{"id":660,"slug":"levi-coffin-house-state-historic-site-indiana","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Levi Coffin House State Historic Site is where the 'President of the Underground Railroad' kept office. The eight-room Federal-style house in Fountain City — built 1839, facing the old National Road — was the Coffin family's home for twenty years and a documented station that sheltered, by Coffin's own count, roughly two thousand freedom seekers. The site preserves the working details: the false-bottomed wagon in the outbuilding, the garret rooms where fugitives slept, the unusual indoor well in the basement kitchen — a design choice that let the household serve large numbers of hidden guests without drawing water at a public pump where watchers might count.","Levi Coffin was a Quaker merchant from North Carolina who'd been opening schools for enslaved children and running the road out of bondage since he was young; in Indiana he ran the Newport depot of the routes converging from the Ohio River. His wife Catherine ran the house — the cooking, clothing, and nursing for the arrivals that made a station function — and the house earned its name: three major routes converged on Fountain City, and the Coffin house sat where all three met, 'the Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad.'","The state took the house over in the 1960s — restored to its 1840s condition, opened as a museum in 1970, and expanded in 2016 with an interpretive center. It is one of the most documented Underground Railroad sites in the country: the house where the fugitive Eliza Harris — fictionalized in Uncle Tom's Cabin — was among the real travelers sheltered.","The Coffin State Historic Site is the archive's preserved-station file — the Fountain City house with the indoor well and the false-bottomed wagon, restored as the museum of the man called the Underground Railroad's president."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Levi Coffin House State Historic Site is the archive's Grand Central file — the 1839 Fountain City station where three routes converged, an estimated two thousand freedom seekers sheltered, and the hidden well and wagon survive as the working machinery of the Underground Railroad's most documented house.","A station preserved as a museum keeps its well — the file's suggestion being that the site's hold is the indoor water: the well that let the Coffins feed hidden guests uncounted, in the house Indiana restored around it."]}],"name":"Levi Coffin House State Historic Site","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD","CIVIL_RIGHTS"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Levi Coffin House State Historic Site is a historic site in Fountain City, Indiana, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. The archive files it under dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors.","address":"113 U.S. 27 N","city":"Fountain City","county":"Wayne","state":"Indiana","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":39.85209,"lon":-85.07174,"coord_kind":"COUNTY","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 03IN01, source row 62. 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. Levi Coffin House State Historic Site's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer the museum itself interprets. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. Sources including 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' carry the record. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.","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":"Levi Coffin House State Historic Site 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. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","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":"Coffin’s work 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. The record appears in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on. The lore keeps its witness. The file stays open on 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":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The \"President’s\" house—where Coffin sheltered 2,000 fugitives.","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 03IN01, source row 62. 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":"Levi Coffin House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Coffin_House","desc":"Historic house in Indiana, United States","extract":"The Coffin House is a National Historic Landmark located in the present-day town of Fountain City in Wayne County, Indiana. The two-story, eight room, brick home was constructed circa 1838–39 in the Federal style. The Coffin home became known as the \"Grand Central Station\" of the Underground Railroad because of its location where three of the escape routes to the North converged and the number of fleeing slaves who passed through it.\nIts original owners, Catharine and Levi Coffin, were Quaker abolitionists who provided fugitive slaves with supplies and a safe place to stay. During the twenty years (1826 to 1847) that The Coffins lived in Indiana it is believed that they helped as many as 2,0","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Fountaincity%2C_Indiana.jpg/960px-Fountaincity%2C_Indiana.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":88,"lat":39.95625,"lon":-84.91736111},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}