The Baltimore and Ocean City Railway Company

In the record (3)

1. 1906 · 1906-04-05

   A monorail from Baltimore to Ocean City is chartered, funded on paper by a $25,000,000 parent, and given a route through ten counties.

   Chapter 767 of the Acts of 1906, approved 5 April, extends the privileges of The Baltimore and Ocean City Railway Company, "a corporation duly incorporated in the year 1906" under Article 23, for the purpose of "building, equipping, maintaining and working a railroad from Ocean City, in Worcester county, Maryland, to Baltimore city, Maryland, through the counties of Wicomico, Worcester, Dorchester, Caroline, Queen Anne's, Kent, Talbot, Harford, Anne Arundel and Baltimore" — "such railroad being either surface, elevated or underground." The act grants perpetual existence, the use of "steam, electricity, or any other motive power," power to buy and improve lands for pleasure resorts along the line, to own steamboats and barges, to consolidate with or lease other railroads, and to cross other roads and enter any incorporated town by consent; it names fifteen first-year directors including William A. Mellen, Henry C. Turnbull, Jr., Olin Bryan, George F. Taylor, William S. Gordy, Jr., Samuel E. Wilson, Sidney R. Orem, B. Frank Wagamon, Charles L. Moore and John A. Henkus. The county paper filled in the rest on 21 April: Senator Joseph B. Seth of Talbot — once president of the Baltimore and Eastern Shore Railroad — elected president; Henry W. Williams and E. L. Tunis vice-presidents; J. A. Henkus secretary; capital stock $100,000; the whole thing "controlled" by the American Mono-rail Company, capital $25,000,000, of which "very little has been issued"; and every mile of the route from Baltimore to Ocean City and Fenwick Island already mapped, with the Ocean City-Fenwick section promised complete by 1 July 1906.

   The most ambitious railroad ever chartered to Ocean City, and it was a monorail. Not one foot of it was ever built.

   Baltimore and Eastern Shore RailroadJoseph B. Seth

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1906 · 1906-04-21

   The Fenwick Island Land Company buys 2,300 of the island's 3,000 acres and plans two hotels eight miles up the beach.

   "Closely associated with the movement to build a mono-rail electric line from Baltimore to Ocean City is a plan to develop Fenwick Island, and make it a summer resort. It is proposed to build the railroad through Fenwick Island and south to Ocean City, eight miles away." The company had acquired about 2,300 of the island's roughly 3,000 acres and was closing on the rest, with offices in Baltimore and Wilmington and Pennsylvania and Delaware capital behind it; two hotels were planned "without delay." George F. Taylor of West Chester, Pa. was president and William M. Rosenberger secretary-treasurer; the other directors were John H. Long, Horace J. Hickman, B. Frank Wagaman, C. P. Darby, Ralph F. Swarts and Nathan Supplee. Until then the island's only regular use was the Fenwick Island camp meeting, poorly attended "owing to the fact that the island is without railroad connection with the outside world." By 20 October the company reported control of about 2,000 acres — 1,200 cleared land and beach, 800 woodland — building lots laid out, and arrangements made for "the erection of a large hotel." Deeds to individual buyers from the company appear in the Worcester County transfer column from February onward. The July deadline passed with nothing built, but the scheme was still alive in December: "Several New Yorkers visited Ocean City last week to inspect the route for the proposed trolley line to be constructed next year from Ocean City to Fenwick City" (Democratic Messenger, 15 December 1906) — by then described as a trolley line, not a monorail.

   Fenwick Island's first subdivision, sold on the promise of a monorail that never came.

   Fenwick Island Land Company

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

3. 1914 · 1914-03-04

   Chapter 29 of 1914 renames the Baltimore and Ocean City Railway Company "The Washington and Maryland Railway Company" — a line that never reached either Baltimore or Ocean City.

   Approved 4 March 1914: "AN ACT to amend the charter of The Baltimore and Ocean City Railway Company … and to change the name thereof to 'The Washington and Maryland Railway Company.'" The company's actual works were a Washington suburban trolley: in February 1914 the Takoma Park town council refused it leave to extend its lines through the corporation, its special committee finding that "the company making the application does not appear to this committee to be capable of giving satisfactory construction and service"; by 6 June the Evening Star reported the section from 14th and Kennedy streets N.W. to Takoma Park complete under the new name, with a power plant bought secondhand from the Philadelphia and West Chester Traction Company; and in November the Takoma Park citizens' association was asking for transfers between it and the Capital Traction Company. Charles Selden, jr., was president throughout. The name that carried Ocean City to Washington letterheads for eight years is retired in 1914 without a mile of track east of the Chesapeake.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06