David J. Adkins

In the record (16)

1. 1891

   Ocean City gets a new two-story Life-Saving Station — the building that is today's museum.

   After the government bought an adjoining 5,000-square-foot lot on Caroline Street from John T. Ensor for $100 in April 1890, the original 1878 station house was moved 130 feet west in the spring of 1891 and Berlin contractor David J. Adkins built its replacement: in the Baltimore Sun's words, 'a handsome two-story structure, of ornamental design, having comfortable quarters for the crew and abundant room for the life boats, life cars, gun carriages, reels and other appliances of the service.' The crew of eight, keeper included, moved in that fall. The architect of record was J. L. Parkinson, working from the Service's '1882 type' plans. The station served the Life-Saving Service and then the Coast Guard until 1964, was saved from demolition and moved to the Inlet end of the Boardwalk in 1977, and reopened as the Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum in 1978. — 1891 RECTIFICATION, 2026-08-11 [CONFIRMED IN SUBSTANCE from contemporary sources, but its citation must be repointed and its confidence qualified]: The source-quality audit is right that this fact rested on ocmuseum.org while marked verified. The construction itself is now attested contemporaneously and locally: the Snow Hill PRESS of April 4, 1891 reports 'Mr. D. J. Adkins is quite busy at his sash and door factory on a contract for the new Life Saving Stations to be erected at Ocean City and Fenwick's Island,' corroborated two days later by the Wilmington Evening Journal [fact:1891-adkins-builds-two-stations]. That independently confirms the year, the builder, the fact that it was a new building rather than a repair, and adds that Ocean City and Fenwick Island were a single contract. The keeper who took delivery is also now named: Capt. Soper [fact:1891-capt-soper-drills-on-the-beach]. RECOMMENDED: move provenance.sourceUrl to the Worcester County Library portal page for the Press of Apr. 4, 1891 (or to the Evening Journal of Apr. 6, 1891 for a stable LoC URL), demote ocmuseum.org to alsoSee, and keep confidence 'verified' for the build. HOWEVER, four specifics in the detail remain museum-only and are NOT corroborated by any contemporary source found in 682 pages: the John T. Ensor lot on Caroline Street, the $100 price, the 130-foot move, and the quoted Baltimore Sun description. The architect attribution to J. L. Parkinson and the '1882 type' plans are likewise uncorroborated here. Those clauses should carry an explicit hedge in the detail text.

   The single most storied building in town starts here: everything the museum now protects was once protected by the men who slept upstairs.

   Ocean City Life-Saving Station MuseumOcean City Boardwalk

   Source · checked 2026-08-05

2. 1891 · 1891-04-04

   The county paper watches the new Life-Saving Station being made: D. J. Adkins's sash-and-door factory is busy on the contract for Ocean City and Fenwick's Island.

   'Mr. D. J. Adkins is quite busy at his sash and door factory on a contract for the new Life Saving Stations to be erected at Ocean City and Fenwick's Island,' the Berlin Gleanings column of the Snow Hill Press reported on April 4, 1891. Two days later a Delaware paper carried the same news as a peninsula brief: 'Life-saving stations will be erected at Ocean City, Md., and Fenwick's Island.' This is the first contemporary Worcester County source the campaign has for the building that is now the Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum — it puts the work in Adkins's own Berlin millworks in the first week of April 1891, and it shows Ocean City and Fenwick Island were one job, not two.

   Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

3. 1894 · 1894-10-27

   Mrs. R. T. Shreve of Baltimore buys two ocean-front lots with a hundred feet of frontage from the Sinepuxent Beach Company — the ground the Plimhimmon stands on.

   Under the heading "Improvement at Ocean City," the Messenger of 27 October 1894: "Among the most notable improvements to be made at Ocean City for the coming season will be the erection of a large house by Mrs. R. T. Shreve, of East Franklin street, Baltimore. She has lately purchased from the Sinepuxent Beach Company two desirable lots facing on the ocean and having a frontage of 100 feet..." The rest of the paragraph is lost where the OCR crosses into the adjacent column. Eight weeks later the same paper's Ocean City correspondent reported that "Mr. D. J. Adkins is going right ahead on the Plimhimmond Hotel which is going to be a great improvement to Ocean City" (22 December 1894), and a week after that the town's building programme was still being described as work for the coming season.

