41 Cornhill Street

In 1771 when Annapolis merchant Charles Wallace laid out plot lines on Cornhill Street, former ship captain Beriah Maybury leased two plots and built this house which he opened as the King's Arms Tavern in 1773. In 1792 he renamed it the Sign of the Golden Scales and boarded St. John's students. The first paid portraits ever painted by artist Charles Willson Peale were of Maybury and his wife. In 1801 owner Lloyd M. Lowe obtained a franchise for Peale's new invention, the physiognotrace, and produced silhouettes here for sale. About 1830 the four front windows were elongated and a dining room and kitchen wing added, but the house remaines essentially as built in 1772.

Marker is on Cornhill Street, on the right when traveling south.

Courtesy hmdb.org

Credits and Sources:

HMDB