In 1782 the State Assembly voted to move the county seat of Queen Anne’s County to a more central location and replace the c. 1708 courthouse building in Queenstown (1977 restored; 100 Del Rhodes Avenue). After some delay a grid of fifty-two lots around a public square was laid out along the road (now MD 213) between Chestertown and Queenstown and close to the Corsica River. Said to be the oldest Maryland county courthouse in continuous use, it was built on the public square facing Commerce Street. The original configuration was a two-story central block with a pediment and flanking lower wings. In 1876, Baltimore architect Neilson enlarged the courthouse by raising the side wings to two-stories and expanding the building to the rear. The windows, cast-iron balcony, and any surviving historic interior finishes date from Neilson’s renovation, but the basic form of the late-eighteenth-century courthouse is still apparent.