617 South Cherry Street
John Miller House, circa 1850

Former OHHIC board member, Tom Elliott, made the remarkable discovery that the 1858 John Miller House is perhaps the only surviving pre-Civil War house in Richmond that was built, owned and occupied by free blacks. Born in 1814, John Miller was a minister at the Dover mines, a barber and a cooper at the Gallego Mills. Quaker Robert Pleasants, the founder of the Virginia Abolition Society, went to court in 1799 to free the mother of John Miller from slavery. In 1917, businessman Moses Nunnally moved the Miller House from its original site at 614 S. Laurel onto a substantial stone foundation at 617 S. Cherry Street. OHHIC carefully restored the Miller House and placed a preservation easement on the property.