Ocean City Fishing Company
company · active 1897–
Commercial fishery working an ocean pound net — piling and netting — off the Ocean City beach in the 1890s. Its pound was reported as 'immense' and was carried out to sea in the gale of October 25–26, 1897; rather than rebuild before spring the company fished the winter of 1897–98 on a 600-yard anchored rope carrying about three hundred baited lines, buoyed by corks twelve feet apart and worked continually from boats.
In the record (6)
1899
The men working Ocean City's ocean fishery in 1899 were New Jersey men who commuted — and one of them, a former New Jersey assemblyman, came home in September reporting "exceedingly hard times on the Eastern Shore of Maryland."
Three notices in two Salem and Cape May county weeklies put the trade on the record. The Penn's Grove Record, 21 April: "James Strimple arrived home from Ocean City, Md., last Friday to get his sturgeon fleet for Delaware Bay ready. He cleared for the Bay on Monday." The same paper, 22 September: "Ex-Assemblyman James Strimple arrived home on Tuesday after spending ten days looking after his fishing interest at Ocean City, Md. He reports exceedingly hard times on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Farms are being sold for less than the cost of the buildings." And the Five Mile Beach Journal of Wildwood, 16 June: "Mrs. Chris. Ludlam has returned to her home at Ocean City, Md., after visiting here. Ansley R. Ludlam, of Ocean City, Md., has come to engage in the sturgeon fishing at Stone Harbor." The county paper has the other end of the same traffic: Capt. Ludlam completing "his extensive preparations for fishing in the ocean" at Ocean City in April, Charles Ludlam leaving in March for Stone Harbor where he would have "an extensive fish-pound," Capt. James Strimple packing his sturgeon nets away in June, and Christopher Ludlam buying a lot at Ocean City in the August land records.
Every previous pass has treated the New Jersey corpus as a trap. It is also a mirror: the Cape May and Salem county weeklies record an annual migration of fishermen between Ocean City, Maryland and the New Jersey shore that the Maryland paper only half shows. And in September 1899, in the middle of what Ocean City was calling its best season ever, a New Jersey fisherman came home and said the Eastern Shore was in the ground.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1899 · 1899-07-29
The Ocean City Fishing Company ships 270 barrels of trout north in a single week of July 1899 — its largest shipment ever.
From the Ocean City column of 29 July 1899: "The Ocean City Fishing Company broke all previous records ever made by them before by shipping last week to the Northern markets two hundred and seventy barrels of fine trout." That is the same firm whose 5 April catch of "about sixteen barrels of large trout" was reported in April as its best day since 19 April 1898. In August the boats were bringing in sea bass by the load, and in September Chincoteague and Ocean City fishermen were said to be "having great luck this year, and will increase their facilities before another season."
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1900
The Ocean City Fishing Company averages fifteen barrels of sea trout a day, and five smacks work a bluefish run a mile offshore for the New York market.
"The fishing here this season has been most successful," the Evening Star's correspondent wrote on 1 July. "The Ocean City Fishing Company are now averaging from their nets 15 barrels of sea trout a day." Four weeks later: "The fishing is something to marvel at. Three hundred and [fifty] pounds of weakfish is an ordinary catch. Just now a large run of bluefish is off the coast, and at this writing no less than five large fishing smacks are anchored about a mile off shore, capturing large numbers of this toothsome fish for the New York market." The company's best day in 1899 had been about sixteen barrels of large trout, called its largest catch in a year; in 1900 that was the daily average.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1902 · 1902-06-28
Five fishing companies organised at Ocean City that spring; after Mont Pelée erupted, the catch fell ninety per cent and the fishermen blamed the volcano.
From the Messenger of 28 June: "Five fish companies were organized at Ocean City early in the spring, and up to within a few days after the eruption at Martinique large quantities of trout and bass were caught. Since then very few fish of any kind have been taken except sturgeon. The theory is that the fish, which at this season usually come close inshore, have been driven out to sea by the submarine disturbances caused by the frequent eruptions at Martinique. Whatever the cause may be, the usual hauls of fish from the ocean have fallen off 90 per cent since that date." Mont Pelée destroyed Saint-Pierre on 8 May 1902. In April the same paper had noted that "quite a number of sturgeon are now caught every year at Ocean City and it is a very profitable business whenever the fishermen meet with success," contrasting it with the collapse of the Delaware Bay sturgeon fishery.
Three thousand miles of ocean between the volcano and the surf, and Ocean City's fishermen ran the causal line straight across it. The best surviving example of how this coast explained a bad season before anybody was measuring anything.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1904 · 1904-07-30
The federal government raids the Atlantic coast fishery and charges Ocean City fishermen with obstructing the navigation of the ocean.
'Ocean City Fishermen Arrested. [Several] fishermen living in Ocean City were released last Friday by United States Commissioner Rogers for a hearing on August 2nd, on the charge of obstructing the navigation of the Atlantic ocean by their pound nets … The cases are the result of a raid made by the Government along the Atlantic Coast against fishermen who have their nets spread in the [ocean]. Fish pounds are only allowed in the ocean, it is said, by the consent of the Secretary of War, and his consent would not be granted for such pounds as the Ocean City fishermen operated. Many complaints are said to have been filed by the captains of coasting vessels of the obstruction to navigation by the fishing nets. The fish pounds at Ocean City have been a source of much revenue to the fishermen, and the source of a large supply of fish.'
Ocean City's oldest industry ran into Washington in the summer of 1904. The pound nets that fed the town and the Ocean City Fishing Company's freight cars were, in the War Department's reading, obstructions in a navigable ocean — and the complaints came from the coasting captains, not from any conservation office.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1916
The 1916 pound-fishing season opens early and heavy: eight carloads shipped north in a day, with seventeen pounds set off Ocean City — then a July gale wrecks the nets.
*Democratic Messenger*, 29 April 1916, "MANY FISH BEING CAUGHT — Hundreds Of Barrels Caught At Ocean City This Week, Trout And Mackerel": "Ocean City fishermen are happy. The season has opened early with them and the run of fish this week has been very large. Monday last eight carloads of fish were shipped to Northern markets. Seventeen pounds have been put out in the vicinity of Ocean City." Three months later the same paper reported "DESTRUCTION TO POUND NETS — Pound Nets Badly Damaged by High Seas and Winds at Ocean City," with the surf very high and the fishermen unable to get out.
Source · checked 2026-08-06