117–119 Houston Street
building
117–119 Houston Street (also known as The Henry Cunningham House or The Henry Cunningham Estate) is a historic building in Savannah, Georgia, United States. A duplex, it is located on Houston Street in the northwestern tything of Greene Square and was built in 1810. It is part of the Savannah Historic District. It is considered the oldest building constructed for a person of color in Savannah.
History
Henry Cunningham
The house was built in 1810 for Reverend Henry Cunningham (1759–1842) and his wife Elizabeth, a businesswoman. Cunningham was a formerly enslaved African-American Baptist minister who, in 1802, co-founded and became the first pastor of the Second African Baptist Church on Greene Square. He served as its pastor for over thirty years, until 1833.
Cunningham was also a successful businessman who operated a hauling business and was among the foremost African-American businessmen in antebellum Savannah. Under his pastoral guidance, many new ministers were trained and sent out to Savannah's expanding network of Black churches. He died on March 29, 1842, aged 82 or 83, and is buried at Laurel Grove Cemetery South in Savannah.
“117–119 Houston Street” enters the record as building. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Houston, Street and building can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“117–119 Houston Street” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Houston, Street and building provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q106483581. The first chronological checks are 1810, 1759, 1842 and 1802.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “117–119 Houston Street”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 117–119 Houston Street primary sources, 117–119 Houston Street archive and Houston research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “117–119 Houston Street”?
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- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “117–119 Houston Street” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.