Exclusive | One of Brooklyns oldest homes believed to be a stop along the Underground Railroad asks $5.95M: It is a museum

A home in Brooklyn Heights not only offers a glimpse of old New York — but also the chance to live in a strong piece of local history.Built in 1829, making this one of the oldest residences in the borough, the clapboard Federal-style home at 69 Orange St.has just hit the market for $5.95 million, The Post has learned.

It offers not only four to five bedrooms and a private garden, but also what locals say is a living link to the Underground Railroad.Indeed, this property is believed to have been part of the network that led escaped slaves to their freedom.To walk through the house, which includes a mansard roof and Victorian-era gingerbread trim, is to step back into a version of Brooklyn that predates the Civil War.The home, landmarked as part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, still retains original handrails, moldings, hardware, six fireplaces and even milk-paste paint.But the real stories are below the surface.“My late husband who died last year, Henry, discovered the crawl space,” current owner Rasa McKean, 73, told The Post of a tell-tale feature inside the dwelling.“In the cellar, the walls are made of large stones, not bricks.

He noticed one was slightly out of place and suspected something was behind it.After wiggling it loose, it was clear there was an opening.

We believe it was part of the Underground Railroad.”That hunch is supported by the home’s immediate neighbor, Plymouth Church, a cornerstone of the 19th-century abolitionist movement.Its first preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, famously auctioned enslaved people to freedom from the pulpit, which drew the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain to worship.McKean said she and her late husband found additional clues while doing outdoor chores.“We dug up the garden to replace the soil, and that’s when we discovered a tunnel underneath, leading along the back fence,” she recalled.“It looked like it went all the way to the church.”McKean and her husband, Henry McKean, a mathema...