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COMMUNITIES: SANDY SPRING
The locale 'Sandy Spring' is in reality two places: a village, and a hundred-square-mile neighborhood encompassing many villages. The neighborhood evolved first, bounded by the five or six miles that early Quaker farm families traveled on horseback to reach their Sabbath Meetings, near a bubbling spring. The geographic name "Sandy Spring" first appears in Quaker records of the 1750s. The village came surprisingly late. In 1817 Quakers erected their brick Meeting House; simultaneously a Sandy Spring Post Office opened with James P. Stabler postmaster. Two years later Stabler and Caleb Bentley opened a general store at the site of today's Sandy Spring Store and built a blacksmith shop nearby--and Sandy Spring village was born. During this period Anglicans and other settlers were taking up lands among the Quakers. Blacks acquired freedom and worked their own or others' farms. Together across the centuries these neighbors interacted to spin the distinctive web of relationships and institutions that define today's Sandy Spring--an admittedly peculiar entity often referred to as "a state of mind."
	Sam T. Hill, here with horse Star, won wide respect for competence and industry as a farmer. He operated the Sandy Spring Farm, on which rises the spring, and the neighboring Harewood farm of Secretary of State and Mrs. Dean Acheson. Sam T. and wife Mary raised 18 children.

Secretary of State Dean Acheson confers with the younger generation: neighbors Linda Wood, Ronald Wood, and Delmas Wood II. The Achesons purchased the Stabler home Harewood, near the Meeting House, in 1925; in 1977 Alice Acheson sold to the Burton Johnsons.	Question: Ever drive past the solitary stone chimney standing on Route 108 across from the Ale House and wonder what building once attached to it? Answer: Beatrix Moore's log gift shop, the Half-Way House, shown here c. 1920.

Simple markers of the Friends burying ground form truncated ranks before the Community House, right, and the distant home office of the Mutual Insurance Company. Philip Thomas, who died in 1754 at age 20, was the first Quaker to be buried here. No stone marked his grave; early burials were unmarked with only written records kept. Then came wooden markers, and finally stone, but these were resisted: In the early 1800's Joseph Stabler of Auburn used oxen to plow up the gravestones. Strict Quaker rules also governed the right of burial. The body of Quaker pioneer James Brooke was barred for his violation of the Friends prohibition against oath-taking: He swore allegiance to Maryland during the Revolution.	Gold fever gripped the three Robison brothers, seen here at the family barn on Chandlee Mill Road: Francis Pole (left, standing), Hillis (with dog), and Phil (right, standing). Hillis joined the Klondike gold rush in 1898, and two years later Pole and Phil lit out for the Montana diggings. The Annals note that in 1908 Francis Pole Robison and wife Mary Bentley of Bloomfield became the first Sandy Spring bride and groom "to begin their wedding journey in an automobile."

Richard and Olivia Lansdale hold daughter Margaret, oldest of their three children, at the family home Elmhurst. Lansdale ran the Sherwood Mill and was prominent in Democratic politics, serving as sheriff, county commissioner, and member of the House of Delegates in the 1920s and '30s. Olivia Lansdale once operated "Central," the telephone exchange.	Snow-clad Elmhurst has housed the Lansdale family for nearly a century. Next to it stood the landmark Sherwood Roller Mill which Richard H. Lansdale acquired in 1912. Son Thomas F. Lansdale, also a miller, joked in later years that he could boast of three things: He lived in the house he was born in (Elmhurst), he never drove a car to work -- and he took a nap every afternoon. At Elmhurst Pat Lansdale ran her successful flower business, choreographing floral decorations for many of the region's most prestigious events.
"Desirous of improving their minds while cultivating their farms," Sandy Springers in 1858 erected the Lyceum hall on the Meeting House grounds for lectures and other functions. When interest in the Lyceum's annual business meetings flagged, they hit upon the device of compiling an annual history of community events, to be read at the meeting. Attendance at once soared as members came to hear of their own doings. The annual histories were later consolidated into the Annals of Sandy Spring. The hall, shown here in 1880, today is known as the Community House.		Missionary/lecturer Frank T. Lea (1868-1918) spoke before audiences black and white, young and old, about his travels and mission work with Washington's Christian Church. This card publicizes a talk on his "years in the heart of the Dark Continent...part of the time among cannibals, and having a fine collection of pictures, curios, weapons and utensils." He died in a shipyard accident during World War I.
Dr. Steven Beebe and wife Nell celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They lived at Marden, the 1838 home on Marden Lane. Long affiliated with the hospital, Dr. Beebe was family dentist for much of Sandy Spring during middle decades of the 20th century.	Lena Hill Snowden celebrates her 100th birthday in 1993 with younger brother Robert H. Hill. Tirelessly active, Mrs. Snowden drove children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to every state in the continental U. S., traveled to the Caribbean, Hawaii, and Europe, and served on the county's Human Relations Commission. She lived to age 104.

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