{"id":1684,"slug":"fort-jefferson-florida","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Fort Jefferson is the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas — a hexagonal fortress in the Dry Tortugas, seventy miles past Key West, built 1846–1875 and never finished. The ocean was its wall; the isolation was its design — a prison the Army built where escape meant seventy miles of open water.","The file's documented prisoner is its most famous: Dr. Samuel Mudd, held here 1865–1869 for setting John Wilkes Booth's broken leg — the Lincoln conspiracy's most argued conviction, served in the moat-walled fortress at the reef's edge."]},{"heading":"Dr. Mudd's casemate","paragraphs":["Local lore describes apparitions of prisoners — including Dr. Mudd — in the casemates and on the moat wall, retold in Key West ghost-tour coverage. The file's ghost is the prisoner who famously protested his innocence: a doctor convicted of conspiracy, still reportedly in the cell the Army gave him.","The Civil War prisoners — Union deserters among them — complete the register: a fortress-prison at the sea's edge, holding deserters and a convicted conspirator, keeping them reportedly still."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Fort Jefferson is the archive's island-prison file — America's biggest brick fort, never finished, holding Dr. Mudd among its documented prisoners, seventy miles from anywhere. The apparitions in the casemates are the lore; the Mudd imprisonment is the record.","A fortress the sea walls, a doctor who swore he was innocent, a ghost tour that keeps his cell — the file's suggestion being that Mudd's appeal is still pending."]}],"name":"Fort Jefferson","aliases":[],"type":"FORT_FORMER_PRISON","type_label":"Fort Former Prison","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","FORMER_PRISON","CIVIL_WAR","MILITARY","PRISON","HAUNTED"],"groups":["dark-history","institutions"],"desc":"Unfinished island fort used as a Civil War military prison.","full_desc":"Fort Jefferson is a fort and former prison in Key West, Florida, built in 1846. Unfinished island fort used as a Civil War military prison. The name the accounts keep returning to is Dr. Samuel Mudd (attributed). The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend, 2 documented facts and 1 named or described presence — documented record and retelling kept side by side. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Key West","county":null,"state":"Florida","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":24.565063,"lon":-81.775539,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":"https://www.nps.gov/places/fort-jefferson.htm","phone":null,"year_built":1846,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Register of Historic Places; National Historic Landmark","current_use":null,"research_notes":"Located on Garden Key in Dry Tortugas National Park. Year built is construction start. NPS pages differ between 1873 and 1874 for Army abandonment; no exact closure selected. No ghost claim added.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":69.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":4030,"type":"HAUNTING","description":"Local lore describes apparitions of prisoners—including Dr. Mudd—in the casemates and on the moat wall—retold in Key West ghost-tour coverage. The lore gives it a name — Dr. Samuel Mudd (attributed) — which is what turns a report into a resident. The reports at Fort Jefferson are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. It circulates as local folklore — the kind communities keep rather than verify. The account appears in 'Florida haunted places listicle'. It's the kind of claim that outlives debunkings — too many witnesses, too few explanations.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":"Dr. Samuel Mudd (attributed)","where":null,"first_report":"20th century","approx_date":null,"confidence":0.3,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Florida haunted places listicle","url":"https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/florida/haunted-places-in-fl/","publisher":"OnlyInYourState","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Construction continued from 1846 to 1875 without completion. Civil War prisoners included Union deserters and Samuel Mudd. The Army later abandoned the post. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'Fort Jefferson'. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Fort Jefferson","url":"https://www.nps.gov/places/fort-jefferson.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Fort Jefferson was built 1846–1875; it held Civil War prisoners including Dr. Samuel Mudd (1865–1869). The record dates it to 1846-01-01–1869-03-01. