Ocean City Beach Company

In the record (4)

1. 1908 · 1908-07-16

   A well-dressed stranger passes worthless cheques on the manager of the Atlantic Hotel and is arrested in Baltimore stepping off the steamer Virginia.

   "Stephen A. Ebel, a well-dressed young man, who has been spending some time in Salisbury and Ocean City, was arrested in Baltimore last Thursday as he stepped from the steamer Virginia, on the charge of passing worthless checks on the manager of the Atlantic Hotel. Ebel was held until Friday, when Sheriff Townsend, of Worcester County, went to Baltimore and brought him back to Worcester to await the action of the grand jury. Ebel came to Ocean City about a week ago with Mr. George F. Taylor, president of the Ocean City Beach Company. He led every one whom he met to believe that he had a barrel of money in a bank at Indianapolis, Indiana, and having no ready cash, induced several people to cash large checks for him. Advices from Ebel's home in Indiana indicate that he stands well socially, but is mentally unbalanced." The item is thin in itself, but it names the president of the Ocean City Beach Company — an entity otherwise absent from the campaign's registry — and shows the Atlantic Hotel under a salaried manager rather than an owner-proprietor.

   Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

   Atlantic Hotel

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1909 · 1909-09-25

   Ocean City publishes its accounts for the first time in the campaign's record: $9,709.58 in, $9,348.63 out, $360.95 left in the bank.

   "FINANCIAL REPORT OF OCEAN CITY, MD. From September 16th, 1908 to September 16th, 1909," signed JOHN HAGAN, Treasurer, printed in the *Democratic Messenger* of 25 September 1909. Total receipts $9,709.58; total expenses $9,348.63; balance in bank $360.95. This is the itemised August-term accounting that Chapters 561 and 658 of 1904 required of the town, and it is the first time in campaign 2 that a published Ocean City statement has actually been found. Receipts came from three tax collectors working three different tax years simultaneously — E. M. Scott still collecting 1906 and 1907, Chas. Ludlam collecting 1908 and 1909 — plus water rent, $40 of stand licences in August, a $2,947.08 note from the Ocean City Beach Company, and $61.30 from the Ocean City Pier Company for lights for 1907 and 1908. Expenses run gasoline for the water works ($878.77), police salary ($445), water-works engineer ($315), $1,200 of bond interest in two payments of $600, hose, ladders and rent for the Fire Company, quarantine groceries, garbage hauling at $60, lamp-lighting, and one line reading "Thomas Taylor, taxing account of bath tub and toilets 5.00."

   A whole town's year of government fits on one newspaper column, and it balances to within $360.

   Ocean City Pier and Improvement CompanyJohn HaganW. Lee CareyFrancis J. Townsend

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

3. 1910 · 1910-02-05

   Every hotel on the beach changes hands at once: the Ocean City Beach Company's whole holding passes to the American Resort Hotel Co., which means to make Ocean City a winter resort.

   The real-estate transfers column of 5 February 1910 records, in one line, 'American Resort Hotel Co. from Ocean City Beach Co., certain property, including all the hotel properties, equipments, etc., on Sinepuxent Beach. Consideration, $1.00, etc.' The paper thought it worth a separate paragraph: 'A real estate [transaction] of much interest to Ocean City has just been consummated ... This transfer will likely mean a great deal to Ocean City as the American Hotel Company is composed of first-class hotel men and eminent capitalists who have made a success of seaside resort hotels. The Company owns hotels at Palm Beach, Jacksonville, Atlantic City and other resorts along the Atlantic Coast. One of the stockholders is Henry M. Flagler, the millionaire, who has built palace hotels in Florida and railroads in that State. All of the indebtedness of the Ocean City Beach Company will be paid off promptly and carpenters and mechanics will be put to work repairing, painting, remodeling and improving in many ways the Atlantic Hotel, the Seaside Hotel and the other property of the Company at Ocean City. The intention is to make Ocean City a winter resort as well as a summer resort.' The purchase is corroborated seven months later from an unfriendly direction: in September the Atlantic Hotel is described in a damage suit as 'owned by the American Resort Hotel Co.' The winter-resort scheme left no further trace in 1910, and the Atlantic closed for the season in the first week of September as usual.

   Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

   Atlantic HotelAmerican Resort Hotel Company

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

4. 1910 · 1910-04-18

   Ocean City bills thirty-five property owners for the sidewalks it laid under Ordinance No. 302 — and the notice is a street-by-street roll of who owned the town.

   Under Ordinance No. 302, passed and approved 10 April 1909, the Mayor and City Council had improved sidewalks on North First, North Division, Caroline, Talbot, Somerset, Wicomico, Worcester and South Division Streets and on Baltimore and Atlantic Avenues. In April 1910 the town gave notice that it proposed 'to assess the cost thereof to the owners of the abutting property in proportion to the frontage of such property', and warned them to appear before the Mayor and City Council at the Fire Company's Room on 18 April 1910 at 2 o'clock. The notice, signed by FRANCIS J. TOWNSEND, President, names the abutters in order: Harrison and Ellegood, Mrs. Clayton J. Purnell, Samuel Johnson, the Life Saving Station, Miss M. E. Newton, J. L. Johnson, Henry Davis, Mrs. George W. Purnell, Mrs. W. T. Turner, Mrs. J. A. Taliaferro, Francis H. Purnell, A. W. Olliver, Wm. S. McKean, H. C. Spetzler, S. J. Quillen, Hugh Cropper, Lester Adkins, Mrs. A. B. Showell, E. N. Chambers, Mrs. G. R. Bassett, E. Z. Purnell, Williams & Grier, the Ocean City Beach Co., C. F. Coffin, the Granville Stokes Estate, G. B. Cropper, Mrs. S. Clarke, O. M. Purnell, Mrs. E. K. Wilson, J. D. Showell, the estate of D. J. Adkins, Mrs. R. T. Shreve, Mrs. Hanson and W. B. Buell. The federal government's life-saving station is billed alongside the widows and the Baltimore trustees; more than a third of the frontage is held by women.

   Francis J. Townsend

   Source · checked 2026-08-06