History

Capt. Crawford Savage

charter fishing captain · active 1937

Ocean City charter captain of the boat Hilda. The first white marlin of the 1937 season was hooked from her by Capt. R. P. Schwartz in early July and lost when the line fouled; Robert Jones of Washington took a hundred-pounder from her after a fight of two hours and forty minutes, 'the longest on record locally', its sword snapped off; and in August Jimmie Foxx, the Boston first baseman, landed a 72-pound marlin from her in thirty-five minutes while his team-mate Moe Berg took a dolphin. Foxx told the papers: 'I've fished off Miami, the Everglades and the Keys, but I've never seen better fishing than here in my own state of Maryland.' — 1941 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11: name: Capt. Crawford Savage → Capt. Crawford O. Savage — The Ocean City minute of 6 January 1942 records a building permit granted to 'Crawford O.Savage to build 2 Apartment house on 7th street rear of Balto.Ave.house' — the first time the town's own record gives him a middle initial. The 1940 minutes have him as 'C. D. Savage' on the advertising committee and the 1941 minute of 30 July as 'Crawford Savage'. The typed 1942 initial is the clearest of the three. ⚠ The 1940 'C. D. Savage' and this 'Crawford O. Savage' are not proved to be one man; if the merge session is unwilling to treat them as one, the safer action is to add the initial as an aka rather than change the name.

In the record (3)

  1. 1939 · 1939-09-19

    Ocean City's council voted $250 for a radio broadcast in September 1939 and the mayor vetoed it

    The minute of 19 September 1939: 'C. P. Cropper offered Resolution, seconded by R. Bounds that City pay Broadcasting Station the Sum of $250.00 on program that was sent from Ocean City. Vote was taken and passed by Council, then Vetoed by Mayor Johnson.' The same meeting refused James D. Jarman's bill for salary as the town's fishing press agent while paying his $87.36 of expenses, and settled a boardwalk injury claim by Mrs. V. E. Landon - who had fallen on 24 August - by offering her $25; she held out and was paid $50 on 24 October.

    Three months later Johnson resigned. This is the only recorded veto of his mayoralty in 1939 and it was aimed at the one line of the budget the council never stopped feeding - advertising, which had already taken $250 for an outdoor show in January, $500 at Annapolis in March, $600 for the Chamber of Commerce office in May and would take $300 for a show in New York in December.

    Edmond H. JohnsonClifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsJames D. Jarman

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

  2. 1941 · 1941-07-30

    A year after the town tried to fund its advertising by licensing the fishing boats, Capt. Crawford Savage came and asked that the boats be let off altogether — and the council voted the Chamber of Commerce another $500 to cover its deficit.

    In May 1940 the advertising committee had proposed to raise $2,000 by licensing the sport fishing boats at $10 for a native boat and $25 for a foreign one, and the town spent the rest of that year looking for the legal power to do it. On the evening of 30 July 1941, with only the mayor and two councilmen present, 'Crawford Savage was present asking that fishing boats be relieved of any lisence for this year and on motion by Rayne seconed by councilman Bounds council agreed to help the Chamber of commerce not exceeding $500. addition to what was guaranteed to settle their deficit and they were to cut their budget according to the money they have to spend.' The clerk has run the request and the motion into a single sentence, so what the council actually decided about the boats is not recorded — only that it reached again for its own pocket to cover the Chamber's shortfall. The scheme to make the charter fleet pay for the town's advertising had failed twice in fifteen months.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsClifford P. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

  3. 1974 · 1974-10-07

    Crawford O. Savage, the former councilman who had taken a fledgling Councilman Kelley under his wing, died in 1974 before the town could present his plaque, and his son Bill accepted it on 7 October

    Item 1 of 7 October 1974, Presentation by Mayor Kelley: "Bill and Evelyn Savage will you come up? ... at the time we wanted to honor all Councilmen your Dad was alive ... Crawf was certainly interested in this Town. Even the day before he died, he wanted to call us and tell us to stand fast to our guns in respect to our problems with the strike. But I think his blood pressure was so high, his wife Hilda, your Mother, asked him not to do it ... I recall that Crawf was a Councilman when I went in and he kind of took me under his wing. I was a fledgling Councilman and didn't know which way I wanted to go ... He said it is a shame that everybody can't serve on the City Council so that they would recognize the problems and maybe not be so critical of us." The plaque read: "PRESENTED TO CRAWFORD O. SAVAGE IN RECOGNITION AND APPRECIATION OF FAITHFUL AND MERITORIOUS SERVICE AND YOUR OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PEOPLE OF OCEAN CITY, MARYLAND, WHILE SERVING AS A CITY COUNCILMAN."

    Harry W. Kelley

    Source · checked 2026-09-10