Board of Education of Worcester County
government
The county school board. In June 1919 it agreed, at the request of Walter Huffington, Supervisor of the Colored Schools of Maryland, to accept part of the Rosenwald Fund toward three or four new colored school buildings in the county, and heard a delegation from the Patrons' League of Mt. Wesley Colored School offering to raise $800 toward its own building. The same meeting appointed the committee to superintend repairs at Berlin High School and took petitions from Bishopville and Berlin about high-school grouping. It is the board that had run Ocean City's school since the state building opened under Chapter 227 of 1914.
In the record (17)
1894 · 1894-07-24
The county school commissioners advertise for bids to build a school house at Ocean City — eight months after the town's first public school was announced.
"NOTICE TO BUILDERS. County School Commissioners Office. SNOW HILL, July 24, 1894. Sealed proposals to build a school house at Ocean City, will be received until 10 o'clock a. m. August 4th 1894. Plans and specifications of same can be seen at office of Calvin B. Taylor, Berlin, Md. Said Commissioners reserve the right to reject any and all bids. All bids to be placed in hands of D. C. Hudson, Berlin, Md. By order of Board, CALVIN B. TAYLOR, Secretary." The notice ran on 28 July and 4 August 1894. Ocean City already had a school: the correspondent's January inventory of the winter town counts "four stores, a public school, two Sunday schools and several places of amusement," and the December column names "Miss Nellie Bowen, our popular school marm." What 1894 adds is a building.
November 1893 gave the town a school and a teacher. July 1894 gives it a schoolhouse, put out to tender by the county, with the plans lying in a Berlin bank office and the bids going to the same D. C. Hudson who had laid off the streets of Ocean City the year before.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1899
The Ocean City public school in 1899: a "higher room" running to the sixth grade, a teacher named Nellie Bowen, two printed report cards, and a fourteen-year-old top scholar who was dead by April.
The Democratic Messenger printed the Ocean City school's standings twice in 1899. The first, on 14 January, covered 1 October to 1 January and put Elizabeth Quillin first in the sixth grade with a general average of 97, Emily Burwell second and Nellie Dennis third. Elizabeth — "Mary Elizabeth Quillin" — died on 22 April 1899 aged fourteen years, six months and ten days, and her classmates' memorial verse for her filled the head of the Ocean City column of 29 April. The second report, on 1 July, covers "the higher room" for the year and runs sixth, fifth and fourth grades: Emily Burwell first in every sixth-grade subject; Nadine Showell, Rosetta Mumford and Florida Quillin in the fifth; Elma Trimper, Daniel Trimper, Nannie Lewis and Virginia Quillin in the fourth. The teacher signs it NELLIE BOWEN. Two of the fourth grade are Daniel Trimper's children. In March the same column printed, in full, two compositions by "two little girls of Ocean City" on the disadvantages of a long vacation — the earliest writing by Ocean City children this campaign has recovered.
Nellie BowenDaniel Trimper, Sr.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1899
Worcester County has two school boards in September 1899, each appointing teachers and each naming a different opening day — and Ocean City is one of the two schools where a teacher was actually put out.
A Republican governor's reconstitution of the county school board produced, by September 1899, two bodies both claiming to be it: McMaster and Quillen, the old board, and Riley and Dale, the new appointees. Both met at Snow Hill in the last week of August and both finished appointing trustees; McMaster and Quillen ordered the county schools open on 18 September and Riley and Dale advertised the 25th. The Democratic Messenger, which was not neutral, put the grievance plainly on 16 September: the commissioner "in the face of protests from the people whose children are to attend a school, and against the desires of the Trustees of that school, proceeds on his unsupported authority to remove a teacher the people want, simply for political reasons … At Ironshire and Ocean City this thing has already been done." A week later the paper reported rival teachers physically occupying the same rooms at Whaleyville and elsewhere, pupils dividing into parties behind them, and "open rebellion" in the Republican ranks — and noted that "at the colored schools in Quillin's district matters are moving along smoothly. There is no friction, no rival teachers disputing possession."
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1899 · 1899-05-12
Ocean City became Convention City by lobbying: the county school board invited the state teachers in January, the association's executive committee reversed a decision to meet at the Blue Mountain House in May, and the beach beat the mountains "in deference to the wishes of a large majority of the school people of the State."
