Isle of Wight Inlet and Oyster Planting Company of Worcester County
company · founded 1884
Chartered by Chapter 56 of the Maryland Acts of 1884 (approved March 7, 1884) with $400,000 of capital in $25 shares and equal bonding power, to cut a canal or inlet from the Atlantic through the barrier beach at a point not less than three miles north of Ocean City, in order to restore tidal salt water to the Isle of Wight and Assawoman bays for oyster planting. The act's preamble states the bays had been "for many years past unhealthy fresh water" since the closing of the inlets south of them, depreciating the bordering land. In consideration the State conveyed in fee one-half of the beds of both bays — the patent issuing only once the inlet was cut and tidal. Tolls were capped at three cents per ton and had to cease within twenty years; the whole grant was conditioned on completing the canal within five years. Chapter 355, approved April 8, 1884, rewrote the grant with a surveyed description to be located by the county surveyor. Incorporators: Robert J. Henry, A. J. Corning, B. H. Haman, J. Kemp Bartlett and Charles H. Wier. No evidence has been found that the company organized or that any inlet was cut; the ocean opened the inlet itself in 1933. The charter was amended the same session by ch. 355, and again by Chapter 129 of the Acts of 1886, which let the company put the inlet either north OR south of Ocean City so long as it stayed at least two miles clear of the town, granted two further years to finish, and promised a Land Office patent to half the bed of Synepuxent Bay as payment for cutting the inlet and keeping it open.
In the record (10)
1892 · 1892-03-31
Maryland charters the Isle of Wight Inlet and Oyster Planting Company all over again — $400,000, five years to cut an inlet, and half the bottom of three bays as the prize.
Chapter 265 of the Acts of 1892, approved March 31, incorporated Clayton J. Purnell, George M. Upshur, Frank A. Furst, Martin Wagner, James S. Woodside and George T. Gambrill as the Isle of Wight Inlet and Oyster Planting Company of Worcester County, "for the purpose of constructing an inlet or a canal for the salting [of the] Isle of Wight, Assawoman and Synepuxent Bays." Capital stock $400,000 in $25 shares, with power to issue up to $400,000 of six per cent bonds. Section 7 empowered the company "to cut, dig and make a canal or inlet, of any width or depth it may deem necessary or proper, at some point on the eastern border of Worcester County, either north or south of Ocean City, and not less than two miles distant therefrom," reciting that the bays "have from the closing of inlets formerly existing, been for many years past unhealthy fresh water and unfit for the natural growth and the cultivation of oysters." In payment the State granted the company one-half of the beds of all three bays — patented by the Commissioner of the Land Office only once the inlet was cut and only for so long as it was kept open. Tolls were capped at three cents a ton and had to end after twenty years, and section 15 made every grant conditional "that the above mentioned canal shall be completed in the space of five years."
Eight years after the first charter and six after its two-year extension, the same scheme comes back with the same $400,000 and a new set of names. Nobody cut anything. The ocean did it in 1933, for free.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1892 · 1892-04-07
Worcester County is authorised to spend its oyster-tonging licence money on cutting a canal to the sea at the old Green Run Inlet.
Chapter 541 of the Acts of 1892, approved April 7, authorised the Board of County Commissioners of Worcester County "to appropriate the money now in their hands and such further sum as may be collected for the year eighteen hundred and ninety-two, from the issuance of tongue license in said county, to cutting a canal connecting the Synepuxent Bay with the Atlantic ocean at or near a point where Green Run Inlet formerly was." Its preamble is one sentence: "WHEREAS, the closing up of Green Run Inlet has very materially affected the growing and cultivating of oysters, &c., in Synepuxent Bay and it is deemed wise to again connect this with the Atlantic ocean." The same session added section 171 A to the Worcester County code (Ch. 130, March 15) making it a crime punishable by a $25-$100 fine or up to six months in jail to take an oyster under two and a half inches from the natural rocks of Synepuxent Bay, the fines going to the county's oyster planting fund. The Democratic Messenger campaigned for the inlet all year, from an April editorial — "Friends, one and all, we urge you to assist along this enterprising project and let us have the inlet" — to a New Year's Eve leader: "There is no place on the coast of the wild Atlantic, from Florida to Maine, where there is a harbor needed so much as at Ocean City."
