{"id":2888,"slug":"old-stone-house-brooklyn-new-york","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["On August 27, 1776, four hundred Marylanders saved the American army by dying at a Dutch farmhouse. The Battle of Brooklyn — the largest battle of the Revolution — had already been lost; Washington's army was fleeing to the forts on Brooklyn Heights with the British behind them. The stone farmhouse on the Gowanus road was held by two thousand British and Hessian troops. The First Maryland Regiment — four hundred men — attacked it six times, took it twice, and held the pursuit long enough for the army to escape. Two hundred fifty-nine of them didn't. Washington watched from a hill and reportedly said, 'Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose.'","The Maryland 400's sacrifice is the reason the Revolution survived August 1776 — the rear-guard action that held Cornwallis while Washington evacuated to Manhattan. Their bodies were never found; they're presumably still under Park Slope somewhere, in the ground where the farmhouse stood. The house itself — built by Claes Vechte in 1699, two-foot fieldstone walls — was demolished in 1897 and rebuilt in 1933 as a replica on the original foundations, using the original stones.","It's a museum now, in Washington Park in Park Slope, surrounded by the neighborhood that grew over the battlefield. The Marylanders' graves are somewhere under the brownstones; the house is the marker. Brooklyn's oldest battle is also its least visible — a whole engagement buried under a neighborhood, with one rebuilt farmhouse to show where the army was saved."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Old Stone House is the archive's rear-guard file — the farmhouse where four hundred Marylanders bought the Revolution's survival with their lives, on ground that's now a park surrounded by the city they saved.","A house that was a fortress keeps its stones — the file's suggestion being that the Maryland 400 are Brooklyn's real foundation: buried under Park Slope, holding the line under a neighborhood that mostly doesn't know they're there."]}],"name":"Old Stone House","aliases":[],"type":"HOUSE","type_label":"House","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","REVOLUTIONARY_WAR"],"groups":["dark-history","hauntings","historic-sites","legends"],"desc":"The Vechte house—where the Maryland 400 held the line.","full_desc":"Old Stone House is a house in Brooklyn, New York. The Vechte house—where the Maryland 400 held the line. HauntHunt files it with the Revolutionary War, dark history and local folklore. The presence its accounts keep returning to is the one they call the maryland 400. The dossier holds 2 reported claims, 1 legend, 1 documented fact and 1 named or described presence — documented record and retelling kept side by side. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Brooklyn","county":null,"state":"New York","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":null,"lon":null,"coord_kind":null,"status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"NYC batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":2625,"type":"NAMED_GHOST_LEGEND","description":"The Marylanders are reportedly seen. The lore gives it a name — The Maryland 400 — which is what turns a report into a resident. The house's rooms are where the accounts concentrate — old houses keep their stories in the walls they were built around. The story is documented as legend — recorded and retold, never verified as fact. The report is preserved in sources like 'Old Stone House'. Named ghosts are the ones that last — this one has lasted.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"The Maryland 400","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Old Stone House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stone_House_(Brooklyn)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":2626,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported figures at the house. Old Stone House wears the claim the way old houses do: visibly, and without comment. It's anecdotal evidence in the strictest sense — stories, repeated, unresolved. Sources including 'Old Stone House' keep the claim in circulation. It is the sighting the place is known for, and it hasn't stopped.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Old Stone House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stone_House_(Brooklyn)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The 1776 Maryland 400 stand is documented. Old Stone House'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. 'Old Stone House' documents the entry. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":"1776-08-27","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Old Stone House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stone_House_(Brooklyn)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"The Marylanders are reportedly seen. A house with Brooklyn's history behind it gives the reports a setting that needs no exaggeration. 'Old Stone House' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. The account appears in 'Old Stone House'. The retelling is the record now — the legend metabolized the facts long ago.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Old Stone House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stone_House_(Brooklyn)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[{"name":"The Maryland 400","claimed_identity":"The Maryland 400","verified":null,"summary":"The Marylanders are reportedly seen. The file calls it The Maryland 400. Old Stone House wears the claim the way old houses do: visibly, and without comment. The account appears in 'Old Stone House'. A named spirit outlasts an anonymous one; the file's name is The Maryland 400. The account stays in the file — reported, retold, unresolved.","behavior":"The Marylanders are reportedly seen.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Old Stone House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stone_House_(Brooklyn)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Historic house; many are private residences—verify public access before visiting.","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":"Old Stone House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stone_House_(Brooklyn)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Old Stone House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stone_House","desc":"Topics referred to by the same term","extract":"Old Stone House may refer to:\n\nOld Stone House (Hampton, Iowa)\nStone House by the Stone House Brook (South Orange, New Jersey)\nOld Stone House (Brooklyn), New York\nOld Stone House (Granite Quarry, North Carolina)\nOld Stone House (Vale, Oregon)\nOld Stone House (Winnsboro, South Carolina)\nOld Stone House (Winooski, Vermont)\nOld Stone House Museum, in Brownington Village, Vermont\nOld Stone House (Richmond, Virginia)/Edgar Allan Poe Museum\nOld Stone House (Millboro Springs, Virginia)\nOld Stone House (Washington, D.C.)\nOld Stone House (Morgantown, West Virginia)\nOld Stone House (Pennsboro, West Virginia)\nWallace Estill Sr. House, near Union, West Virginia","img":null,"score":89},"counts":{"claims":2,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}