About This Location
The Conference House, also known as the Billop House, is the oldest building on Staten Island, built in 1680 by Captain Christopher Billopp. It gained historical significance on September 11, 1776, when Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge met here with British Lord Howe to negotiate peace - the conference failed because the Americans demanded independence. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
The Ghost Story
During the Revolutionary War, Christopher Billopp was a Loyalist who tended to wounded British soldiers in secret. Paranoid about spies, he accused a 15-year-old servant girl of signaling the enemy when she placed a lantern in a window. In a rage, he grabbed her and threw her down the stairs, breaking her neck. She was never given justice. Visitors report hearing a residual haunting: a man shouting, a woman screaming, and sounds of someone falling - the murder replaying over and over. A light is sometimes seen in the window where she placed her lantern. Revolutionary War soldiers in red coats wander the gardens and tunnel, and visitors feel tapped on the shoulder by unseen hands.