Centreville was first developed as the county seat during the late eighteenth century due to its proximity to the colonial road from Chestertown to Queenstown and Kent Island and to its ease of accessibility to navigable waterways. Since that time, Centreville has served as a market town for regional trade and a center of local government for Queen Anne’s County; it remains the county’s largest and most commercially diverse town. In addition to local agriculture, the town’s manufacturers comprise a canning factory, fertilizer works, and iron foundry. The town is centered on a public square that includes a late-eighteenth-century courthouse which serves as the focal point of a larger historic district of eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and early-twentieth-century structures chronicling the architectural development of an Eastern Shore community.
Centreville’s dominance as the commercial and governmental center of the county was well established by the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Owners of large lots on Commerce Street, one of the earliest arteries of development, subdivided their properties, a trend that continued in the post-Civil War era. It was here that a series of buildings reflecting the Greek Revival and later romantic styles were erected.
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