Artisan's House (Hogshead ), Annapolis

Artisan’s House is a small historic building that shows how ordinary workers once lived and worked in this colonial port community. It is a rare surviving example of a modest wood-frame dwelling used by tradespeople. Craftsmen such as carpenters and cabinetmakers often lived and worked in the same building. The structure is also known as Hogshead, a nickname connected to its later history.

The house reflects the practical design of simple colonial homes. It is a one-and-a-half-story frame building with a gambrel roof and a brick foundation laid in the English bond pattern. Its hall-parlor layout allowed part of the building to serve as a workspace while the rest was used for family life. Excavations in the basement uncovered a brick floor, a large cooking fireplace, and a beehive oven used for daily cooking.

Records from 1777 show the building was used as a small barracks for military recruits during the American Revolutionary War. The nickname “Hogshead” likely refers to how soldiers were crowded inside the small structure, similar to tobacco packed into large hogshead barrels for transport. Today the building is preserved by Historic Annapolis as the Hogshead Trades Museum, where interpreters demonstrate eighteenth-century trades and explain the daily life of the town’s working residents.