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The record appears in 'Dry Tortugas National Park'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1846-01-01","date_end":"1869-03-01","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Dry Tortugas National Park","url":"https://www.nps.gov/drto","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Local lore describes apparitions of prisoners—including Dr. Mudd—in the casemates and on the moat wall—retold in Key West ghost-tour coverage. The account has been recorded since 20th century. The reports at Fort Jefferson are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. The account appears in 'Florida haunted places listicle'. Every community keeps one story like this; this is theirs.","earliest":"20th century","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Florida haunted places listicle","url":"https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/florida/haunted-places-in-fl/","publisher":"OnlyInYourState","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"entities":[{"name":"Dr. Samuel Mudd (attributed)","claimed_identity":"Dr. Samuel Mudd (attributed)","verified":null,"summary":"Local lore describes apparitions of prisoners—including Dr. Mudd—in the casemates and on the moat wall—retold in Key West ghost-tour coverage. The file calls it Dr. Samuel Mudd (attributed). The account has been recorded since 20th century. The reports at Fort Jefferson are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. The account appears in 'Florida haunted places listicle'. The file keeps Dr. Samuel Mudd (attributed) on the roster; the sightings keep the name alive.","behavior":"Local lore describes apparitions of prisoners—including Dr. Mudd—in the casemates and on the moat wall—retold in Key West ghost-tour coverage.","area":null,"first_ref":"20th century","source":{"name":"Florida haunted places listicle","url":"https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/florida/haunted-places-in-fl/","publisher":"OnlyInYourState","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"events":[{"name":"Mudd imprisonment","type":"PRISON","date_start":"1865-07-24","date_end":"1869-03-01","description":"Dr. Samuel Mudd — the physician who set John Wilkes Booth's broken leg — arrived at Fort Jefferson in July 1865, sentenced to life for conspiracy. He worked heroically through the 1867 yellow-fever outbreak that killed the fort's doctor, was pardoned in 1869, and left behind a name that still feeds a folk etymology — though 'his name is mud' predates him.","evidence":"PRISON","source":{"name":"Dry Tortugas National Park","url":"https://www.nps.gov/drto","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify 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":"Fort Jefferson","url":"https://www.nps.gov/places/fort-jefferson.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Dry Tortugas National Park","url":"https://www.nps.gov/drto","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Florida haunted places listicle","url":"https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/florida/haunted-places-in-fl/","publisher":"OnlyInYourState","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"place_type","existing_value":"FORT_FORMER_PRISON","incoming_value":"FORT","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"Unfinished island fort used as a Civil War military prison.","incoming_value":"The Dry Tortugas fortress—where Dr. Mudd’s ghost is said to walk the casemates.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"full_description","existing_value":"Fort Jefferson is a fort former prison in Florida. Unfinished island fort used as a Civil War military prison. Construction continued from 1846 to 1875 without completion. Civil War prisoners included Union deserters and Samuel Mudd. The Army later abandoned the post.","incoming_value":"Fort Jefferson is the massive 16-million-brick hexagon on the Dry Tortugas—the largest masonry fort in the Americas, and the prison where Dr. Samuel Mudd was held. Its documented prisoners underlie persistent haunted lore.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"current_status","existing_value":"HISTORIC_SITE","incoming_value":"ACTIVE","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Located on Garden Key in Dry Tortugas National Park. Year built is construction start. NPS pages differ between 1873 and 1874 for Army abandonment; no exact closure selected. No ghost claim added.","incoming_value":"Lore enrichment; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Fort Jefferson","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Jefferson","desc":"United States historic place","extract":"Fort Jefferson is a former U.S. military coastal fortress in the Dry Tortugas National Park of Florida. It is the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas, covering 16 acres (6.5 ha) and constructed of over 16 million bricks. Among United States forts, only Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Adams in Rhode Island are larger. The fort is located on Garden Key in the lower Florida Keys within the Dry Tortugas, 68 miles (109 km) west of the island of Key West. The Dry Tortugas are part of Monroe County in Florida.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/Fort-Jefferson_Dry-Tortugas.jpg/330px-Fort-Jefferson_Dry-Tortugas.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":78},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":2,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":3}}