Queen Anne's County

Queen Anne's County, located on Maryland's Eastern Shore, extends from the Mason-Dixon Line and Delaware to the Chesapeake on the west and is bordered on the north by Kent County, and on the south by Talbot and Caroline counties. The county was created in 1706 from Dorchester, Talbot, and Kent counties. It is named for Queen Anne (1665-1714), who ruled Great Britain and Ireland from 1702 until 1714.

Like Kent County, Queen Anne's County is mostly dairy country, with fields sown in feed crops, especially corn, soybeans, and hay. Small amounts of barley, essential for dairy feed, are also grown. In the autumn and winter, thousands of Canadian geese can be seen feeding in the fields and along streams throughout the county.

Centreville, the county seat, is a well kept, quiet town typical of the Eastern Shore. The courthouse was completed in 1792 and the town was laid out in 1794. Fire has destroyed most of the older houses, but the courthouse itself remains, one of only two eighteenth-century courthouses left standing in Maryland.

Wright's Chance, Reed's Creek, and Tucker House are but a few of the historic houses in the county. The county is also the birthplace of Charles Willson Peale, who painted the portraits of many revolutionary era personages, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hanson.