History

Clarence Wright

election judge, Ocean City · active 1942

One of the three judges who held Ocean City's municipal election in the engine room of the fire house on 3 August 1942, with C. T. Jackson and John J. Rayne. Twenty-five votes were cast between two and six in the afternoon.

In the record (1)

  1. 1942 · 1942-08-03

    Ocean City held a municipal election on 3 August 1942 and twenty-five votes were cast in four hours — every one of them for the unopposed slate.

    The polls opened at two in the afternoon in the engine room of the fire house and closed at six. Three judges sat: Clarence Wright, C. T. Jackson and John J. Rayne. 'Only 25 votes were cast and were all cast for' Clifford P. Cropper, mayor, 25 votes; E. Raymond Bounds, council, 25; Harman D. Parsons, 25; Harold J. Rayne, 25. Returns were properly made to the city clerk. A town of about 1,052 year-round people, in the first summer of the war at its own beach, returned its mayor to a third term on twenty-five ballots and no opposition. Robert L. Cropper, on the council since 1940 and still on the letterhead in 1942, does not appear among the elected; Parsons replaces him. The new board was sworn in on Friday 11 September before trial magistrate Edward White and organised itself in the city office in the fire house: Cropper mayor, Bounds president of council, Rayne treasurer, Parsons councilman, Edmond H. Johnson city attorney, J. M. Mumford secretary-treasurer, L. B. Cropper chief of police — the same men who had run the town before, in the same order. The election judge C. T. Jackson matters beyond the arithmetic. A Chas. T. Jackson stood on the clerk's March 1941 list of neighbours notified of a building hearing, and he is a different man from the Chas. J. Jackson whom this council put on its Communication department on 11 December 1941. The 1940 census finds him: Charles T. Jackson, 72, head of household 161 in Ocean City, owner of a house valued at eight thousand dollars, with his wife Mabel and a son-in-law from North Carolina. — 1944 FULL PASS, 2026-08-12 [extended]: Turnout returned in 1944. Ocean City's municipal election of 7 August 1944, held in the Engine Room of the Fire House with polls open 2 to 6 PM, drew 452 VOTES - against the 25 cast in 1942. Daniel Trimper Jr. beat the sitting wartime mayor Clifford P. Cropper 231 to 160, and both sitting councilmen finished last of six for the three council seats.

    Clifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsHarold J. RayneHerman D. ParsonsCharles T. JacksonJohn J. RayneEdward WhiteEdmond H. JohnsonJ. M. MumfordL. B. CropperRobert Lee Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11