Hertford Historic District

Hertford's historic district preserves the center of a river town on the Perquimans River in Perquimans County, North Carolina. Incorporated in 1758 and laid out in a grid, the town grew outward from its courthouse green. The district holds 223 contributing resources, including houses from about 1775 onward, many of them two-story side-hall Federal dwellings later updated with Greek Revival details. Queen Anne and Colonial Revival homes recall the prosperous 1890s, when the population doubled, and Craftsman bungalows date from the 1920s. Brick commercial buildings along North Church Street replaced earlier wooden ones, including the 1916 Classical Revival bank. Institutional landmarks include the 1825 Perquimans County Courthouse, a rare surviving Federal-era courthouse in the state, several nineteenth-century churches, Cedarwood Cemetery, a memorial to a 1672 Quaker service, and the S-shaped bridge over the river. Together they show how the town developed over two centuries.