The sequence, recovered from three issues of the county paper. 4 February 1899: "At the meeting of the County School Board last Tuesday a resolution was unanimously adopted inviting the State Teachers Association to meet at Ocean City next summer. The Association has never met in Worcester, and probably many of the teachers have never known the advantages of its great summer resort as a place of holding meetings." 6 May: "The School Board of Worcester county is making an effort to have the State Teachers' Association hold their annual meeting at Ocean City this year instead of the Blue Mountain House. Mr. Laban T. Quillen has been especially active in the movement." 13 May, reprinting the Baltimore report: the association's executive committee — John D. Worthington of Bel Air, Edwin Hebden of Baltimore, William E. Smith of Annapolis, Louis Beatty of Centreville and George A. Steele of Elkton — "met yesterday at the State Normal School and reconsidered a former action to meet at Blue Mountain House. The committee decided instead to meet at Ocean City on July 11, 12 and 13. This action was taken in deference to the wishes of a large majority of the school people of the State." Lecturers announced were Professor Clark of the Johns Hopkins University, with an illustrated lecture, Professor Silvester of the Maryland Agricultural College, and Dr. Lewis, president of Western Maryland College.
The town did not simply receive its conventions. A county school board passed a resolution in January, one man worked it all spring, and in May a state committee changed its mind about the mountains.
Atlantic HotelState Teachers' Association of Maryland
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1899 · 1899-11-04
The county school commissioner inspects a new school house at Ocean City in the first week of November 1899 — six weeks after the paper promised the county would build one.
From the Berlin column of the Democratic Messenger, 4 November 1899: "Mr Edward McMaster, school Commissioner of Worcester County, was at St Martins Neck and Ocean City inspecting the new school houses at these places. He also paid our High School a visit." On 23 September the same paper had listed among the coming year's certainties that "the county will build a large and handsome school for the growing resident population of the little city." Six weeks later a new school house at Ocean City is being inspected. Whether this is the promised building finished at speed, or a smaller structure the September paragraph was anticipating an improvement on, the source does not say.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1919 · 1919-06-10
Worcester County agrees to accept Rosenwald Fund money toward three or four new colored school buildings.
The Messenger of 14 June 1919, reporting the Board of Education's meeting: "At the request of Mr. Walter Huffington, Supervisor of the Colored Schools of Maryland, the Board agreed to accept a part of the Rosenwald fund toward the construction of three or four colored school buildings in the county. Joseph West and James E. Cokes, a committee representing the Patrons' League of Mt. Wesley Colored School, appeared before the Board asking for a new school building, and stated that the community would endeavor to raise $800. They were advised by the Board to report on July 1 the exact amount that they would raise, to find a suitable lot for a new building, and the Board would then decide what could be done." The Rosenwald Fund built some 5,000 schools for Black children across the South between 1912 and 1932, always on the condition that the Black community raise part of the cost itself — which is exactly the transaction recorded here, with the names of the two men who came to ask.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1922 · 1922-03-29
Ocean City High School goes undefeated in the Worcester County interscholastic debate of March 1922 and takes the county championship.
The Worcester County Annual Interscholastic High School debate was held simultaneously in five high schools on the evening of Wednesday 29 March 1922, under the auspices of the State Discussion League, Department of Public Speaking, headed by Prof. Charles S. Richardson of the University of Maryland at College Park. The subject: "RESOLVED, That the Closed Shop Would Be a Benefit to the Country as a Whole." Snow Hill, Pocomoke, Berlin, Ocean City and Stockton took part, each school fielding two teams, the home team taking the affirmative. "Ocean City won from Snow Hill and Stockton. Ocean City's undefeated team have won for that High School the undisputed right to be classed as the championship team of the county." William Laws and Videtta Dennis made up the Ocean City team that came to Snow Hill, opposed by Misses Beatrice Carey and Zena Stagg.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1923 · 1923-08-30
Worcester County's teachers hold a two-day institute at the State Educational building at Ocean City, with the State Superintendent present.
Worcester Democrat, 25 August 1923: "A Two-Day Institute for the teachers of Worcester county will be held at the State Educational building at Ocean City, Thursday and Friday, August 30 and 31. Dr. Albert S. Cook, State Superintendent of Schools, will be present on Friday and address the teachers. Miss Jewell Simpson, State Supervisor of Elementary Schools, will also be present and speak to the Elementary and Primary grade teachers on the teaching of Reading… Sessions each day will begin at 10 A. M. and continue until 1 P. M." The State's teaching building at Ocean City — home of the State Summer School whose fifth session met there in 1919, and the hall in which the Board of Trade held its winter meeting — was still in service.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1924
Ocean City High School costs the county $63.68 a pupil — the lowest of the six high schools in Worcester — and $106.73 with state and federal aid.
