{"id":701,"slug":"mayhew-cabin-nebraska","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The cottonwood cabin southwest of Nebraska City sits on the seam between documented rescue and disputed legend. Allen and Barbara Mayhew built it in 1854 on their claim near old Fort Kearney. Barbara's brother was John Henri Kagi — John Brown's most trusted lieutenant — and that family tie put the cabin on the Lane Trail, the Underground Railroad route running from Kansas through southeast Nebraska into Iowa.","The documented night came in February 1859. Weeks earlier, Brown's party had taken eleven enslaved people from Missouri at gunpoint — a woman giving birth on the road to a son named for Brown — and Kagi guided the twelve freedom seekers north through Nebraska. They were fed and sheltered at his sister's cabin while an armed posse tried to take Kagi at her door. Two of the twelve, Sam and Jane Harper, have living descendants — one serves as president of the Mayhew Cabin Foundation today.","The famous 'John Brown's Cave' is where the record splits — the tunnel from the cabin's cellar to the creek was promoted as a hiding place from 1938 onward, but Edward Mayhew, who grew up in the house, insisted no fugitive was ever in it and Brown never set foot on the place. The site's own telling now holds both: the documented February 1859 sheltering stands, while the cave is presented as a recreated teaching space rather than a verified hiding spot — the cabin was Nebraska's first Network to Freedom site in 2003.","Mayhew Cabin is the archive's lane-trail file — the Nebraska City cabin where John Brown's lieutenant brought twelve freedom seekers in February 1859, with a posse at the door, and where the cave legend is told beside the dispute about it."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Mayhew Cabin is the archive's contested-cave file — the Nebraska City station on the Lane Trail with a documented John Brown connection through John Kagi, and a famous tunnel whose legend the family itself disputed.","A cabin on the freedom trail keeps its two stories — the file's suggestion being that the Mayhew hold is the split record: the February 1859 sheltering documented by descendants, and the cave whose fame outran its evidence."]}],"name":"Mayhew Cabin","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 Nebraska City, Nebraska, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing, Mayhew Cabin 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 2 documented facts — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. The site is open to visitors.","address":"2012 4th Corso","city":"Nebraska City","county":"Otoe","state":"Nebraska","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":40.61599,"lon":-96.09203,"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 05NE01, source row 115. 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 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":"Mayhew Cabin 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 detail is preserved in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.","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 Nebraska City cabin—where John Brown’s men hid.","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 05NE01, source row 115. 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 4; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Mayhew Cabin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayhew_Cabin","desc":"United States historic place","extract":"The Mayhew Cabin, in Nebraska City, Nebraska, is one of only two Underground Railroad sites in Nebraska officially recognized by the National Park Service. It is included among the sites of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Mayhew_Cabin_from_S_1.JPG/330px-Mayhew_Cabin_from_S_1.JPG?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":40.67333333,"lon":-95.87002778},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":2,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}