Cyrus St. Clair

In the record (2)

1. 1900

   The season's Black workforce, named: a twenty-six-man dining room at the Atlantic, a nine-year head waiter at Congress Hall, and a butcher shop on Baltimore Street.

   The Colored American's Ocean City letters of 1900 are the only source this campaign has found that names the people who actually ran the hotels. At the Atlantic Hotel, "the largest in Ocean City," James L. Honeywell arrived as the new head waiter on 2 July "with ten men" and C. H. Stokes as his secretary; Walker White was second waiter; W. M. Taylor, formerly chef at the Senate Restaurant in Washington, had charge of the cooking with Ernest Colbert as his second and J. W. Jones on meats; John Berg and Fred Wander were the bakers; Eva Shanklin was head laundress; Frank Fenwick was steward; and by 18 August "the dining room crew constitutes a membership of twenty-six men." At Congress Hall, John Rider had been head waiter "for the past nine years," with Wm. J. Miller second and Watson Nickels over the kitchen. Alonzo Mitchell was head bellman at the Gordon Hotel, over Ernest Bell and Lloyd Stewart as captains of watch and seven more men. And in July "Mr. Cyrus St. Clair has opened a first class butcher shop on Baltimore street" — the earliest Black-owned business this project holds a record of in Ocean City. C. C. Chestnut opened "a first class tonsorial apartment" the same month. — 1900 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [reviewed]: Extends the roster from the full seven-week run of the Colored American's Ocean City column, all of it read whole. ATLANTIC HOTEL: James L. Honeywell, new head waiter, arrived Monday night 2 July with ten men and his secretary C. H. Stokes; Walker White, second waiter; W. M. Taylor, formerly chef at the Senate Restaurant, in charge of the cooking department, with Ernest Colbert as his second and J. W. Jones on the meats, and Madames Waters and Williams assisting; Jack Isel at the carving table; John Berg and Fred Wander, bakers; Frank Fenwick, steward; John Carter, assistant bar keeper in the Atlantic Cafe, with Cooper as head waiter there; a dining-room crew of twenty-six men. CONGRESS HALL: John Rider, head waiter for nine years; Wm. J. Miller, second man; Watson Nickels over the culinary department. GORDON HOTEL: Alonzo Mitchell, head bellman, with Ernest Bell and Lloyd Stewart as captains of watch. MT. PLEASANT: Miss Maria Brumby of Washington, head cook at "a new house on the beach". Off the hotel payrolls: Cyrus St. Clair, butcher; O. C. Chestnutt, barber; Robert W. Greene, mandolinist, who gave a musicale for the guests of the Ocean Wave Hotel. The season's associational life is as dense as the employment: the Cordova Social Club (Honeywell, Stokes, White, Green, Welch, Wilson), the Imperial Yachting Club (Stokes, Greene, Honeywell, Hartgrove, Wilson), the Atlantic Quartette making its first appearance in August, a grand concert by the Atlantic's waiters, and a ball tendered the waiters of the Plimhimmon Hotel that "eclipsed any that has been given here this season". And on 11 August the column drops its register for one sentence: "Unwarranted attacks upon defenceless humanity are frequent. Those who recognize this fact are painful sufferers of attacks and pitiful objects of humiliation. This is enough, aye too much." That is the only protest sentence the campaign holds from a Black resident of Ocean City in the nineteenth century, and the paper does not say what the attacks were. Additions from a second, complete reading of the run - all 800 pages of The Colored American for 1900, and a looser second pass over the 320 pages from 26 May to 13 October. NEW NAMES AND POSTS: Miss Maria Brumby of Washington, made head cook at the Mt. Pleasant, 'a new house on the beach' - the same W. E. Buell hotel the Evening Star placed 'on the board walks near the United States life saving station'; Madames Waters and Williams assisting in the Atlantic's kitchen, the only other women named in the town's Black workforce; Jack Isel at the Atlantic's carving table; Frank Fenwick, steward; John Carter, appointed assistant bar keeper in the Atlantic Cafe with Cooper moving up to head waiter there; O. C. Chestnutt of Washington, who 'opened a first class tonsorial apartment here' in July - a Black-owned barbershop alongside St. Clair's butcher shop. NEW INSTITUTIONS: the Imperial Yachting Club (Stokes, Greene, Honeywell, Hartgrove and Wilson), which arranged a night outing for 15 August; a grand concert by the waiters of the Atlantic Hotel booked for late August under a manager named Robinson; and 'the ball tendered the waiters of the Plimhimmon Hotel', which 'eclipsed any that has been given here this season' - full dress, punch and choice wines, and a guest list of eleven Misses and eight Messrs. AND ONE SENTENCE THAT IS NOT SOCIETY REPORTING. On 11 August, between a yachting notice and an item about a sick guest, the column says: 'Unwarranted attacks upon defenceless humanity are frequent. Those who recognize this fact are painful sufferers of attacks and pitiful objects of humiliation. This is enough, aye too much.' The paper does not say what the attacks were, or who made them. It is the only protest this campaign holds in the words of a Black resident of nineteenth-century Ocean City.

