James A. Garfield National Historic Site
A historic site in Mentor, Ohio, an NPS Network to Freedom, James A. Garfield National Historic Site is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Lawnfield—the president’s home, kept as he left it. The archive files it under Underground Railroad history, the Underground Railroad and African American history. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 3 documented facts, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.
· in your passport — stamped · open it
Is James A. Garfield National Historic Site haunted?
The record holds 1 claim — filed as reported, not verified. The heaviest filing is classed anecdotal. The archive documents the claim; it takes no position on the ghost.
The record — long form
The Garfield site in Mentor is the 1876 estate — Lawnfield, the president's home, where the front-porch campaign of 1880 was run from the house's steps. The file's documented spine is the house's political register: a president's estate where the campaign that elected him was conducted on the porch.
The Underground Railroad listing is the file's second layer — the estate's documented connection to the freedom network, the president's home sharing the ground with the passage's history.
The president's house
The file's legend layer is empty — Lawnfield's haunting is the house itself: a president's home preserved with his library, his campaign porch, the rooms where the 1880 election was won. The file keeps the record's completeness: a president's estate intact, the documented life the whole content.
Garfield's assassination is the file's weight outside the house — a president shot months into office, his house kept as the monument to a term that barely began.
Why this file matters
Lawnfield is the archive's presidential-estate file — a house where the campaign was run from the porch, a president whose term ended in assassination, the estate kept as the record of both. The empty legend layer is the register: the house's documented life is enough.
A president's porch that ran a campaign keeps its president's memory — the file's suggestion being that Lawnfield's haunting is the house itself, complete.
James A. Garfield National Historic Site is a United States National Historic Site located in Mentor, Ohio. The site preserves the Lawnfield estate and surrounding property of James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, and includes the first presidential library established in the United States.
James A. Garfield National Historic SiteThe record of claims
Reported figures at the house. The site in Mentor, Ohio gives the account a documented setting: real place, real history, unresolved reports. Witness accounts, no evidence file: the claim is anecdotal and stays that way. Sources including 'Underground Railroad' keep the claim in circulation. The apparition is the file's anchor — every other report orbits it.
Documented history
NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. James A. Garfield National Historic Site's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer the museum itself interprets. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' documents the entry. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.
Verified historyNational Park ServiceJames A. Garfield 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. The detail is preserved in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.
Verified historyNational Park ServiceThe 1876 estate is documented. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' documents the entry. The record keeps it — history, not lore. The claim holds its place in the ledger. The telling survives; the proof stays folklore.
Verified historyNational Park Service
Sources on file
- 01Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01National Park Service · government · A1
- 02NPS Network to Freedom listingNational Park Service · government · A1
- 03Underground RailroadWikipedia · encyclopedia · A4
Field notes & open questions
UGRR enrichment wave 1; VERIFY task auto-queued.