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1892 · 1892-07-09
John F. Waggaman takes 400 acres called "the Isle of Wight" for a dollar, and sells it on within four months.
In the same Real Estate Transfers column that recorded the Atlantic Hotel passing through his hands, the Democratic Messenger of July 9, 1892 recorded another Waggaman purchase: "John F. Waggaman from Wm. S. Johnson and wife a tract of land situate in Worcester county, Md., called the 'Isle of Wight,' containing 400 acres. Consideration $1.00." On November 19 it went out again: "Edward T. Kellar from John Waggaman and wife certain land situate in Worcester county called 'Isle of Wight.' $10.00." The nominal considerations mark these as conveyances within a syndicate rather than arm's-length sales. The Isle of Wight is the marsh island and neck at the head of Isle of Wight Bay, north of Ocean City — the same water the Isle of Wight Inlet and Oyster Planting Company had just been rechartered to cut into, and the same water a correspondent that May said was the right place for an inlet: "He says before Ocean City, I say above Ocean City, for there is located the largest body of water — the Isle of Wight Bay."
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyJohn F. Waggaman
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1894 · 1894-03-10
A federal fisheries expert, raised in Snow Hill, publishes the case for an inlet — and dates the bay's ruin to the closing of one about 1844.
The Democratic Messenger of 10 March 1894 reprinted long excerpts from "The Oyster Industry of Maryland" by Charles H. Stevenson of the U.S. Fish Commission, son of Hugh S. Stevenson of Snow Hill, under the heading "OUR OYSTER INDUSTRY... What He Says of the Sinepuxent Oyster Grounds." Stevenson gives the whole mechanism the inlet campaign had been arguing from anecdote: "At present the only outlet into the ocean possessed by this bay is through Chincoteague Inlet, at the extreme lower end of Chincoteague Bay. But during the period mentioned another and more convenient outlet existed. This was closed by natural causes about 1844, and the water in the bay gradually became so fresh and the bottom so covered with vegetable growth that the oysters were almost entirely destroyed except in the most favorable localities." He then describes what an inlet did when the sea made one: "The great scarcity continued until 1880, when a severe storm occured in this region, producing an inlet in a narrow portion of the sand beach... thus thoroughly scouring the bay by the reason of its being very shallow. During the year following... an excellent set of oysters was obtained... hundreds of persons were employed in tonging them, some making at times as much as $100 and over per week. Difficulty was experienced in obtaining farm hands all along the shores of the bay... The carpenters left houses unfinished, the farmers their fields, and the country merchants their counters, to engage in obtaining a share of the bountiful harvest." At one time in 1872 over forty vessels loading for northern markets were counted within sight of one point in the bay. "But the inlet made by the storm closed up and the oysters gradually decreased in abundance." By 1894 the natural grounds were down to about three square miles yielding some 75,000 bushels a year, mostly small oysters used for planting.
This is the inlet argument written by someone with no land to sell. Everyone else who wanted an inlet at Ocean City in the 1890s owned beach lots or oyster bottom; Stevenson was a federal scientist writing for Washington, and he says plainly that the bay was ruined by an inlet closing and repaired, briefly, by an inlet opening. The internal dating is inconsistent — a storm 'in 1880' but a boom 'following 1870' and a forty-vessel count 'in 1872' — and is transcribed as printed rather than tidied.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1894 · 1894-09-08
The inlet company picks its ground: the canal is to be cut opposite the St. Martin's River, above Ocean City, on an engineer's word that seventy-five square miles of oyster bottom would follow.