   Twenty-six men in one dining room. The hotels the guidebooks describe by their piazzas were, backstage, a Black labour town that arrived in June and left in September.

   Atlantic HotelJames L. HoneywellJohn Rider

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1900

   Black hotel workers organise the Ocean City Lyceum — the earliest documented Black institution in the town.

   "A literary society was organized last Thursday night by the young men of Ocean City," The Colored American of Washington reported on 21 July 1900. "Great care was exercised in the selection of officers as it is the purpose of the Association to make it unparalleled. The meeting was called to order by Mr. J. L. Honeywell, acting chairman." Officers: Robert Greene president, Alonza Mitchell vice-president, Bernard Hartgrove financial secretary, C. H. Stokes treasurer, Geo. H. Smith chaplain, C. H. Chestnut sergeant-at-arms. "Meetings will be held every Monday evening at the Ocean City chapel." The Lyceum then met all season and argued: on 4 August "much appreciation was shown the paper read by Mr. Thomas Clayton ... Mr. Clayton chose as his subject 'Industrial Education for the Negro,'" followed by "a long and pointed discussion"; on 11 August Walker White read; and "a special meeting of the Ocean City Lyceum was called Friday evening to discuss the Negro problem." Alongside it ran a Cordova Social Club (a smoker given by Cyrus St. Clair, addressed by Prof. Howells, principal of the high school at Snow Hill) and an Imperial Yachting Club. This is the first Black organisation, and the first Black chapel, this campaign has documented at Ocean City — in a corpus where the county paper's own Ocean City column names no Black residents at all. — 1900 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [reviewed]: Adds what the Lyceum did after its founding meeting, and where. It met EVERY MONDAY EVENING AT THE OCEAN CITY CHAPEL. On 4 August Thomas Clayton read a paper on 'Industrial Education for the Negro', discussed by Stokes, Honeywell, White, Cyrus St. Clair, Greene and Lewis; on 11 August Walker White read before it, with Prof. Howells, principal of the school at Snow Hill, in the audience, and the Atlantic Quartette made its first appearance on the same programme; on 18 August 'a special meeting of the Ocean City Lyceum was called Friday evening to discuss the Negro problem. The subject was handled in a very lively manner and became a target for a high political boom' - Stokes, Honeywell, White, St. Clair and Greene speaking; and on 25 August the closing meeting was announced with special music engaged and 'some literary features'. Four debates in six weeks, three of them on race and education, held by hotel waiters in a chapel. The meeting place is the finding that matters most: an 'Ocean City chapel' standing in 1900 is the first fixed Black building the campaign can place in the town with a documented use, and the obvious candidate for it is the 'new colored church in Ocean City' reported in September 1895 and never mentioned again.

   The summer waiters of the Atlantic and Congress Hall founded a debating society, met every Monday night, and argued Booker T. Washington's programme on the beach in 1900.

   Ocean City LyceumJames L. HoneywellRobert W. Greene

   Source · checked 2026-08-06