   The campaign has carried 'Rosalie Tilghman Shreve built the Plimhimmon in 1894' on the strength of a secondary source. Here is the transaction underneath it, in the county paper, in October — two lots, a hundred feet of ocean front, bought from the Sinepuxent Beach Company for a house to be ready for the COMING season. Which means 1894 is the year the Plimhimmon was bought and begun, and 1895 is the year it opened.

   Sinepuxent Beach CompanyRosalie Tilghman Shreve

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

4. 1894 · 1894-12-22

   D. J. Adkins is "going right ahead" on the Plimhimmon Hotel in December 1894.

   The Democratic Messenger's Ocean City letter of December 22, 1894: "Mr. D. J. Adkins is going right ahead on the Plimhimmon Hotel which is going to be a great improvement to Ocean City. I wish a few more would take a notion to try and make improvements here." Adkins, the Berlin contractor who had built the 1891 Life-Saving Station on Caroline Street, was the builder. The Plimhimmon — named for the Talbot County estate of Rosalie Tilghman Shreve's family — became one of the boardwalk's long-lived houses. The item dates the construction to the winter of 1894-95, not to the years usually given. — 1894 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Confirmed verbatim on the portal scan of 22 December 1894, page 3, in the OCEAN CITY correspondent's letter, and now given its beginning: Mrs. R. T. Shreve bought the two ocean-front lots from the Sinepuxent Beach Company in October 1894 (see fact:1894-shreve-buys-two-ocean-front-lots). The December item confirms the hotel was still unfinished at the end of 1894. — 1895 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The building D. J. Adkins was 'going right ahead on' in December 1894 opened on 15 June 1895, and its opening advertisement calls it 'just completed and modern in every particular.' The construction window is therefore closed at both ends: begun by December 1894, finished by mid-June 1895, in a single winter and spring. The proprietor advertised is Mrs. R. T. Shreve. See fact:1895-plimhimmon-opens-june-15.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

5. 1895 · 1895-06-15

   The Plimhimmon opens on 15 June 1895 — 'directly on the ocean front, just completed and modern in every particular' — under Mrs. R. T. Shreve.

   The hotel D. J. Adkins was 'going right ahead on' in December 1894 opened for the season of 1895. The Washington Evening Star carried the advertisement through June: 'THE PLIMHIMMON, OCEAN CITY, MD., OPENS JUNE 15. Directly on the ocean front. Just completed and modern in every particular. For rates and information address MRS. R. T. SHREVE, Ocean City, Md.' The Star's summer-resort notes of 22 June say the same in prose: 'The Plimhimmon has just been completed at Ocean City, Md. It is directly on the ocean front and modern in every particular.' By 6 April the Messenger had already listed 'the opening of the new hotel, the Plimhimmon' among the season's additions, and on the Fourth of July fireworks were let off in front of it.

   Rosalie Tilghman Shreve

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

6. 1896 · 1896-04-01

   Ocean City's town books are stolen and mutilated on the night of April 1, 1896; the council offers a $100 reward.

   Over the outgoing council's three signatures the Democratic Messenger of April 18 and April 25, 1896 carried this advertisement, dated at Ocean City April 11: "$100 Reward. $100. The City Council of Ocean City will pay the sum of one hundred dollars for the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who broke into the house of Wm. McKew and took the town books and tore the written pages from same, and also destroyed the receipts of the treasurer of the town on the night of April 1st, 1896. D. J. Adkins, W. R. Rayne, Geo. L. Williams." Two things follow. First, this is a deliberate destruction of Ocean City's municipal records — minutes and treasurer's receipts — three weeks before the contested election of May 4, and it is a second, separate reason (alongside the 1893 burning of the Worcester County court house at Snow Hill) why the town's early paper record is missing. Second, the three signatures are the names of the council that served from 1894 to 1896 — D. J. Adkins, W. R. Rayne and George L. Williams — which this campaign had never recovered. Adkins was returned to the new council a month later. $100 was a very large reward for a town whose whole tax base was a few hundred lots. — 1896 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Confirmed, and the reward notice supplies a name the news item did not. The advertisement, still running on 2 May 1896, reads: 'The City Council of Ocean City will pay the sum of one hundred dollars for the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who broke into the house of Wm. McKew and took the town books and tore the written pages from same, and also destroyed the receipts of the treasurer of the town on the night of Apri[l 1st].' Ocean City's municipal records were being kept in a private house, and the campaign now knows whose.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

7. 1896 · 1896-05-04

   Ocean City elects George M. Upshur of Baltimore mayor, with the first full council slate on record.