From the Worcester County school report printed in April 1924: 'the comparative cost per pupil to the county of the six high schools in the county: In Pocomoke City, $70.90; in Berlin, $73.33; in Snow Hill, $76.68; in Stockton, $98.10; in Ocean City, $63.68; in Girdletree, $164.43. The amount of State and Federal Aid for these schools … for Ocean City, $1720 … brings the cost per pupil up to … $106.73 in Ocean City.' The principal was John S. Hill, who sat on the county field-meet executive committee. A January table of the Briggs tests put Ocean City's average error rate at 44.1 per cent, the best in the county.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1925 · 1925-05-09
Ocean City High scored 18 points at the Worcester County field meet — last of the county's five high schools — but a Trimper took two seconds.
Worcester Democrat, 9 May 1925. Summary of points: Pocomoke City High 146, Snow Hill High 111, Berlin High 115, Stockton High 36, Ocean City High 18, then the elementary schools. In the 95-pound class D. Trimper of Ocean City was second in the 60-yard dash (won in 7 4-5 s.) and second in the standing hop, step and jump (21 ft.); H. Cropper of Ocean City was third in the baseball throw (198 ft.); and Ocean City came fourth in the 440-yard relay behind Pocomoke, Snow Hill and Berlin.
The smallest high school in the county, and the boy who nearly won the dash was a Trimper.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1925 · 1925-05-16
Worcester County's white schools closed on Friday 29 May 1925; its colored schools on Wednesday 27 May.
A one-paragraph notice in the Worcester Democrat: "NOTICE — The White schools of Worcester county will close on Friday May 29th. The Colored schools on Wednesday, May 27th. By order of County Board of Education. A. C. HUMPHREYS, Secy."
Two days' difference, printed without comment, in a box the size of a want ad — the school year itself segregated, in the county Ocean City belongs to.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1927
Worcester County puts a $300,000 school-building bond to referendum, with about $15,000 of it for a new school at Ocean City.
Chapter 482 of the Acts of 1927, approved 26 April 1927, directed the County Commissioners of Worcester County to borrow $300,000 in $1,000 bonds "for the purpose of building and equipping a permanent new school building in each of the towns of Snow Hill, Ocean City, Bishopville, Pocomoke City and Berlin, and of procuring suitable sites therefor", subject to a referendum vote of the county — the bonds to be issued as of 1 July 1927 if the first referendum carried. A commission created by the act was to choose the sites, plans, specifications and equipment; the cost "shall be substantially the same for each of the said towns of Snow Hill, Pocomoke City and Berlin, and approximately fifteen thousand dollars each for Ocean City and Bishopville." The same session's Chapter 305 authorised the county to borrow up to $100,000 a year, for up to six months at a time, whenever tax collections fell short of the schools' maintenance and current expenses. IT EVIDENTLY NEVER ISSUED. The Assembly of 1929 passed a FRESH $300,000 Worcester County school bond (Chapter 175, approved 11 April 1929) for the same seven towns, with a fresh referendum on the second Tuesday in May 1929 — and Ocean City's share raised from about $15,000 to $30,000. What happened at either referendum is still unknown.
Ocean City and Bishopville get $15,000 each; Snow Hill, Pocomoke City and Berlin get roughly $90,000 apiece. The resort with the largest summer population in Maryland was, for school purposes, still a village — and the county was borrowing against its own tax shortfall to keep the lights on in the meantime.
County Commissioners of Worcester County
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1929
Worcester County tries the school bond again: $300,000 at referendum in May 1929, Ocean City's share doubled to $30,000, and two Ocean City men on the building commission.
Chapter 175, approved 11 April 1929, directed the County Commissioners to borrow $300,000 and issue 'Worcester County Public School Bonds (Issue of 1929)', dated 1 July 1929, redeemable $5,000 in 1932 rising to $20,000 a year by 1951, to build and equip new schools at Pocomoke City, Snow Hill, Berlin, Ocean City, Bishopville, Whaleyville and Newark and in the Seventh Election District. The cost was to be 'substantially the same' for Pocomoke City, Snow Hill and Berlin, and 'shall not exceed the sum of thirty thousand dollars for Ocean City', $20,000 for Bishopville, $10,000 each for Whaleyville and Newark and $3,500 for the Seventh District. The question went to a special county referendum on the second Tuesday in May 1929, polls 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and if the majority voted 'Against School Bonds' the act was of no effect. A thirteen-man Worcester County School Building Commission was named in the act; its Ocean City members were Ralph R. Dennis and John M. Mumford.