The Peninsula Enterprise of Accomac, Virginia, on 8 September 1894 — the same week the Snow Hill paper reported the Isle of Wight Inlet and Oyster Planting Company as having "been incorporated" with $400,000 — carries what the county paper did not: a site and an engineer. The company was to take "control of one half of the oyster beds in the inland bays. Major Button, engineer of the Baltimore harbor board, says the project is feasible, and the company has determined to begin constructing the canal at a point opposite the St. Martin's river, above Ocean City. It is said that by producing a current of salt water from the ocean through the bays an area of 75 square miles of oyster ground will be made available — 48,000 acres — capable of accommodating an annual oyster crop of 40,000,000 bushels..." This is the only 1894 statement the campaign has of where the cut was to be made, and it is north of the town, opposite the St. Martin's River — not at the inlet the ocean would eventually open in 1933 south of it. It also supplies the company's argument in figures. Two years later the General Assembly gave the same company four more years to do it [fact:1896-inlet-canal-deadline-extended-to-1900], and nothing between the two shows a spade turned.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1894 · 1894-09-08
Two and a half years after its recharter, the county paper reports the Isle of Wight Inlet and Oyster Planting Company as newly incorporated — with canals, not one inlet, and 40,000,000 bushels of oysters a year.
The Messenger of 8 September 1894, in its local-news column: "The Isle of Wight Inlet and Oyster Planting Company of Worcester county, has been incorporated with a capital of $400,000, for the purpose of planting and developing oyster beds about the Isle of Wight and Assawoman and Sinepuxent bays. It is proposed to construct canals from the ocean to these bays and by the current of salt water thus produced to make available for oyster grounds an area of about 75 square miles or 48,000 acres, capable of accomodating an annual oyster crop of 40,000,000 bushels. The incorporators of the company are Clayton J. Purnell, George M. Upshur, Frank A. Furst, Martin Wagner, Jas. Woodside and George T. Gambrill." The incorporators are exactly those named in Chapter 265 of the Acts of 1892, approved 31 March 1892, and the capital is the same $400,000.
The item is the only trace of this company anywhere in 206 pages of the county paper for 1894, and it is not a report of work — it is a report of paperwork. The charter's own five-year clock, running from March 1892, had thirty months left when this was printed. Whether the company was only now organising under the 1892 act or the paper was two years late in noticing, the notice is written in the future tense about canals, plural, and an oyster crop of forty million bushels, and nothing was dug.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1896 · 1896-04-04
The legislature gives the Isle of Wight Inlet company until March 31, 1900 to cut its canal through the beach.
Chapter 371 of the Acts of 1896, approved April 4, repealed and re-enacted section 15 of the company's 1892 charter so that "all the rights, powers grants and privileges hereby conveyed and granted are upon the express condition that the above-mentioned canal shall be completed on or before the thirty-first day of March, in the year 1900." Another four years bought for a cut that was never made by any company. The Isle of Wight Inlet and Oyster Planting Company had been chartered in 1884 to cut an inlet through the barrier beach and re-chartered in 1892; the state's answer in 1896 was simply to move the deadline. Thirty-seven years later the ocean did the work in a single August night without a charter. — 1896 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Confirmed by reading Chapter 371 in full at Archives of Maryland Online, and the reading is the argument. The act is one operative sentence. It repeals section 15 of Chapter 265 of 1892 and re-enacts it so that 'all the rights, powers, grants and privileges hereby conveyed and granted are upon the express condition that the above-mentioned canal shall be completed on or before the thirty-first day of March, in the year 1900.' Approved 4 April 1896. It grants no new capital, no new powers, no new route, requires no report of work done and imposes no condition beyond the new date. A company that had been silent through the whole of 1895 — 'inlet' occurs once in 208 pages of the county paper that year and means Chincoteague — went to Annapolis and came away with nothing but three more years.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1899 · 1899-05-06
Baltimore money surveys a cut through the beach: John K. Cowen, Alexander Brown and Harry F. Parr pay for an examination of Sinepuxent Bay, and an engineer prices the inlet at $50,000.
