{"id":2716,"slug":"st-johns-church-hampton-virginia","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["St. John's is the fourth — the '1610' that's the parish's start, the '1728' that's the building's date. The 'burned thrice' is the scarred — the '1775' that's the bombardment's year, the '1861' that's the Confederates' fire. The 'walls stood' is the kept — the 'Flemish bond' that's the brick's pattern, the 'rebuilt inside' that's the phoenix's form.","The 'Kecoughtan' is the named — the 'friendly' that's the first meeting's tone, the 'taken' that's the turn's cost. The 'barracks' is the used — the 'British' that's the '12's occupier, the 'ransacked' that's the pews' fate. St. John's is the oldest — the 'continuous parish' that's the claim's rank, the 'English-speaking' that's the qualifier's scope.","The file keeps St. John's: the fourth church, the burned walls, the taken land, and the oldest parish.","St. John's is the archive's Virginia file — the parish that outlived its buildings."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["St. John's is the archive's Virginia file — America's oldest continuous parish.","A church keeps its walls — the file's suggestion being that St. John's hold is the endured: the 'fourth' that's the building's count, the 'burned' that's the war's mark, and the '1610' that's the parish's root."]}],"name":"St. John’s Church (Hampton)","aliases":["St. John’s Church"],"type":"CHURCH","type_label":"Church","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HISTORIC_BUILDING","COLONIAL"],"groups":["institutions","legends"],"desc":"The 1728 church that survived the burning of Hampton—twice.","full_desc":"St. John’s Church (Hampton) is a church in Hampton, Virginia. The 1728 church that survived the burning of Hampton—twice. It sits in the archive under the colonial era and local folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 documented fact — documented record and retelling kept side by side. It remains an active congregation. For HauntHunt it is exactly the kind of file the archive exists for: a real place, a real record, and a story still being told.","address":null,"city":"Hampton","county":null,"state":"Virginia","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":37.047961,"lon":-76.297293,"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":"VA2 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":2311,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence in the church and churchyard. Sacred ground in Hampton, Virginia keeps its own kind of haunting — quieter, and harder to dismiss. It's anecdotal evidence in the strictest sense — stories, repeated, unresolved. The report is preserved in sources like 'St. John’s Hampton'. Whatever walks there, it walks often enough to keep the reports coming.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"St. John’s Hampton","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_Episcopal_Church_(Hampton,_Virginia)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The 1610 parish and the 1728 church are documented. The site's documented religious 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. The record appears in 'St. John’s Hampton'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1610","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"St. John’s Hampton","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_Episcopal_Church_(Hampton,_Virginia)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Active or historic congregation site; visits outside service times vary—check ahead.","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":"St. John’s Hampton","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_Episcopal_Church_(Hampton,_Virginia)","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}