Maryland State Bar Association
association
State lawyers' association whose annual meeting was held at Ocean City in the first week of July 1902, with headquarters at the Atlantic Hotel — announced in May as one of two conventions that would open the season. Judges McSherry, Page and Pearce of the Maryland Court of Appeals attended; Judge James Alfred Pearce's paper there on the late Judge Richard Carmichael recounted the Civil War arrest of a sitting Maryland judge by a federal provost marshal. Delegates "declared they were more favorably impressed with this charming seaside resort than ever."
In the record (4)
1902 · 1902-06-30
Ocean City's 1902 season opened with two state conventions back to back at the Atlantic Hotel — the largest teachers' meeting the association had ever held, then the Maryland State Bar Association.
"The early birds at Ocean City this season will be the members of the State Teachers' Association and the Maryland Bar Association. These two organizations will lap each other in their stay and cover the period from June 30 to July 3, leaving the 4th to be celebrated by excursionists from all parts of the peninsula and from Baltimore, Washington and other cities ... The headquarters of the Teachers' and Bar Associations will be the Atlantic Hotel." The teachers' meeting "was the largest ever held since the formation of the association"; Joseph Blair of Sparrow's Point was elected president, and both State Superintendent M. Bates Stephens and the outgoing president F. Eugene Wathen argued at the opening for better pay for county teachers. The State Board of Education met at Ocean City on 1 July with Governor John Walter Smith presiding and elected the vice-principal of State Normal School No. 2 at Frostburg. The lawyers followed: "Most of the Worcester lawyers are attending the meeting of the State Bar Association now in session at Ocean City ... among the most distinguished visitors are Judges McSherry, Page, Pearce, and other members of the Court of Appeals." Judge James Alfred Pearce used his address there to recount the Civil War arrest of Judge Richard Carmichael, dragged bleeding from his own bench by a federal provost marshal. In May the paper had already run the headline "OCEAN CITY CONVENTIONS — School Teachers And Lawyers Will Assemble This Year," arguing that the pharmaceutical, lawyers', bankers' and Republican delegates who had come before "have almost unanimously so declared" the resort the right place for the state's professional bodies.
State Teachers' Association of MarylandMaryland Bankers AssociationMaryland Pharmaceutical AssociationJohn Walter Smith
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1903 · 1903-07-07
Ocean City books three state conventions in a fortnight: the teachers, then the Maryland State Bar Association at the Atlantic 7–9 July, then the Pharmaceutical Association's twenty-first annual meeting the week after.
The Bar Association's eighth annual meeting had been provisionally set for Ocean City as early as 21 February — "The Executive Council of the Maryland State Bar Association has decided that the eighth annual meeting of the association shall be held at Ocean City, if suitable arrangements can be made. The dates selected are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, July 7, 8 and 9" — and the July programme confirms it: opened at 10 a.m. on 7 July with the president's address by Benjamin A. Richmond of Allegany County, the annual address on the 8th by Henry Budd of Philadelphia, the programme prepared by Judge Conway W. Sams, secretary. Snow Hill sent five lawyers. The following week the Messenger noted that "William C. Powell attended the sessions of the twenty-first annual meeting of the Maryland Pharmaceutical Association at Ocean City this week." Three state bodies inside three weeks in a town whose winter population was in the hundreds — the "Convention City" pattern the county paper named in 1899, now routine.
Maryland Pharmaceutical Association
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1906
Teachers, lawyers, horticulturists and a congressional convention: Ocean City hosts four state bodies in eleven weeks.
The Maryland State Teachers' Association held its thirty-ninth annual session at Ocean City on 26-29 June, its fourth consecutive year in the town, with morning sessions at 9.30 and evening sessions at 8 in the Casino and committee meetings at the Ocean City public school; the executive committee had settled the dates at the State Normal School in March, and the invited speakers included Governor Warfield and State Superintendent M. Bates Stephens. The Maryland State Bar Association opened its eleventh annual meeting on Wednesday 11 July, meeting "in the parlors of the Atlantic" with Judge James Alfred Pearce of the Court of Appeals presiding and closing with a banquet at the Atlantic Hotel on Friday evening. On Thursday 12 July the Democrats of the First Congressional District met at Ocean City and renominated Congressman Thomas A. Smith by acclamation, every county seconding; Smith was in the town, was fetched to the hall by a notification committee, and spoke. In August the State Horticultural Society met at Ocean City, and from 27 August to 7 September the Tri-County Teachers' Institute for Worcester, Wicomico and Somerset held its sectional sessions in the five-room public school building and its general sessions in the Atlantic Casino.
The convention business the town started chasing in 1898 is now a schedule, not a coup.
Atlantic HotelState Teachers' Association of MarylandAtlantic Casino CompanyHon. Thomas A. SmithEdwin Warfield
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1907 · 1907-07-03
The Maryland State Bar Association meets at the Atlantic Hotel and hears John S. Wise attack Roosevelt's "india-rubber Constitution."
The Evening Star of 3 July 1907 carried a dateline from the town: "OCEAN CITY, Md., July 3. - Lawyers from all over the state, as well as several judges, are here preparatory to the annual meeting of the Maryland Bar Association, which began today. The features of the first session will be the address of President Conway W. Sams and an address by Mr. John S. Wise, the noted New York lawyer, upon 'Centralization by Construction.'" Judges Boyd and Pearce of the Court of Appeals and Judges Alfred S. Niles and others were present. Der Deutsche Correspondent of 5 July put sixty-three people in the Atlantic Hotel session where Judge Sams spoke on "The law and its enforcement" and argued that no new trial should be granted on technical grounds. Wise's address, summarised by the Alexandria Gazette, said that many of the things President Roosevelt was doing had "no justification in the Constitution" and that the Constitution was being so treated "as to make it an india-rubber Constitution." The Baltimore County Union of 13 July called it "the most successful meeting ever held by the Maryland State Bar Association"; membership was largely increased, and L. Allison Wilmer of La Plata was elected president for the coming year, with Robley D. Jones of Snow Hill vice-president for the First Circuit.
Atlantic HotelJudge Conway W. SamsJohn S. Wise
Source · checked 2026-08-06