The Democratic Messenger of 6 May 1899, under "TO CUT A CANAL": "Prominent financiers of Baltimore, among the number being John K. Cowen, Harry F. Parr and Alexander Brown are bearing the expense of an examination of the waters of Sinepuxent Bay with a view to cutting a canal through the beach and making the bay salt for the better propagation of oysters. It is claimed that the most available point is at the mouth of the St. Martins river. Major Hutton estimates the cost of digging such an inlet and providing for its permanency will be about $50,000. The enterprise is being conducted under the auspices of the Isle of Wight Oyster Planting Co., of Worcester County, organized in 1883. Hon. George M. Upshur is largely interested." The company's statutory deadline to cut the canal had been extended in 1896 to 31 March 1900; this is the survey it produced with ten months to run. The cut was never made, and the storm of 1933 made one for nothing.
The inlet was not an accident waiting to happen — it was a business plan, repeatedly costed, and in 1899 it had the president of the B&O behind it.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1899 · 1899-08-19
Ten months before its charter to cut an inlet expired, the county paper printed a history saying the beach had once had three of them and had closed them all by itself.
The Democratic Messenger of 19 August 1899 reprinted from the Baltimore Sun a history of Fenwick's Island and the upper county, which said this of the barrier beach: "At that time and up to a century ago this narrow strip of land fringing the ocean was cut by three inlets. The northernmost was called Little Assawoman inlet, the southernmost one Green River and about midway between there was Sinepuxent inlet. All three have been filled up for nearly a century. It seems, in fact, that the island is gradually rising." The following week a descendant of the Fassitt family wrote in to correct the article's genealogy — but not its geography. In the same year Baltimore money was paying Major Hutton to price a cut through the same beach at $50,000, and the Isle of Wight Inlet and Oyster Planting Company's statutory deadline to make one ran out on 31 March 1900.
The inlet argument in 1899 has two halves and they contradict each other in the same newspaper: engineers costing a canal at fifty thousand dollars, and local history saying the beach has spent a hundred years healing every cut the ocean made in it. The second half won for another thirty-four years.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1900 · 1900-03-31
The Isle of Wight Inlet Company's charter to cut a canal through the beach expires on 31 March 1900 while the General Assembly is sitting two days from adjournment — and nobody asks for an extension.
The end, for a generation, of the campaign's oldest thread. Chapter 371 of the Acts of 1896, approved 4 April 1896, repealed and re-enacted section 15 of Chapter 265 of 1892, the charter of the Isle of Wight Inlet and Oyster Planting Company of Worcester County, in a single sentence: "That all the rights, powers, grants and privileges hereby conveyed and granted are upon the express condition that the above-mentioned canal shall be completed on or before the thirty-first day of March, in the year 1900." The company was still alive in May 1899, when John K. Cowen, Harry F. Parr and Alexander Brown paid for an examination of Sinepuxent Bay and Major Hutton costed the cut at about $50,000. The 1900 General Assembly sat from 3 January to 2 April 1900 — the deadline fell inside the session, two days before adjournment — and did nothing. Searched across the whole of Session Laws volume 97: "Isle of Wight" returns ZERO; "Inlet Company" ZERO; "Oyster Planting Company" ZERO; Sinepuxent and Synepuxent ZERO; "cut a canal" and "through the beach" ZERO. The complete Titles of Laws for the session (pp. 1217-1280, Nos. 2-747) lists no such act and the printed subject index has no INLET or ISLE OF WIGHT heading. The same filter run against volume 475 returns the five 1896 hits, so the zeros are real. The 1902 volume is likewise ZERO. And in the same session that let the inlet charter die, the same legislature chartered the Ocean City Steel Pier Railway and Amusement Company: the beach got a pier and a trolley to Fenwick's Island instead of a cut.
Sixty-four years of asking, and the ask simply stops. No repeal, no debate, no obituary — a condition subsequent runs out on a Saturday while the men who could have moved it are in Annapolis passing a game law about woodcock.
Source · checked 2026-08-11