Entering Queenstown’s Courthouse is like stepping through a portal in time. Much of your surroundings are original, such as the horizontal oak wall sheathing and some of the weatherboarding on the end walls. The flooring, originally a typical earth floor, was later updated to wood. The frame structure dates to 1708 and the brick section was added between 1820 and 1840, well after the 1782 transfer of the county seat to Centreville.
It was at this court in 1765 that William Paca was admitted to practice law in Queen Anne?s County. It was also here in 1718 that a whipping post was erected and Katharine Langton was given 20 lashes, and others were confined to the stocks, branded, or faced the hangman’s noose at nearby Gallows Field, which had been located just south of the courthouse.
When the county seat was moved to Centreville in 1782, the courthouse was used for various purposes. The town bought the property in 1977 and the restoration of the colonial courthouse was completed in the late 1970s.