William Sands, yes, poor William.

At 19, he volunteered to fight against the most powerful army in the world. He died for his belief in freedom and drowned in a swamp in New York while fleeing for his life.

Or perhaps he died of his injuries after escaping to Manhattan with George Washington and 9,000 terrified colonists. No one is sure. His grave and the graves of 258 other members of the 1st Maryland Regiment killed at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, are lost to history.

However, William’s voice can still be heard 248 years later.

“Our Maryland battalion has encamped on a hill about a mile outside of New York, where we are in a very safe place,” Sands wrote in his last letter to Annapolis. “We have orders to be on standby. We expect an attack any hour.”

There is a monument to this Revolutionary War hero in Annapolis. It is for sale on the anniversary of his death.

Talk about the Maryland signers of the Declaration of Independence: Carroll, Stone, Paca, and Chase. All risked their fortunes at Annapolis, but none gave their lives for freedom.

William Sands left behind the house in which he grew up. Built around 1700 on Prince George Street, the Sands House is the oldest frame house in Annapolis. A history-loving couple has lovingly restored it. Kevin and Laura Smith are ready to move on and have put it up for sale for $1.7 million.

““It’s honestly been a dream come true for me,” said Laura Smith. “I’ve always loved historic homes. … We both had a dream of living in one. We weren’t sure if it would come true.”

What they’ve done is beautiful. Real estate agent Jill Wootten arranged a viewing for me on Friday while the Smiths were out of town. Their work combines the building’s historical significance with the conveniences of modern living.

Here is the small room where Washington stood during a visit in 1783 and asked for a moment’s silence from a crowd of well-wishers. Here are the soapstone kitchen countertops, made from a material that was available when John and Ann Sands were raising William and their other children.

There’s the door that once led to an Annapolis of just 150 homes and now divides the house into the original structure and an addition built in 1908. There’s the big-screen television, a reminder of modern life, perched above a floor of pine cut from trees that grew half a millennium ago.

What happens next is, in many ways, Annapolis’s unanswered question. It’s a small town, but since Maryland’s economy shifted to Baltimore after the American Revolution, dozens of 18th-century buildings and homes remain.

Yes, there are the magnificent Georgian palaces and townhouses of William Paca, Samuel Chase and William Lloyd, as well as architect William Buckland’s masterpiece, the Hammond-Harwood House. But there are also family homes. Like the Sands House, some are still inhabited by families today.

“This house was more like us, a middle-class family, a merchant’s house, basically,” Laura said. “And it always was. So we liked it. I guess we just felt more… what do you say?”

“It suits us better,” Kevin added. “As if we wouldn’t be out of place.”

The danger is that the Smiths will be the last family. More and more historic houses in Annapolis are being bought up by investors who rent them out on a short-term basis. The city regulates these small establishments but does not require them to be occupied by owners.

That shouldn’t happen with the Sands House, say the Smiths.

“We felt the house needed some renovation when we bought it,” Kevin said. “It hadn’t been renovated in a while, and we’re pretty confident that the effort we put in has made the house ready to be used as a home for the next 20 to 30 years. We’re really proud of that.”

I don’t know where William slept when he lived in the house, but it was much more crowded than it is today, as the Smiths lived there with their two children.

John Sands was a retired ship captain who moved into the house on Prince George Street with Ann 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 and took jobs in her neighborhood to make ends meet. She once hit a neighbor, but the reason for doing so is long forgotten.

Together they added more rooms and opened a tavern.

Her diary, however, survives and the short entries read like the diary of a small-town family life. She wanted her children to be more than she was.

William tried. The Sons of Liberty met just up the road. Down at the docks, the owner of the Peggy Stewart burned his ship and his cargo of tea because he was threatened by the revolutionaries. William joined the 1st Maryland Regiment in early 1776 and spent six months training to defend Annapolis in the Chesapeake Bay from the British. In July, Sergeant Sands and his comrades marched north to join Washington in New York.

News reached Annapolis from the streets that William had become involved with a woman who was following the small army.

“I am very grateful for your advice,” he wrote from Philadelphia on July 10, 1776. “But I am very sorry that anyone should spread such false reports. The girl is not in my company. She is with the soldiers in the barracks with five other women. I have nothing to say to her and I hope you will not think any further about it.”

Washington was unable to prevent the invasion of New York and retreated across the East River to Manhattan. Had it not been for the bold attack by the Maryland volunteers, we could be members of the Commonwealth and celebrate August 27 as the day the failed Long Island uprising was crushed.

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 lived in the house for several generations until author Ann Jensen sold it to her neighbor, who then donated it to Historic Annapolis. The nonprofit preservation group added easements to the property and sold it to the Smiths in 2019.

“I think we achieved our goal,” Laura said. “It was also the goal of Historic Annapolis … to have a family live there, to make it modern and comfortable, but to preserve absolutely everything.”

Both Smiths have their favorite corner of the house. For him, it’s the original cedar shingles hidden in a second-story attic. For her, it’s the door that once led outside.

The couple decided to move because they wanted a home that was better suited to teenagers and their friends. They bought a house across the street from Annapolis High School, which made that part of growing up a little easier.

“As much as I love this house, it doesn’t have a basement,” Laura said. “You can’t put a pool in the backyard. The more we thought about it, the more we thought another house with those 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,” she said, “maybe I can live out my historical dreams again when our children are alone one day.”