{"id":541,"slug":"seabrook-wilson-house-port-monmouth-new-jersey","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Seabrook-Wilson House's oldest section dates to the early 1700s — a bayside house that became an inn, then stood vacant and dilapidated by the 1960s until the township acquired it. The house is famous under another name: the Spy House — for decades promoted as one of America's most haunted buildings.","The file's spine is the honest one: the house's documented history is the real register — a colonial-era building that survived, decayed, and was saved."]},{"heading":"The invented spy house","paragraphs":["The file records the calibration directly: the spy-and-pirate ghost stories were largely created by a 1960s caretaker and amplified by paranormal media. The 'Spy House' legend — the tavern where patriots spied on the British, the pirates in the basement, the dozens of ghosts — was substantially manufactured, a caretaker's invention that paranormal television turned into canon.","This is the file's value: a documented case of folklore being made — the legend's origin traced to a named decade and a named teller, the house's real history more modest than its famous haunting."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Seabrook-Wilson is the archive's folklore-forensics file — a genuine colonial house whose famous ghosts were largely created by a 1960s caretaker, then amplified by paranormal media into national legend. The debunk is the record; the legend is the lesson.","A house whose haunting was invented keeps the invention's documentation — the file's suggestion being that the most interesting ghost in the Spy House is the story of how the ghosts got there."]}],"name":"Seabrook-Wilson House","aliases":["Bay Side Manor","Spy House Museum","White House Tavern"],"type":"HISTORIC_HOUSE","type_label":"Historic House","cats":["DISPUTED_LEGEND","HISTORIC_HOUSE","FORMER_ABANDONED_PLACE","LOCAL_LEGEND_LEAD","HAUNTED_PLACE"],"groups":["hauntings","historic-sites","legends"],"desc":"Restored former inn known locally as the Spy House.","full_desc":"A historic house in Port Monmouth, New Jersey, built in 1720, Seabrook-Wilson House is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Restored former inn known locally as the Spy House. It sits in the archive under formerly abandoned places, local legends and haunted places. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 2 documented facts, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Port Monmouth","county":"Monmouth","state":"New Jersey","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":40.4372,"lon":-74.0378,"coord_kind":"EXACT","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":1720,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"County park interpretation and programming","research_notes":"County history verifies building identity and Spy House Museum name, not spying or supernatural activity. Specific legend provenance and current opening conditions remain queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"HIGH","score":80,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0.85,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":1191,"type":"HAUNTING_LEGEND","description":"Caretaker-era lore describes spies, pirates and a woman in white in the upstairs rooms. A house with Port Monmouth's history behind it gives the reports a setting that needs no exaggeration. Sources disagree about it, which makes it honest folklore: contested, retold, unsettled. The account appears in 'Seabrook-Wilson House'. The tale is the site's other archive — oral, embroidered, and outlasting the documents.","evidence":"DISPUTED","evidence_label":"Disputed","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":"Later research attributes most stories to a mid-20th-century invention.","source":{"name":"Seabrook-Wilson House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabrook-Wilson_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Its oldest section dates to the early1700s. Later an inn, it became vacant and dilapidated by the1960s, was acquired by the township in1969 and restored by the county in2009. A house in Port Monmouth, New Jersey with this much documented history gives the dossier substance underneath the lore. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'Celebrating60: Bayshore Waterfront Park'. 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":"Celebrating60: Bayshore Waterfront Park","url":"https://monmouthcountyparksystem.blogspot.com/2020/08/celebrating-60-bayshore-waterfront-park.html","publisher":"Monmouth County Park System","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Built circa 1720; its spy-and-pirate ghost stories were largely created by a 1960s caretaker and amplified by paranormal media. Seabrook-Wilson House's history is documented rather than told — this entry is part of that spine. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. 'Seabrook-Wilson House' documents the entry. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":"1960","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Seabrook-Wilson House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabrook-Wilson_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Historic house museum or private residence; verify tour availability 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":"Celebrating60: Bayshore Waterfront Park","url":"https://monmouthcountyparksystem.blogspot.com/2020/08/celebrating-60-bayshore-waterfront-park.html","publisher":"Monmouth County Park System","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Seabrook-Wilson House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabrook-Wilson_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"place_type","existing_value":"HISTORIC_HOUSE","incoming_value":"HISTORIC_HOUSE_MUSEUM","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"Restored former inn known locally as the Spy House.","incoming_value":"\"Spy House\" legend of tavern spies and Revolutionary ghosts—largely debunked.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"County history verifies building identity and Spy House Museum name, not spying or supernatural activity. Specific legend provenance and current opening conditions remain queued.","incoming_value":"New record from encyclopedia/official-source pass; VERIFY task auto-queued for primary-source corroboration.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Seabrook–Wilson House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabrook%E2%80%93Wilson_House","desc":"Historic house in New Jersey, United States","extract":"The Seabrook–Wilson House is located at 119 Port Monmouth Road in the Port Monmouth section of Middletown Township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 29, 1974, for its significance in social history and transportation.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Seabrook-Wilson_House.jpg/330px-Seabrook-Wilson_House.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":40.4392,"lon":-74.0931},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":2,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":2}}