History

Board of Public Works of Maryland

government

The Governor, the Comptroller of the Treasury and the Treasurer of Maryland sitting together. Under Chapter 511 of 1931 the Board was given sole charge of the Ocean City Inlet Loan of 1931: it fixed the interest rate (capped at 4.5 per cent), advertised and sold the certificates of indebtedness, decided how much of the $500,000 to issue at all, could acquire land 'by purchase, gift, condemnation or otherwise' for the inlet and its jetties, and could pay the proceeds over to the United States or its agency — but only after the federal government had provided for at least one third of the cost and for the completion of the work. Two 1931 shellfish acts for Worcester County were written to take effect only 'upon the sale by the Board of Public Works of the first $125,000' of that loan.

In the record (1)

  1. 1935 · 1935-05-17

    Maryland had been buying land to dig its own inlet four miles south of Ocean City — and in 1935 it gave the land back, because the storm had dug a better one

    Chapter 343 of the Acts of 1935, approved 17 May and made an emergency law effective at once, is titled “AN ACT to authorize Lewis C. Merryman and John S. Whaley to re-convey certain lands and rights of way located on Sinepuxent Beach ... granted to them for the use of the State of Maryland for the construction of a canal or inlet South of Ocean City.” Three deeds are recited, all of 1933 and all recorded in Worcester County Liber B.B. No. 17 — from Powell and others on 20 January, from the Delaware Mortgage Investment Company on 24 May, and from Carey, Shockley and others on 30 March, the last two each conveying a perpetual right of way plus “a second right of way for the use of a railroad.” The two men held it in trust to hand on to the Board of Public Works, the United States or the War Department “as soon as the necessary appropriation is passed by the United States Government for the purpose of construction an inlet.” Then the recital that undoes it all: “WHEREAS, the War Department of the United States has selected a new site for, and begun construction, of an inlet on the Beach south of Ocean City in Worcester County, about 4 miles North of the proposed inlet in the deed from William B. S. Powell and wife ... and the Government of the United States and the State of Maryland have no further use or need for the lands and rights of way granted by the said several deeds and have abandoned the same.” Seven months before the hurricane of August 1933 cut the inlet by accident, the State of Maryland was quietly assembling land — with a railroad right of way attached — to cut one on purpose, four miles further south. The storm made the whole scheme worthless, and it took the legislature until 1935 to give the ground back.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Ocean City Inlet & JettyWilliam B. S. Powell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11