Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown
Lisette Denison Forth home site
Closed – archive entry
The downtown Detroit lot where Lisette Denison Forth, a formerly enslaved woman who became Michigan's first Black female landowner, owned her own home from 1854 until her death in 1866.
01 / The story of this place
Make time for these
Lisette Denison was born enslaved around 1786 near Detroit, escaped across the river to freedom in Canada with her brother not long after 1807, and returned to the city around 1815 as a free woman. Working as a domestic servant for prominent Detroit judge Solomon Sibley, she carefully saved and invested her wages in land, and by 1854 she had bought a home of her own on what is now Macomb Street in downtown Detroit, becoming, by most accounts, the first African American woman to own land in Michigan. She lived here until her death in 1866, leaving part of her estate to fund the construction of St. James Episcopal Church on Grosse Ile. The original nineteenth-century house is long gone, and the block has been rebuilt many times since; the state has recognized the site's history with an official Michigan Historic Site designation, honoring a remarkable and often overlooked story of self-determination in early Detroit.
- Lisette Denison Forth bought this home in 1854
- Believed to be Michigan's first Black female landowner
- Lived here until her death in 1866
- Left part of her estate to fund St. James Episcopal Church on Grosse Ile
- Designated a Michigan Historic Site
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 1
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Lisette Denison Forth 1786–1866 · formerly enslaved landowner and philanthropist
Lived here
Site of the house she owned in her last years, designated a State of Michigan Historic Site.
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
Events at this place
Published events automatically linked from our event guide. Times are local to the venue.
We have no published upcoming events linked to this place yet. That does not mean the venue has no events; check its official calendar too.
Source and former website ↗