William Sands, aye, poor William.
At 19, he volunteered to fight the world’s most powerful army. He died for his belief in freedom, drowning in a New York swamp while running for his life.
Or maybe he died of his wounds after escaping to Manhattan with George Washington and 9,000 scared Colonials. No one is sure. His grave, and those of 258 other members of the 1st Maryland Regiment killed at the Battle of Long Island on Aug. 27, 1776, are lost to history.
William’s voice, however, can still be heard 248 years later.
“Our Maryland Battalion is encamped on a hill about one mile out of New York, where we lay in a very secure place,” Sands wrote in his final letter home to Annapolis. “We are ordered to hold ourselves in readiness. We expect an attack hourly.”
There is one memorial to this Revolutionary War hero of Annapolis. On the anniversary of his death, it is for sale.
Talk about your Maryland signers of the Declaration of Independence: Carroll, Stone, Paca and Chase. All risked their Annapolis fortunes, but none gave his life for liberty.
William Sands left behind the home where he grew into manhood. Built around 1700 on Prince George Street, the Sands House is the oldest frame building in Annapolis. A couple with a passion for history lovingly restored it. Ready to move on, Kevin and Laura Smith have listed it for $1.7 million.
“For me, honestly, it’s been a dream come true,” Laura Smith said. “I have always loved historic homes. … We both really had a dream to live in one. We weren’t sure if it would come true.”
What they’ve done is lovely. Real estate agent Jill Wootten arranged for me to tour it Friday while the Smiths were out of town. Their work melds the historical significance of the building with the amenities of modern life.
Here is the little room where Washington stood, seeking a moment of peace from a crowd of adoring well-wishers during a visit in 1783. Here are the soapstone kitchen counters, made of a material available when John and Ann Sands raised William and their other children.
There is the door that opened onto an Annapolis of just 150 houses, now dividing the house between the original structure and a 19th-century addition. There is the big screen TV, a reminder of modern life, perched above heart-of-pine flooring cut from trees that sprouted half a millennia ago.
What happens next is, in many ways, the unanswered question of Annapolis. It is a small town, but because the economy of Maryland shifted to Baltimore after the American Revolution, scores of 18th-century buildings and homes remain.
Yes, there are the grand Georgian palaces and townhomes of William Paca, Samuel Chase and William Lloyd, and architect William Buckland’s masterpiece, the Hammond-Harwood House. But there are also family homes. Like the Sands house, some are still occupied by families today.
“This home was more like us, a middle-class family, a merchant’s home, basically,” Laura said. “And it had always been that. So, we liked that. I guess we just felt more ... what’s the word?”
“It fits us better,” Kevin added. “Like we weren’t out of place.”
The danger is that the Smiths will be the last family. Historic homes in Annapolis are increasingly being bought up by investors who turn them into short-term rentals. The city regulates these small hospitality businesses, but stops short of requiring them to be owner-occupied.
That’s not what should happen to the Sands House, the Smiths say.
“We feel that when we bought the house, it needed a renovation,” Kevin said. “It hadn’t had a renovation in some time, and we feel pretty confident that the effort we put into it has put the house on a trajectory for the next 20- to 30-plus years of staying as a residential dwelling. We feel really proud about that.”
I don’t know where William slept when he lived in the house, but it was far more crowded than it is today, with the Smiths and their three children.
John Sands was a ship captain who retired and moved with Ann into the house on Prince George Street in 1771. They shared the house with 15-year-old William, his older brother Thomas, and his younger siblings Ann, John Jr., Sarah and Joseph.
Ann was a seamstress who took on neighborhood work to help make ends meet. She once punched a neighbor, though the reason has long been forgotten.
Together, they added more rooms and opened a tavern.
Her journal survives, though, and its short entries read like a diary of small-town family life. She wanted her kids to be more than she was.
William tried. The Sons of Liberty met just up the street. Down by the harbor, the owner of the Peggy Stewart burned his ship and its cargo of tea under threat from those revolutionaries. William joined the 1st Maryland Regiment in early 1776 and drilled for six months, ready to defend Annapolis from the British on the Chesapeake Bay. In July, Sgt. Sands and his fellow soldiers marched north to join Washington in New York.
From the road, word filtered back to Annapolis that William had taken up with a woman following the little army.
“As for your advise, I am very much obliged to you,” he wrote from Philadelphia on July 10, 1776. “But am very sorry anybody should raise such false reports. The girl is not in company with me. She is along with the soldiers in the barracks, with five more women. I have nothing to say to her, and I hope you will not think any more of it.”
Washington failed to stop the invasion of New York and retreated across the East River to Manhattan. If it weren’t for a brash charge by Maryland volunteers, we might be members of the Commonwealth marking Aug. 27 as the day the failed rebellion was crushed on Long Island.
Somewhere on that August day, William died. His friends who returned lost track of him. It doesn’t matter how. What matters is how he lived.
The Sands family remained in the house for generations until author Ann Jensen sold it to her neighbor, who then donated it to Historic Annapolis. The nonprofit preservation group added an easement to the property and sold it to the Smiths in 2020.
“I think we accomplished our goal,” Laura said. “It was also the goal of Historic Annapolis … to have a family living there to make it feel modern and comfortable, but to preserve absolutely everything.”
Both of the Smiths have their favorite corner of the house. For him, it’s the original cedar shingles hidden inside a second-floor attic. For her, it’s that door that once led outside.
The couple decided to move because they wanted a home better suited to teenagers and their friends. They bought a house across the street from Annapolis High School, making that part of growing up a bit easier.
“As much as I love this home, there’s no basement,” Laura said. “You can’t put a pool in the backyard. The more we thought about it, the more we just thought another home that has those types of features might be better for us in the short term.”
But she can still think about returning to a home with a past sometime in the future.
“Then maybe,” she said, “I can live out my historic dreams again once we’re empty nesters someday.”
