Charles Hopper Gibson
congressman · 1842–1900
Democratic congressman for Maryland's First District (the whole Eastern Shore) from 1885, renominated at a district convention held at Ocean City on August 26, 1886 by a rising vote. A Talbot County lawyer from Easton, he later served in the United States Senate. His 1886 renomination is the earliest documented instance of a sitting member of Congress being nominated on Ocean City soil.
In the record (2)
1890 · 1890-09-11
After 177 fruitless ballots at Centreville, the First District Democrats move to Ocean City and nominate Henry Page on the 199th.
The Democratic congressional convention for Maryland's First District — the whole Eastern Shore — met at Centreville on September 3 and 4, 1890, cast 177 ballots without nominating anybody, and adjourned to reconvene at Ocean City on Thursday, September 11. The Wilmington papers watched the caucusing move to the beach in advance: 'Ocean City caucuses will probably settle the matter; the lieutenants of all candidates are making that resort their working ground.' They did. 'After a contest of two days' session of the First Congressional District Convention — the first at Centreville on the 4th and the second at Ocean City, yesterday — Col. Henry Page, of Somerset county, was nominated on the 199th ballot, to succeed the Hon. Chas. H. Gibson, of Talbot county,' the Evening Capital reported on September 12. Baltimore's Der Deutsche Correspondent had told its readers that morning that the third sitting of the convention was being held 'in Ocean City, Worcester-County.' The Baltimore & Eastern Shore ran a special from Annapolis for the delegates at $2.25 the round trip. Ocean City had renominated Gibson by acclamation in 1886; four years later it unseated him.
Two hundred ballots on a sandbar: the resort that could barely feed eighty-five people in February decided who represented a hundred and fifty miles of shoreline.
Baltimore and Eastern Shore Railroad
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1893 · 1893-08-18
Vice-President Adlai E. Stevenson comes to Ocean City as a guest of the Sinepuxent Beach Company, and the train from Claiborne beats every record on the line.
On the afternoon of Friday, August 18, 1893 a chartered steamer, the Governor Thomas, cast off from the foot of South Street, Baltimore at 3:40 with a party of Washingtonians and Baltimoreans "brought to Ocean City as the guests of the Sinepuxent Beach Company." On board were Vice-President Adlai E. Stevenson; United States Senators J. S. C. Blackburn of Kentucky and Charles H. Gibson of Maryland; Charles Goldsborough, president of the Sinepuxent Beach Company; Robert Goldsborough Keene; George M. Upshur, ex-Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates; W. Sidney Wilson, mayor of Ocean City; the bankers John Gill and Edwin Warfield; and James Bates, a director of the Beach Company. Governor Frank Brown joined them at the beach. "It was a flying train that came from Claiborne to Ocean City and the time made beat all previous records. The distance is eighty-seven miles, which was covered in a trifle over one hundred minutes," with stops only at Easton and one other point. Stevenson was met by crowds of ladies, escorted to the Atlantic Hotel by R. Goldsborough Keene and into the supper-room by Mayor Wilson, who introduced him to Mrs. Wilson "as the mayoress." On Saturday the 19th the party was shown over the Beach Company's property, took a dip in the ocean and watched a shooting tournament; the special train back to Washington on Sunday night ran the 87 miles in 100 minutes again. Senator Blackburn had spent the whole summer in Worcester County and owned land in Ocean City, "and that gives him the right to vote and hold municipal office. Some of his friends have started a boom for him for mayor of Ocean City in opposition to W. Sidney Wilson."
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayAdlai E. StevensonFrank BrownWilliam Sydney WilsonCharles GoldsboroughRobert Goldsborough Keene
Source · checked 2026-08-06