Northampton County Courthouse Historic District

A cluster of small brick and frame buildings around a green in a village most drivers pass without slowing: the 1731 courthouse, the debtors' prison, the clerk's office and the tavern. The county's court records run unbroken back to 1632, the oldest continuous set in the United States, and they are still held here.

It takes ten minutes and it is the quiet counterpart to Accomac's courthouse district further north. Doing both gives you the two colonial county seats of the Eastern Shore.

Exteriors always accessible, free, interiors by appointment or during weekday office hours.