1774 Palladian masterwork by architect William Buckland, operating as a house museum since 1938 and reported home to the apparition of Matthias Hammond's jilted fiancee.
19 Maryland Ave, Annapolis, MD 21401
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Standard museum admission for guided tours. Watermark's Special Historic Hauntings tour includes an after-hours garden program in October.
Access
Limited Access
18th-century house museum with stairs between floors; first-floor partial access.
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1774 · National Historic Landmark (1960) · William Buckland's final and most celebrated design · House museum since 1938 · Considered one of the finest Palladian-plan colonial houses in North America · Built with the wealth of enslaved labor
Construction of the Hammond-Harwood House began in 1774 to a design by William Buckland, an English-born architect who had previously worked on the Chase-Lloyd House across Maryland Avenue. The house is one of the most thoroughly Palladian colonial mansions in North America, with a central block flanked by two hyphens and two wings — the five-part plan articulated in Andrea Palladio's I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura. The carving and joinery of the entrance doorway are considered Buckland's finest work and are widely studied as a high point of American colonial design.
The house was commissioned by Matthias Hammond, a wealthy Annapolis lawyer who owned 54 tobacco plantations and 63 enslaved people. Buckland died in 1774, before the house was finished, and Hammond himself never moved in; he left Annapolis in 1776. The reasons for his sudden departure are debated by historians and are entangled with the local fiancee legend (see Legends below).
In 1811 the house was purchased by William Harwood, Buckland's grandson, whose family retained it through the 19th century — giving the building its hyphenated name. After several subsequent owners, the property was acquired by St. John's College for use as a decorative-arts study collection in 1926 and opened as a house museum in 1938 under the Hammond-Harwood House Association.
The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and is jointly managed by the Hammond-Harwood House Association as a museum of colonial decorative arts. The collection includes period furniture, paintings by Charles Willson Peale, and architectural drawings associated with Buckland.
Sources
The principal Hammond-Harwood ghost story is the 'jilted fiancee' tradition recorded by Annapolis Ghosts, the Wikipedia article, and the local Annapolis press. The story holds that Matthias Hammond commissioned the house for his fiancee in 1774, but became so absorbed in its construction that he neglected her, prompting her to break off the engagement. According to one version of the story, the couple later resumed a relationship — though she never married Hammond and never lived in the house in life. After her death, she is said to have taken up residence as the resident apparition.
The most cited paranormal incident is a 1991 report — repeated by Annapolis Ghosts and Creative Travel Guide — describing a police officer who was inside the house at night observing a female figure standing on a bed in an upstairs room, with her head 'floating above the canopy.' This account is reproduced in tour material; Hauntbound has not located the original police report or news source and treats it as ghost-tour tradition.
The second figure regularly reported is a woman in colonial dress at an upstairs window. Staff describe objects moving on their own and footsteps in unoccupied rooms during after-hours work. The Hammond-Harwood garden is a regular stop on Watermark's Special Historic Hauntings tour, which includes a 20-minute presentation by guides during the October program.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Take the standard daytime guided tour of the Hammond-Harwood House, considered William Buckland's masterwork and one of the finest five-part Anglo-Palladian colonial houses in North America. The garden is also a stop on Watermark Annapolis Tours' October Special Historic Hauntings program, which includes a 20-minute supernatural presentation outside the house.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Annapolis, MD
The William Paca House at 186 Prince George Street is a five-part Georgian brick mansion built between 1763 and 1765 by William Paca, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and Maryland's third governor. The estate originally included a two-acre formal pleasure garden, which Historic Annapolis reconstructed in the 1970s. The property is a National Historic Landmark and is operated as a house museum by Historic Annapolis.
Indianapolis, IN
Hannah House is an 1858 Italianate mansion at 3801 Madison Avenue on the south side of Indianapolis, built by Alexander Hannah, an Indiana businessman who returned wealthy from the California Gold Rush. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Charles City, VA
Benjamin Harrison IV built the current mansion at Berkeley Plantation in 1726, making it the oldest three-story brick structure in Virginia. The plantation became the birthplace of President William Henry Harrison in 1773 and the ancestral seat of a family that produced a signer of the Declaration of Independence and two U.S. Presidents. During the Civil War, General McClellan used the mansion as his headquarters and the cellar held Confederate prisoners.