{"id":959,"slug":"james-a-fields-house-virginia","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["James Apostle Fields was born enslaved in Hanover County in 1844, and he learned the law watching attorneys at the courthouse while he tended their horses. A brutal beating sent him fleeing during the Civil War; he joined his escaped family behind Union lines at Hampton, enrolled in Hampton Institute's first class in 1869, graduated two years later, and took a Howard law degree in 1882. In between he served as a justice of the peace — in 1879, Virginia's first Black judicial officer — then Commonwealth's Attorney for Warwick County, and in 1889 a seat in the House of Delegates: the man born a slave prosecuting cases and making laws in the state that had owned him.","The brick Italianate at 617 27th Street was his 1897 home and law office — one of at least twenty-five properties he held at his death from Bright's disease in 1903. The house kept serving the community he built: in 1908 four Black doctors pooled their savings and used its top floor to found the Whittaker Memorial Hospital — the first hospital for Black residents of Newport News, in the home of the man who had been the county's first Black prosecutor.","The house is on the National Register and restored as a museum — the Italianate on 27th Street where the arc ran from enslaved stable boy to the bar, the bench, the legislature, and the hospital that followed.","The James A. Fields House is the archive's self-made file — the home and office of the man who escaped slavery, became Virginia's first Black judicial officer, and left a house that became the city's first Black hospital."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The James A. Fields House is the archive's arc file — the Newport News Italianate where an escaped slave who watched courtrooms from the stable became commonwealth's attorney and delegate, and whose top floor became the city's first Black hospital in 1908.","A house of firsts keeps its office — the file's suggestion being that the Fields House's hold is the trajectory: the building that was a law office for a man born property and then a hospital for the community that had been born the same way."]}],"name":"James A. Fields House","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"A historic site in Newport News, Virginia, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing, James A. Fields House is filed here for what the record attaches to it. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. HauntHunt files it with dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. The site is open to visitors.","address":"617 €œ 27th Street","city":"Newport News","county":"City of Newport News","state":"Virginia","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":37.076136,"lon":-76.52198,"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 27VA01, source row 496. 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. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. Sources including 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' carry the record. 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":"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":"James A. Fields House 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. 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' documents the entry. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.","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":"Fields’s story is documented. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' documents the entry. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest. The lore keeps its witness.","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 Newport News house—where the freedman lawyer lived.","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 27VA01, source row 496. 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":"James A. Fields House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Fields_House","desc":"Historic house in Virginia, US","extract":"James A. Fields House is a historic home located in the Brookville Heights neighborhood in the East End of Newport News, Virginia. It was built in 1897, and is a two-story, Italianate style red brick dwelling on a raised basement. It features an entrance tower with a low pitched hipped roof and two ten-foot tall two-over-two windows on the first floor. It was built by the prominent African-American lawyer and politician James A. Fields (1844–1903) and served as the location of the first black hospital in the city, which later became the Whittaker Memorial Hospital.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1d/JAMES_A._FIELDS_HOUSE%2C_NEWPORT_NEWS%2C_VA.jpg/330px-JAMES_A._FIELDS_HOUSE%2C_NEWPORT_NEWS%2C_VA.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":36.98472222,"lon":-76.42194444},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}