{"id":2653,"slug":"peel-mansion-bentonville-arkansas","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Samuel Peel built his wife a mansion because he'd promised he would. The Confederate colonel came out of the Civil War penniless, set up a law practice in northwest Arkansas, and told Mary Emaline he'd build her a house like the ones she'd grown up in back in Alabama. It took him a decade to make good — the Italianate villa at 400 South Walton Boulevard went up in 1875, a fourteen-room brick house with a three-story tower, sitting in sixty acres of apple orchards on the edge of a town that barely existed yet.","Peel made it to Congress — the first native-born Arkansan to represent the state — and the mansion was the seat of the family's ascent: nine children, the orchards, the law practice, the political career. Mary died in 1902 and Samuel moved out the next year; the house passed through owners for eighty years, including a stint as an interiors showroom, until Walmart bought it in 1991 and donated it to the foundation that runs it now.","The museum sits across from the Walmart Supercenter — the mansion of the congressman from the frontier facing the flagship of the empire that replaced the orchards. It's the most Bentonville juxtaposition possible: the house built on a promise, preserved by the company that built its headquarters in the fields around it."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Peel Mansion is the archive's promise file — a house built because a Confederate veteran told his wife he'd give her Alabama back, preserved by the retail empire that grew up in its orchards.","A mansion that outlasted the frontier keeps its tower — the file's suggestion being that Peel Mansion is Bentonville's origin story in miniature: the house was the ambition, and the town that grew around it was the result."]}],"name":"Peel Mansion","aliases":[],"type":"HOUSE","type_label":"House","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","HISTORIC_ESTATE"],"groups":["hauntings","historic-sites","legends"],"desc":"Colonel Peel’s 1875 Italianate—Bentonville’s grand survivor.","full_desc":"A house in Bentonville, Arkansas, Peel Mansion is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Colonel Peel’s 1875 Italianate—Bentonville’s grand survivor. The file’s recurring figure goes by a name, not a description: the peels. The dossier holds 2 reported claims, 1 legend and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Bentonville","county":null,"state":"Arkansas","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":36.352662,"lon":-94.231181,"coord_kind":"CITY","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":"AR 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":2204,"type":"NAMED_GHOST_LEGEND","description":"The family is reportedly seen in the mansion. The Peels is the name the reports keep returning to. A house with Bentonville's history behind it gives the reports a setting that needs no exaggeration. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. 'Peel Mansion' carries the account. A ghost with a name outlasts a ghost without one; the reports keep it employed.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"The Peels","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Peel Mansion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Mansion","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":2205,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported figures in the tower rooms. Peel Mansion wears the claim the way old houses do: visibly, and without comment. It's anecdotal evidence in the strictest sense — stories, repeated, unresolved. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting. The telling survives; the proof stays folklore.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Peel Mansion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Mansion","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Built 1875; restored in the 1990s. The house's past is on record — this entry belongs to the verified layer of the site's file. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The detail is preserved in 'Peel Mansion'. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context. It remains the site's standing claim.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1875","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Peel Mansion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Mansion","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"The family is reportedly seen in the mansion. Peel Mansion wears the claim the way old houses do: visibly, and without comment. The story is documented as legend — recorded and retold, never verified as fact. 'Peel Mansion' carries the account. It's the version the place will be remembered by, whether or not it's the true one.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Peel Mansion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Mansion","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[{"name":"The Peels","claimed_identity":"The Peels","verified":null,"summary":"The family is reportedly seen in the mansion. The presence goes by The Peels. Peel Mansion in Bentonville, Arkansas is the kind of old house where every sound eventually gets a name. 'Peel Mansion' carries the account. A named spirit outlasts an anonymous one; the file's name is The Peels. The report keeps its place in the record.","behavior":"The family is reportedly seen in the mansion.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Peel Mansion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Mansion","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":"Peel Mansion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Mansion","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Col. Samuel W. Peel House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Col._Samuel_W._Peel_House","desc":"Historic house in Arkansas, United States","extract":"The Col. Samuel W. Peel House is a historic house museum, also known as the Peel Mansion Museum, at 400 South Walton Boulevard in Bentonville, Arkansas.  It is a two-story stuccoed brick masonry structure, with a three-story hip-roofed tower at the center of its front facade.  The house was built c. 1875 by Samuel W. Peel, a prominent local politician and businessman.  After serving in the Confederate Army in the American Civil War, Peel studied law and practiced for many years in Bentonville.  He served several terms in the United States Congress, and helped establish the First National Bank of Bentonville.  Despite later alterations, the house is one of the finest Italianate mansions in th","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2e/COL._SAMUEL_W._PEEL_HOUSE%2C_BENTONVILLE%2C_BENTON_COUNTY%2C_AR.jpg/960px-COL._SAMUEL_W._PEEL_HOUSE%2C_BENTONVILLE%2C_BENTON_COUNTY%2C_AR.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":64,"lat":36.36916667,"lon":-94.22166667},"counts":{"claims":2,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}