Chestertown, Maryland

    Last week, I gave a book talk at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.  Washington College, my host, Ted Maris-Wolf, and the audience were wonderful.  It is a great place to speak, and the town has a picture-book setting.  But as with many of my speaking venues, Chestertown has a connection to the book.  Artist Charles Willson Peale lived there for a short time when he was a boy.  He had been born in Centerville, Maryland, and later his father, a teacher, took a job in Chestertown.  Peale didn't live there long because his father died and his mother moved the family to Annapolis.  Nonetheless, while there, I naturally had to track down Peale's house.  It is gone, but I was told it was at the intersection of Queen and Cannon streets.  The gray house on the right side of the street in this photograph is where the Peale house used to be.

Peale''s boyhood home

Peale liked the water, so I took the picture below to show how close this house was to the Chester River.  This is more or less what Peale would see when he ran out his front door.  The green frame house on the right is an inn from the colonial period.  I don't know if it was standing when Peale lived in Chestertown, but the historical sign next to it said that George Washington stayed there.

View of Cannon Street and Chester River

Naturally there are many other things to see in Chestertown.  My favorite was what I call "lawyers' row."  Across the street from the courthouse are the buildings in the photograph below.  They are lawyers' offices.  I don't know when they were built, but they are still in use today.  I was there on a beautiful September morning, and the doors to some of the offices were open.

Lawyers' offices