{"id":706,"slug":"lyman-hoyt-house-indiana","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Lyman Hoyt's limestone house stands half a mile from Eleutherian College, and it was probably built by the same hands — the two Greek Revival buildings in Lancaster share the rough-hewn stone and corner quoins of a local builder working for the same cause. Hoyt was a Vermont-born manufacturer who came to Jefferson County in 1834, helped found the Neil's Creek Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, worked to organize the Liberty Party, and backed the college that opened its doors to students of every race and sex ten miles from the Kentucky shore.","His Underground Railroad work is documented in the late nineteenth-century accounts — Hoyt transported freedom seekers between stations and hid them on his property when the slave catchers came through Lancaster. He condemned the Fugitive Slave Law and broke it as a matter of course, in the county where the antislavery community had been organized since the town was young. He died in 1857 — four years before the war his work had helped make inevitable — and his widow Asenath and their seven children carried the family's civil-rights commitments into the next century.","The house is a Network to Freedom site on the National Register — the limestone residence near the college, restored as part of the Lancaster antislavery cluster that includes Eleutherian and the College Hill Cemetery where the founders lie.","The Hoyt House is the archive's conductor's-stone file — the limestone house built alongside the college it supported, whose owner drove fugitives between stations and hid them when the catchers came, in the township that was Indiana's most documented pocket of abolition."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Lyman Hoyt House is the archive's neighbor file — the limestone house half a mile from Eleutherian College, likely by the same builder, whose owner transported freedom seekers and hid them from slave catchers in Lancaster's documented abolitionist enclave.","A conductor's house beside a college keeps its stone — the file's suggestion being that the Hoyt House's hold is the pairing: the station and the integrated school built of the same limestone by the same community, in the township that defied Indiana's own exclusion law."]}],"name":"Lyman Hoyt 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":"Lyman Hoyt House is a historic site in Lancaster, Indiana, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. It sits in the archive 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. Access is restricted — check current rules before planning anything.","address":"7147 West State Road 250","city":"Lancaster","county":"Jefferson","state":"Indiana","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":38.8166,"lon":-85.47909,"coord_kind":"COUNTY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"RESTRICTED","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: No. 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 06IN02, source row 120. 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. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. 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":"Lyman Hoyt House 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. 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'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","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 house’s UGRR role is documented. 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. Sources including 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' carry the record. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","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":"Access is restricted; check with the managing agency or landowner 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 Hoyt house—the family’s station.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"public_access","existing_value":"RESTRICTED","incoming_value":"PUBLIC","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 06IN02, source row 120. 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":"Lyman and Asenath Hoyt House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_and_Asenath_Hoyt_House","desc":"Historic house in Indiana, United States","extract":"Lyman and Asenath Hoyt House is a historic home in Lancaster Township, Jefferson County, Indiana that was a stop on the Underground Railroad. It is owned by the non-profit group, Historic Eleutherian College Incorporated. Built about 1850, the two-story, rectangular, limestone dwelling has Greek Revival-style design elements. Its front facade has gable roof and a deep-set wooden entry door.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Lyman_and_Asenath_Hoyt_House.jpg/330px-Lyman_and_Asenath_Hoyt_House.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":78,"lat":38.83222222,"lon":-85.52055556},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}