Academy was founded here in 1845.
Annapolis is the seat of Saint John's College, a non-sectarian
institution supported in part by the state; it was opened in 1789 as the
successor of King William's School, which was founded by an act of the
Maryland legislature in 1696 and was opened in 1701. Its principal
building, McDowell Hall, was originally intended for a governor's
mansion; although L4000 current money was appropriated for its erection
in 1742, it was not completed until after the War of Independence. In
1907 the college became the school of arts and sciences of the
university of Maryland.

Annapolis, at first called Providence, was settled in 1649 by Puritan
exiles from Virginia. Later it bore in succession the names of Town at
Proctor's, Town at the Severn, Anne Arundel Town, and finally in 1694,
Annapolis, in honour of Princess Anne, who at the time was heir to the
throne of Great Britain. In 1694 also, soon after the overthrow of the
Catholic government of the lord proprietor, it was made the seat of the
new government as well as a port of entry, and it has since remained the
capital of Maryland; but it was not until 1708 that it was incorporated
as a city. From the middle of the 18th century until the War of
Independence, Annapolis was noted for its wealthy and cultivated
society. The _Maryland Gazette_, which became an important weekly
journal, was founded by Jonas Green in 1745; in 1769 a theatre was
opened; during this period also the commerce was considerable, but
declined rapidly after Baltimore, in 1780, was made a port of entry, and
now oyster-packing is the city's only important industry. Congress was
in session in the state house here from the 26th of November 1783 to the
3rd of June 1784, and it was here on the 23rd of December 1783 that
General Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the
Continental Army. In 1786 a convention, to which delegates from all the
states of the Union were invited, was called to meet in Annapolis to
consider measures for the better regulation of commerce (see ALEXANDRIA,
Va.); but delegates came from only five states (New York, Pennsylvania,
Virginia, New Jersey, and Delaware), and the convention--known afterward
as the "Annapolis Convention,"--without proceeding to the business for
which it had met, passed a resolution calling for another convention to
meet at Philadelphia in the following year to amend the articles of
confederation; by this Philadel