in the Great Hall where Boston's self-government met. When the British occupied Boston in 1775, they used it as a theater; when the war was won, it went back to being the town's floor.","The abolitionists claimed it next — and the irony was the point. In 1842 the hall filled for George Latimer, arrested under the Fugitive Slave Law; in 1854 it filled again for Anthony Burns, marched back to slavery under guard while the city watched. The vigilance committees that assisted Underground Railroad passengers organized in the building that a slave-trading merchant had given the town — the Cradle of Liberty finally being used for the liberty of everyone. Suffragists, labor unions, and every generation of protesters since have taken the same stage.","Faneuil Hall is the archive's cradle file — the market hall a slave trader funded where the Revolution was argued and the abolitionists organized the resistance to the laws the trader's world had written."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Faneuil Hall is the archive's Cradle of Liberty file — the 1742 market-meeting house funded by a merchant whose capital came from the slave trade, where the Revolution's town meetings and the abolitionists' vigilance committees both organized under the same roof.","A hall built by a slave trader that organized abolition keeps its contradiction — the file's suggestion being that Faneuil Hall's hold is the argument itself: the room where Boston spent 275 years debating what liberty means, in the building whose own foundation posed the question."]}],"name":"Faneuil Hall","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD","POLITICAL"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Faneuil Hall is a historic site in Boston, Massachusetts, 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.","address":"Faneuil Hall Square","city":"Boston","county":"Suffolk","state":"Massachusetts","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":42.338551,"lon":-71.018253,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: Yes. This is a listing snapshot; current arrangements still require confirmation.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 35MA01, source row 577. 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. ","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":62.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"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. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01'. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","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":"Faneuil Hall 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. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. 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}},{"description":"The 1742 hall is documented. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' documents the entry. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest. The account stays in the file — reported, retold, unresolved.","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":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The Cradle of Liberty—where the abolitionists argued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"historic_designation","existing_value":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","incoming_value":"NPS Network to Freedom","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 35MA01, source row 577. 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. ","incoming_value":"UGRR enrichment wave 3; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Faneuil Hall","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faneuil_Hall","desc":"Building in Boston, Massachusetts","extract":"Faneuil Hall is a historic building in Downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Opened in 1742, the building was designed by artist John Smibert as a marketplace and meeting hall. Faneuil Hall is sometimes referred to as \"the Cradle of Liberty\", having been the site of many speeches, debates, and other events over its history. Over the years, the building, and especially its Great Hall meeting room, has received commentary for its symbolism. Faneuil Hall is part of Boston National Historical Park and is designated as a National Historic Landmark. It is owned by the Boston government and ","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Faneuil_Hall_%285813514354%29.jpg/330px-Faneuil_Hall_%285813514354%29.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":90,"lat":42.36,"lon":-71.05611111},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}