Cornelius F. Coffin

In the record (4)

1. 1898 · 1898-08-01

   At the first election under the new charter, Ocean City elects a resident mayor — postmaster James Z. Powell — in 'a complete victory for home rule' over the non-resident lot owners.

   The Wilmington Evening Journal of 3 August 1898, from a dispatch datelined Ocean City, Md., August 3, under the head 'OCEAN CITY'S RESIDENT MAYOR — ELECTED IN OPPOSITION TO THE WISHES OF NON-RESIDENT PROPERTY OWNERS': 'The first town election under the new charter which was passed by the last Legislature was held in Ocean City Monday. It resulted in a complete victory for home rule. Heretofore the mayor and City Council have been non-residents. The ticket elected is as follows: Mayor — James Z. Powell, of Ocean City. City Council — Cornelius F. Coffin, of Cape Charles City, Va.; David S. Adkins, of Berlin, Md.; and Reverdy J. Dennis, of Ocean City. Some non-resident property owners who were entitled to vote named a ticket composed of non-residents, but withdrew it later in the day, after seeing that the towns people were so thoroughly united, and there was no possible chance of them winning.' The paper adds that George M. Upshur of Baltimore 'refused to be a candidate again'; that the new mayor 'is at present postmaster'; that 'the balloting was done almost entirely by the resident population'; that the newly elected officers assume their functions in September; and — the whole nineteenth-century municipal problem again — 'There is no salary attached to any of the offices.' The Maryland Manual's mayors list independently gives Powell 1898-1900. 'David S. Adkins, of Berlin' is David J. Adkins, the Berlin contractor returned for a third consecutive council; he is the only man to sit on the 1894-96, 1896-98 and 1898-1900 boards.

   In 1896 three of the four men elected to govern Ocean City lived somewhere else, and the county paper ran the headline 'Lot Owners from Far and Near Vote.' Two years later the residents took the town back — and the losing side did not even bother to go to the polls.

   James Z. PowellDavid J. AdkinsReverdy J. DennisGeorge M. Upshur

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1904

   C. F. Coffin, the Ocean City druggist, copyrights four 'Greetings from Ocean City, MD' view cards — the earliest dated photographic images of the town in a federal collection.

   The Library of Congress catalogue holds four 1904 items titled 'Greetings from Ocean City, MD,' each noted 'Title from item. Copyright by: C.F. Coffin,' with copyright numbers F 20901, F 20902, F 20903 and F 20904, transferred from the U.S. Copyright Office (transfer 42195). Their subtitles are a street-by-street inventory of the town in 1904: 'Atlantic Ave. looking North' (LCCN 2025665874); 'The Dunton Cottages; Atlantic Hotel' (2025665873); 'U.S. Life Saving Station; The Plimhimmon Hotel' (2025665875); and 'Balto. Ave looking North; Coffin's Pharmacy & Bazaar; Saint Paul by the Sea' (2025665872). The copyright holder is almost certainly Cornelius F. Coffin, Ocean City councilman 1898-1900, whose own Baltimore Avenue pharmacy and bazaar is one of the four subjects. A search of the Library's photograph collections for 'Ocean City' Maryland between 1895 and 1915 returns these four records and nothing else, and none of the four has been digitised. The registration is now recovered from the Catalogue of Title Entries, Q3 1904, Class F: "Coffin (C. F.), Ocean City, Md.", all four cards registered 14 June 1904, entries 49741–49744 (F 20901–20904), two copies each. NO PHOTOGRAPHER IS NAMED, and structurally none could be — pre-1909 Class F entries record the proprietor only. No published copyright source will ever answer that question.

   The campaign's earliest-images study could not find a verifiable photograph of Ocean City earlier than 1904, and this is what 1904 turns out to be: not a photographer's studio portrait but a shopkeeper's souvenir line, registered for copyright four cards at a time. The town was small enough that the man who sold the postcards was in one of them.

   Atlantic HotelPlimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaSt. Paul's by-the-Sea Episcopal ChurchUnited States Life-Saving Service

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

3. 1904 · 1904-06-14

   The four "Greetings from Ocean City, MD" cards were registered for copyright on 14 June 1904 — entries 49741-49744, in the proprietor's own name and nobody else's.

   The Copyright Office's quarterly Catalogue of Title Entries for the third quarter of 1904 records, under Class F (Engravings, Cuts and Prints), arranged by proprietor: "Coffin (C. F.), Ocean City, Md. — Greetings from Ocean City, Md. Atlantic avenue looking north (F 20901, June 14, 1904) 49741; Balto. ave., looking north (F 20904, June 14, 1904) 49742; The Dutton cottages (F 20902, June 14, 1904) 49743; U.S. life saving station (F 20903, June 14, 1904) 49744. 2 c. each June 14, 1904." All four were entered on one day, with two deposit copies of each received the same day. No maker, photographer, artist or printer is named — pre-1909 Class F entries record the copyright proprietor only.

   The registration was supposed to tell us who held the camera. It turns out the federal record has no line for that: it wanted to know who owned the picture, not who made it. So the earliest verifiable images of Ocean City are, officially, the work of nobody — filed by a druggist under his own name, four at a time, on a Tuesday in June.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

4. 1908 · 1908-08-03

   W. Lee Carey is elected mayor of Ocean City — nominated in the Atlantic Casino a week earlier, and elected without a contest.

   The Democratic Messenger of 1 August 1908 reported that "at a meeting Monday night in the Atlantic Casino, Ocean City, W. Lee Carey was nominated for Mayor, and T. J. Cropper, James Z. Powell, Samuel J. Massey, William Taylor, of Ocean City, and John L. Johnson, of Frederick, Md., for Councilmen, to serve a term of two years each." The meeting was Monday 27 July; the election followed on the first Monday in August, 3 August 1908, as the charter required. The paper's Berlin column a week later: "The election at Ocean City passed quietly resulting in Mr. Lee Carey becoming Mayor. No one is more interested in the progress of the 'City by the Sea' than he, and we predict good government and a boom under his administration." No opposing ticket is mentioned — unlike 1904, when two tickets fought a "warm but good natured" contest. Carey was a Berlin man: he sat as an East Berlin District delegate in the county convention that June, and in July he was laid up at his parents' home in Berlin with inflammatory rheumatism, recovering only days before his nomination. Three weeks after the election the real-estate transfers column recorded "W. Lee Carey from Cornelius F. Coffin, parcel of land in Ocean City. Consideration, $10 etc." — the charter required the mayor and every councilman to be a real-estate owner in the town. This is the first contemporary confirmation of the Maryland Manual's 1908-1912 term for Carey, and the first time in this campaign the Manual has been corroborated rather than corrected.

   Atlantic Casino CompanyW. Lee CareyThomas J. CropperJames Z. PowellJohn L. Johnson

   Source · checked 2026-08-06