Washington College
Located in historic Chestertown, Washington College is home to the Center for Environment & Society. The center is housed in the Custom House, the original section of which was built around 1745 by a local innkeeper and merchant named Samuel Massey. The distinctive brickwork of the house's facade, a style that uses glazed brick in a decorative pattern, marks it as a prominent building for its time. It was acquired from Massey in 1749 and enlarged substantially by another of Kent County's most prominent citizens, Thomas Ringgold. Ringgold was an attorney and member of the House of Burgesses, and he had extensive mercantile connections, interests in ship-building yards, and large land-holdings.
Ringgold supervised his holdings from the Custom House, located at the corner of High and Front Streets. The house overlooked Chestertown's main wharf, which made it an ideal spot for watching the coming and going of ships and cargos in the town's busy colonial harbor. Vaults and cellars beneath the house were used for storage, and the grounds held a wide variety of buildings over the years. Historical documents refer to a dry goods store, a cooper's shop (barrel and cask maker), granaries, storehouses, and wharves. Prior to the American Revolution, the District Customs Collector used at least one room in the house or an adjacent structure as an office, giving the building the name it has retained ever since, the Custom House.
