Queenstown, MD

Queenstown was founded as Queen Anne's Towne in 1707 and served as Queen Anne's County's first seat of government until the county seat moved to Centreville in 1782. The original courthouse, built in 1708, still gives the town a physical link to that early civic role. Queenstown Creek made the settlement useful to eighteenth-century tradesmen and later brought steamboats carrying goods and passengers along the Chester River and on to Baltimore.

The town's history is easy to encounter in the courthouse property, which after the county seat moved served in turn as a home, warehouse, drug store, grocery, restaurant, beer parlor, post office, and antique shop before local preservation work began. Queenstown was also the only town in the county attacked by British forces during the War of 1812, and an 1820 fire nearly destroyed it. Today agriculture and seafood harvesting remain important around the town, alongside retail and the Queenstown Harbor Golf Links. The creek, old courthouse, and working county landscape still describe how Queenstown functions.