Key West, Florida
History
The builder of the Oldest House was Richard Cussans, who immigrated to the Island of Key West in about 1826 from the Bahamas. He was in his mid-twenties when he built the house. He may have trained and apprenticed as a ship’s carpenter but he would not have been a shipwright at that young age. That level of craft was not easily achieved. He owned slaves, and likely used their labors in the construction of the Oldest House in 1829. He was an enterprising and talented young man who built several of the original buildings on the island which he either sold or rented out. Several other structures he built have not survived. It is believed he left Key West in the late 1830s and sailed west to the new Republic of Texas. The house was built from lumber sourced in South Florida.