{"id":1572,"slug":"florida-house-inn-fernandina-beach-florida","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The inn on South Third Street bills itself as Florida's oldest continuously operated hotel, dating its opening to 1857. The deed record is more interesting than the slogan. Local lore credits David Yulee's Florida Railroad with building the place as a railroad boarding house, but the Amelia Island Museum of History reads the county records differently: the railroad sold lot 9 to Peter Gill Peterson in 1857 for $300 and leased him lot 8 for ninety-nine years; in 1859 William H. Johnson paid $2,500 for the property 'and on buildings.' The likeliest construction window is 1857–59, under Peterson — the railroad created the need for beds without necessarily swinging the hammer."]},{"heading":"The unofficial guests","paragraphs":["The museum itself lists the house's reported residents: a provocatively dressed woman said to climb into male guests' beds and scream at their wives; a mustachioed man in a military jacket accompanied by a small boy who drowned while visiting the island; and a maid who either tidies the rooms or throws plates and silverware, depending on the telling. Haunted-list compilers add a sad-looking man seen about the place.","Fernandina Beach keeps its files the way it keeps its fifty-block historic district — in circulation. The VISIT FLORIDA ghost-tour coverage that sources this dossier is the latest in a long line of recorders; the guests, real or not, have never had to check out."]}],"name":"Florida House Inn","aliases":[],"type":"INN","type_label":"Inn","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","lodging"],"desc":"VISIT FLORIDA publishes a haunted reputation for this inn.","full_desc":"Florida House Inn is an inn in Fernandina Beach, Florida. VISIT FLORIDA publishes a haunted reputation for this inn. The archive files it under haunting reports. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 legend — all telling, no verified spine yet, and the file says so plainly. Access details are unverified — research before visiting. For HauntHunt it is exactly the kind of file the archive exists for: a real place, a real record, and a story still being told.","address":null,"city":"Fernandina Beach","county":null,"state":"Florida","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.657916,"lon":-81.450001,"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 record. Coordinates, earliest legend source, independent history and current visitor rules require further verification.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":43.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":792,"type":"UNSPECIFIED_HAUNTING","description":"VISIT FLORIDA publishes a haunted reputation for this inn. The hotel keeps the account on its own record — the sort of haunting a building earns one guest at a time. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. The report is preserved in sources like 'A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours'. The haunting is unproven and unfired: it keeps showing up for work anyway.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.75,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours","url":"https://www.visitflorida.com/travel-ideas/articles/florida-ghost-tours/","publisher":"VISIT FLORIDA","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"VISIT FLORIDA publishes a haunted reputation for this inn. The hotel keeps the account on its own record — the sort of haunting a building earns one guest at a time. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. The report is preserved in sources like 'A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours'. The tale is the site's other archive — oral, embroidered, and outlasting the documents.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours","url":"https://www.visitflorida.com/travel-ideas/articles/florida-ghost-tours/","publisher":"VISIT FLORIDA","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[],"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":"A Guide to Florida Ghost Tours","url":"https://www.visitflorida.com/travel-ideas/articles/florida-ghost-tours/","publisher":"VISIT FLORIDA","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}