{"id":3652,"slug":"hampton-national-historic-site-towson-maryland","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Hampton was the Ridgelys' 1790 estate — the great house at the center of a 25,000-acre operation that ran on enslaved labor, the mansion's Georgian grandeur built by the people the family owned, the grounds holding both the palace and the quarters where the enslaved lived.","The file's documented spine is the estate's whole register: a National Historic Site that keeps the mansion and the slave quarters together, the Network to Freedom listing marking the escapes and the resistance the same ground held."]},{"heading":"The quarters' register","paragraphs":["The file's legend layer is empty — and the absence is the point. Hampton's claim is its documented completeness: the great house and the quarters, the Ridgelys' luxury and the enslaved people's labor, preserved side by side as the record demands.","The Network to Freedom documentation is the file's weight — a plantation whose enslaved resisted and escaped, the estate's ground holding the freedom struggle's evidence alongside the owner's grandeur."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Hampton is the archive's whole-estate file — a 1790 plantation keeping the mansion and the slave quarters together, a Network to Freedom site whose documented register needs no ghosts. The preserved buildings are the record.","An estate that kept both the palace and the quarters keeps the whole truth — the file's suggestion being that Hampton's ground holds everyone who built it, not just the name on the deed."]}],"name":"Hampton National Historic Site","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","PLANTATION","HISTORIC_ESTATE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"The 1790 mansion—the Ridgely estate where the enslaved built the fortune.","full_desc":"Hampton National Historic Site is a historic site in Towson, Maryland, an NPS Network to Freedom. The 1790 mansion—the Ridgely estate where the enslaved built the fortune. It sits in the archive under Underground Railroad history, the Underground Railroad and African American history. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Towson","county":null,"state":"Maryland","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":39.39421,"lon":-76.617751,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"NPS Network to Freedom","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"UGRR enrichment wave 1; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":67.9,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"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. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' documents the entry. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","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":"Hampton National Historic Site is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. 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. 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' documents the entry. 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":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"The 1790 estate is documented. 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. 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' documents the entry. 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":"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":[],"wiki":{"title":"Hampton National Historic Site","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_National_Historic_Site","desc":"Preserved slave estate in Baltimore County, Maryland","extract":"Hampton National Historic Site, in the Hampton area north of Towson, Baltimore County, Maryland, preserves a remnant of a vast 18th-century estate, including a Georgian manor house, gardens, grounds, and the original stone slave quarters. The estate was owned by the Ridgely family for seven generations, from 1745 to 1948. The Hampton Mansion was the largest private home in America when it was completed in 1790 and today is considered to be one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in the United States. Its furnishings, together with the estate's slave quarters and other preserved structures, provide insight into the life of late 18th-century and early 19th-century landowning aristo","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Hampton_Natl_Historic_Site.jpg/960px-Hampton_Natl_Historic_Site.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":104,"lat":39.41611111,"lon":-76.5875},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}