The General Assembly of 1927 had already passed a $300,000 Worcester school bond, also subject to referendum, with 'approximately fifteen thousand dollars each for Ocean City and Bishopville'. Two years later the county is back for the same $300,000 — which is the clearest evidence available that the 1927 bond never issued. Ocean City's ceiling has doubled, and for the first time the town has its own men on the commission spending it.
Worcester County School Building CommissionRalph R. DennisJohn M. Mumford
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1936 · 1936-01-01
Who held office over Ocean City in 1936, from the Maryland Manual
The Maryland Manual for 1936 gives Worcester County's officers: Thomas F. Johnson, State's Attorney; Bessie Bowen, Clerk of the Circuit Court; Paul Jones, Register of Wills; Ernest G. West, Sheriff; Roger W. Lankford, County Treasurer; County Commissioners Charles L. Mason, Samuel E. Shockley and Thomas Y. Franklin; Orphans' Court judges John H. Gillis, Isaac J. Davis and William S. Godfrey; and the office of County Surveyor vacant. Arthur C. Humphreys of Snow Hill was Superintendent of Schools and Dr. Bradford Massey of Pocomoke the County Health Officer. Ocean City's own appointees were Ralph B. Parsons, Justice of the Peace for the 10th District, and three notaries public - Virginia D. Ayres, Violet W. Taylor and Frank W. Truitt. Worcester sat in the First Judicial Circuit with Somerset, Dorchester and Wicomico under Chief Judge Benjamin A. Johnson of Salisbury. The Manual gives the county as 482.54 square miles with 21,624 people, 43.7 to the square mile - though the State Board of Health's tables for the same year give the area as 587 square miles.
Sources disagree on this.
County Commissioners of Worcester CountyRalph B. Parsons
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1936 · 1936-03-17
Ocean City had the only high school in Worcester County without a gymnasium, and in 1936 the town went to Snow Hill to ask for one
A delegation of Ocean City residents representing the town's civic organisations - Dr. Charles W. Purnell, Capt. W. I. Purnell, Franklin Upshur and others - waited on the Board of County Commissioners at Snow Hill at five o'clock on Tuesday 17 March 1936 and asked for about $8,000 in the next annual levy toward a gymnasium annex at Ocean City High School, promising to raise the balance of the $11,000 estimated cost themselves. 'Every High School in Worcester County has gymnasium facilities except Ocean City, the Commissioners were informed.' The commissioners promised favourable action and asked for an accurate estimate and the Board of Education's approval; the June levy carried $5,000 for a Recreation School building at Ocean City, to be paid only if additional WPA or federal funds were secured. Two days after the delegation, the town's Parent-Teachers' Association appointed a Gymnasium Finance Committee and voted to ask the Board of Education to require all pupils in District 10 to attend the Ocean City school.
County Commissioners of Worcester CountyDr. Charles Washington PurnellCapt. William I. PurnellFranklin Upshur
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1936 · 1936-09-14
Worcester County's white schools opened on 1 September 1936 and its colored schools on the 14th
'Schools for white children in the county will open on Tuesday, September 1st, while those for colored students will open on September 14,' the Messenger reported on 13 August 1936; the announcement of the year's 31 high-school and 56 elementary teachers on 27 August gave the colored opening as 15 September. The county's 1936-37 levy carried $10,000 for new colored school buildings at Snow Hill and Berlin, $5,000 apiece and payable only when built, and $5,000 for a new Recreation School building at Ocean City payable only if additional WPA or federal funds were secured; the WPA project list of August 1936 included a $17,205 Pocomoke City Colored High School. That autumn Worcester County was paying 283 old-age pensions, about a hundred of them to Black people, of which fourteen went to Ocean City.
Two weeks is not an administrative detail. It is the harvest calendar written into the school year for Black children only, and Worcester County printed it in the newspaper without comment.
14 or 15 September - the same paper printed both a fortnight apart
County Commissioners of Worcester County
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1943 · 1943-02-10
A P.T.A. and Woman's Club delegation asked the council in February 1943 to put the chief of police behind getting Ocean City's children back into school, and to ask the county to bring the Tenth District's children in too.
Mrs. Elizabeth StroheckerMrs. Kathryn LawsCecil BlakeClifford P. CropperJ. M. Mumford
Source · checked 2026-08-12