A. J. County
vice-president, Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway; vice-president, Pennsylvania Railroad · active 1927
The Pennsylvania Railroad officer who announced the end of the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic's bay fleet. Vice-president of the B.C.&A. and, at the Pennsylvania, vice-president in charge of the treasury, the accounting department and corporate work, he disclosed on 29 November 1927 that all Baltimore–Eastern Shore steamboat lines except Tolchester, Betterton and Love Point would be abandoned under a foreclosure sale, with ten bay steamers, the wharves and the railroad from Claiborne to Ocean City to be sold. He said the Pennsylvania's support was not withdrawn "until more than $2,500,000 had been sunk in the short line railroads and the steamer lines serving the Eastern Shore", and gave "changing markets and methods of transportation" as the cause. The one line kept out of the wreck was the Ocean City rail line.
In the record (2)
1927
The Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic goes to foreclosure: ten bay steamers, the wharves and the Claiborne–Ocean City railroad to be sold.
On 29 November 1927 A. J. County — vice-president of the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway and also vice-president in charge of treasury, accounting and corporate work at the Pennsylvania Railroad, which controlled it — disclosed that all steamboat lines between Baltimore and the Eastern Shore except those to Tolchester, Betterton and Love Point were to be abandoned. The abandonment followed a bill for a decree of foreclosure filed by the Chatham-Phenix National Bank and Trust Company of New York, trustee under the mortgage securing the B.C.&A.'s bonds. The bill explained that the company "had failed to pay the coupons on its $1,250,000 issue of five per cent gold bonds since March 1, 1922"; by 1 September 1927 back interest of $375,000 was due. The Pennsylvania had months earlier offered to buy the whole outstanding issue at $501.04 for each $1,000 bond — about fifty cents on the dollar. PRR support, County said, was not withdrawn "until more than $2,500,000 had been sunk in the short line railroads and the steamer lines serving the Eastern Shore"; he gave "changing markets and methods of transportation" as the reason. The property to be sold comprised ten bay steamers, wharf property around the bay and its tributaries, and the railroad from Claiborne, Md., to Ocean City. The Piankatank, Pocomoke-Occahannock, Choptank and Choptank-Wicomico-Nanticoke river routes were all to go. The Baltimore Association of Commerce considered taking over the boat lines itself and, in the week of 8 December, appointed a Chesapeake Bay committee to study what Baltimore would face after the dissolution.
This is the date the campaign has been hunting since the 1922 pass — and it puts a number on it. The railway that made Ocean City a resort had not paid a bond coupon since March 1922, and the Pennsylvania was buying its way out at fifty cents on the dollar. The bridge of 1916 and the motor car did this, and County said so: changing markets and methods of transportation.
Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayPennsylvania Railroad Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1927
The one thing the Pennsylvania kept out of the wreck was the Ocean City rail line.
The Baltimore Association of Commerce's December 1927 review of the collapse records the exception plainly: the Pennsylvania Railroad "soon would abandon the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway's lines, with the exception of the Ocean City rail line and the ferry to Love Point." Through the same summer the B.C.&A. was still advertising itself in the Washington Times: "OCEAN CITY, MD. — B. C. & A. RAILWAY. The Shortest, Quickest, Cheapest route to this famous Maryland resort; through tickets via P. R. R. or B. & O.; for literature and current schedule write R. H. Soulsby, G. P. A., Baltimore, Md."
A bankrupt railway with a bond issue in default was still buying display advertising in a Washington daily, and its owners, dismantling everything else, kept the Ocean City line. The resort traffic was the last part of the business that still worked — and it would keep working until the 1933 storm took the Sinepuxent trestle.
Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayPennsylvania Railroad Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06