In Davidsonville, shops and businesses often shared the same buildings as family homes, with work conducted in a front or first-floor room and the family living in back or above while the whole household often helped, such as wives cooking meals at an inn or children waiting on customers in a shop. Jacob Garrett's public house on Lots 34-35 was part of his residence, and John Miller ran a store from his home on Lot 23. As both a river port and a county seat, Davidsonville supported a range of enterprises, including a cotton gin owned by Joseph Hardin and Robert Smith on Lots 4-5, a blacksmith shop on Lot 23, and residents such as lawyers and doctors, while early records also mention warehouses by the river, distilleries, a boat-building shop, a hotel, a public house or tavern, a livery stable, a tanner, a jewelry store, and general merchandise stores.