Queenstown Courthouse (18QU124)

The Queenstown Courthouse site (18QU124) contains the 18th-century courthouse of Queen Anne’s County, but the structure is not at its original location, so the colonial-era artifacts found there must be associated with some other building.

From 1708 to 1782 the Queenstown Courthouse was the Queen Anne’s County seat. The standing frame structure dates to the early 18th century, but it was moved at an unknown date and now sits on an early 19th-century brick foundation. The courthouse’s original location is not known. Between 1784 and 1907 it functioned as a private home. Gerald Coursey owned the property until 1845, when it was sold to James Davidson. The house passed to Dr. Charles Cockey in 1868, and then to Harriett Embert in 1874. The Embert family lived there until the early 20th century. From 1910 until 1977 the house was used as a residence and commercial structure. Wesley Chaires was a druggist who operated his shop from the house. Later owners ran a general store there. In 1976, the Queenstown commissioners purchased the courthouse to restore it and use it as a town office.

The site was excavated in 1978 by avocational archaeologists under the direction of Milton Barbehenn, in preparation for the restoration. No field records are known from this work, but an excavation summary was produced. More than 40 test units were excavated, along with several features including a well, yielding artifacts from the 17th to 20th centuries, as well as a few prehistoric objects.

In 2010, the Maryland State Highway Administration agreed to process the Queenstown Courthouse artifact collection, which had been in private hands, as part of a road improvement project. John Milner Associates cleaned and catalogued the artifacts, and produced a report using available records, additional documentary research, and interviews with people involved in the excavations. JMA felt that the 18th-century artifacts, from an unknown occupation, could be separated from the later artifacts and used as a study collection. The later deposits did not appear to be associated with a particular household, and were more likely from the town dump and therefore representative of Queenstown as a whole.

(Edited from archeological site survey form, Maryland Historical Trust)