Ocean Beach Land and Improvement Company of Baltimore City
company · active 1891-1898
Baltimore land company holding State patents to Worcester County beach land in the early 1890s, and a second Baltimore beach-development interest alongside the better-known Sinepuxent Beach Company. Its agent A. J. Corning was patented 3,920 acres called 'Defiance' on 16 December 1891 for $1,468.13; a surveyor's error had drawn its lines around two earlier patents, 'Portland' (504 acres, Louis C. Dilworth, 1887) and 'Brenham' (265 acres, Benjamin F. Vosberg and Charles P. Tucker, 1891), and Chapter 307 of the Acts of 1898 refunded the company $286.38 of purchase money erroneously paid. Nothing else about it is yet in this record.
In the record (1)
1898 · 1898-04-09
A Baltimore syndicate is refunded $286.38 after a Worcester County surveyor's error puts two beach patents inside a 3,920-acre one.
Chapter 307 of the Acts of 1898, approved 9 April, is the Ocean City act that a search for the words "Ocean City" never finds. Its preamble recites three State patents for Worcester County land — "Portland", 504 acres 1 rood, to Louis C. Dilworth, patented 21 March 1887 for $187; "Brenham", 265 acres 2 roods, to Benjamin F. Vosberg and Charles P. Tucker, 2 July 1891 for $99.38; and "Defiance", 3,920 acres, to A. J. Corning, 16 December 1891 for $1,468.13 — and finds "that by an error of the surveyor of Worcester county in running the lines of the tract called 'Defiance' all of the lands described in the patents for 'Portland' and 'Brenham' were included therein." Corning was acting for the Ocean Beach Land and Improvement Company of Baltimore City, which held title to Defiance and was refunded $286.38. A second Baltimore beach-development company, patenting nearly four thousand acres of Worcester County shoreland in the same years as the Sinepuxent Beach Company, and never before in this record.
Source · checked 2026-08-11