{"id":1118,"slug":"ship-island-gulf-islands-national-seashore-nps-mississippi","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Ship Island was the Gulf's staging ground — the barrier island with the only deep-water anchorage on the Mississippi coast, where ten thousand British troops rendezvoused in December 1814 before dying at New Orleans. That memory drove the fort: Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War, pushed the appropriation through in 1857 for a Third System brick fort on the island, arguing the British had proven the route. It was the last brick fort built on the Gulf Coast — and it was never finished.","The construction read like a siege — the first superintendent died of yellow fever, storms flattened the walls, and after two years only eight feet stood. When Mississippi seceded in January 1861, Confederates seized the works and shored them with timber and sandbags; that summer the USS Massachusetts shelled the island in the war's first Gulf exchange, and by fall the Union held Ship Island — making it the staging base for Farragut's capture of New Orleans and later a prison camp for Confederate POWs, whose barracks and hospital filled the parade ground the fort's own garrison had never finished.","The fort got its name by accident — Hancock's 1884 report called it Fort Massachusetts after the ship that retook the island, and the name stuck to a fort that never received an official one. The island kept dividing — Hurricane Camille split it in two in 1969, and the cut was only filled by the Corps in 2019. The fort still stands at the west end of the reunited island, unfinished and undefeated.","Ship Island is the archive's staging-ground file — the Mississippi barrier island where the British massed for New Orleans, where the unfinished fort changed hands in 1861 and held POWs after, and which Camille split in half."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Ship Island is the archive's unfinished-fort file — the barrier island where Fort Massachusetts rose too slowly to be ready, served as the Union's Gulf base and a POW camp, and was named by accident for the ship that retook it.","An island that armies staged from keeps its anchorage — the file's suggestion being that Ship Island's hold is the harbor: the deep water that drew the British in 1814, the Union in 1861, and the fort that never got finished watching it."]}],"name":"Ship Island (Gulf Islands National Seashore, NPS)","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","MILITARY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD","ISLAND"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Ship Island (Gulf Islands National Seashore, NPS) is a historic site in Gulfport, Mississippi, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. 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 — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors.","address":"3500 Park Road","city":"Gulfport","county":"Jackson","state":"Mississippi","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.419487,"lon":-89.069022,"coord_kind":"CITY","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 44MS02, source row 686. 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. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The detail is preserved in 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01'. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","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":"Ship Island (Gulf Islands National Seashore, NPS) is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. Ship Island (Gulf Islands National Seashore, NPS)'s past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer the museum itself interprets. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. 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":"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 island fort—where the garrison and the contraband met.","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 44MS02, source row 686. 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":"Ship Island","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_Island","desc":"Island in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States of America","extract":"Ship Island is a barrier island off the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, one of the Mississippi–Alabama barrier islands. Hurricane Camille split the island into two separate islands in 1969. In early 2019, the US Army Corps of Engineers completed the first stage of a project rejoining the two islands and recreating one Ship Island. Ship Island is the site of Fort Massachusetts, as a Third System fortification. Both sides of the island (West Ship Island which includes the fort, and East Ship Island) are included in the territory of Gulf Islands National Seashore.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Ship_Island_Sept_2004.JPG/330px-Ship_Island_Sept_2004.JPG?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":75,"lat":30.21666667,"lon":-88.91666667},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":2,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}