{"id":714,"slug":"sully-historic-site-virginia","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Sully is the house the airport couldn't kill. Richard Bland Lee — Light-Horse Harry's brother, Robert E. Lee's uncle, and northern Virginia's first congressman — built the farmhouse in 1794 on the Salisbury Plain tract his grandfather patented in 1725. He cast votes that mattered: the Bill of Rights, the compromise that put the capital on the Potomac. The votes were cast from a plantation — his father's will had handed him twenty-nine enslaved people in 1787, and more than thirty lived at Sully alongside the family: Titus, Cain, Westminster, Eave, Harry, Joe, Sabina and Sabina's child Joe — names the site's interpretation now speaks.","The house was modest by Lee standards — a rambling farmhouse rather than a mansion — but the woodwork was fine and the piazza's scalloped eaves gave it grace. Financial trouble forced Richard out in 1811; the property passed through cousin Francis Lightfoot Lee II and, in 1842, to the Haights — Quakers from New York whose progressive dairy farming made Sully a different kind of working landscape.","In 1958 the FAA condemned half the property for Dulles International Airport — the plantation house stood in the way of the jets. An act of Congress saved it, the Fairfax County Park Authority took it in 1959, and the house survived to become the rare plantation that lists the enslaved by name on its tours. Dulles's runways now roar beside the cherry lane Lee ordered planted in 1792.","Sully is the archive's saved-by-Congress file — the 1794 farmhouse of northern Virginia's first congressman, where thirty enslaved people are now named on the tour, spared from Dulles's bulldozers by an act of Congress in 1958."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Sully Historic Site is the archive's runway file — the Lee family plantation where the first northern Virginia congressman voted on the Bill of Rights while thirty enslaved people worked the farm, and which Congress saved from Dulles Airport by statute in 1958.","A plantation saved from an airport keeps its lane — the file's suggestion being that Sully's hold is the cherry-tree avenue: the entrance Lee marked out in 1792, still leading to the house the jets couldn't take."]}],"name":"Sully Historic Site","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","PLANTATION","HISTORIC_SITE","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Sully Historic Site is a historic site in Chantilly, Virginia, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. The archive files it under dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 3 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors.","address":"3601 Sully Road","city":"Chantilly","county":"Fairfax","state":"Virginia","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":38.88918,"lon":-77.442088,"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 06VA03, source row 134. 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. Sully Historic Site'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 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' carry the record. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.","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":"Sully Historic Site is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. Sully Historic Site's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer the museum itself interprets. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. Sources including 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' carry the record. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","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}},{"description":"The 1794 plantation is documented. Sully Historic Site'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. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","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 Fairfax plantation—where the Lees’ enslaved worked.","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 06VA03, source row 134. 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 3; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Sully Historic Site","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sully_Historic_Site","desc":"Historic house in Virginia, United States","extract":"Sully Historic Site, is both a Virginia landmark and nationally registered historic place in Chantilly, Virginia.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/14/FallHouse.JPG/330px-FallHouse.JPG?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":38.90805556,"lon":-77.43222222},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}