   A dispatch datelined "Ocean City, Md., May 4" and carried by the Snow Hill Democratic Messenger of May 9 under the head "OCEAN CITY ELECTION — Lot Owners from Far and Near Vote" reports that at "the biennial election for municipal offices for Ocean City today the following ticket was elected: Mayor — George M. Upshur, of Baltimore; City Council — Charles Goldsborough, of Baltimore, David J. Adkins, of Berlin, Worcester county, and Albert C. Carey, of Ocean City." Two tickets were in the field "and the contest was hot throughout": the opposition was "led by Messrs. Edward Hobbs, Daniel Trimper and others, while Messrs. John Waggaman and others looked after the interest of the candidates on the successful ticket." The polls opened at 11 and closed at 2, and "during this time every voter that could be reached was secured for one side or the other." The paper describes the fight as "between what is known as the people of the south e[nd]" and the other interest, and gives the reason it mattered: "the members of the Sinepuxent Beach Company were particularly active. It has been known for some time past that the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway Company have wanted to get control of Ocean City, but were unable to complete the deal, as certain influences which had charge of the property were not in accord with the proposed sale." The item predicts "a consolidation of the two interests." This is the first Ocean City election in which this campaign has recovered the mayor AND all three councilmen — the standing gap named at the top of the 1894 pass's still-open list. Three of the four winners were non-residents voting under the charter's real-estate franchise; only Albert C. Carey lived in the town. — 1896 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Confirmed, and the reason for the contest is now in the record. The same dispatch continues past the result: the campaign 'was a fight between what is known as the people of the south end of Ocean City against the members of the Sinepuxent Beach Company'; the opposition ticket 'was led by Messrs. Edward Hobbs, Daniel Trimper and others,' the winners' interest by 'Messrs. John Waggaman and others'; the polls opened at eleven and closed at two; the Beach Company's directors were 'particularly active' because the B.C.&A. was trying to buy the beach and could not close the deal. The Washington stockholders who held the majority of the company's stock came down in force and 'seemed to enjoy the privilege of casting ballots in a free country,' being disfranchised at home; A. Marcus, secretary of the Northern Pacific Railroad, voted and left on a special train for New York.

   Sinepuxent Beach CompanyBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayCharles GoldsboroughWilliam Sydney Wilson

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

8. 1896 · 1896-05-18

   A seventy-mile gale drives sand so hard that no one can face it on the board walks, stoves in the Seabright Hotel and topples the Beach Company's electric-light smokestack.

   The Ocean City letter of 23 May 1896 describes the May gale from inside the town: "Monday evening a terrific storm played havoc here for about a half hour. The wind blew at the rate of seventy miles an hour. The rain fell in torrents, but before the downpour came, the sand was driven in perfect clouds before the gale, and was so cutting that it was impossible for pedestrians to face it on the board walks. With nearly every very strong wind there is more or less drifting of the fine sand on this beautiful beach, but it is very rare that such a sand storm is experienced as that which preceded the rain of last Monday. The violence of the wind demolished the cottage which Contractor Adkins is building for Dr. Baggett, of Washington, D. C. The cottage was blown down from its foundation. The brick smokestack of the electric-light plant belonging to the Sinepuxent Beach Company was prostrated. The west end of the Seabright Hotel was stove in by the terrific force of the gale, while a number of pleasure boats moored in Sinepuxent bay were battered to pieces. All the telegraph wires are down, both those of the Western Union Line and of the government life-saving station. The fury of the gale was felt far inland. Some small houses at Berlin, six miles from the coast, were moved on their foundations, but no serious damage was done." Two things this adds to the record: the Sinepuxent Beach Company was running an electric-light plant with a brick smokestack at Ocean City by May 1896, and the government life-saving station had its own telegraph line, separate from Western Union.

   Sinepuxent Beach CompanyUnited States Life-Saving Service

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

9. 1896 · 1896-05-19

   A May gale blows down a cottage under construction, topples the Sinepuxent Beach Company's electric-light smokestack and stoves in the Seabright Hotel.

   "The violence of the wind demolished the cottage which Contractor Adkins is building for Dr. Baggett, of Washington, D. C. The cottage was blown down from its foundation. The brick smokestack of the electric-light plant belonging to the Sinepuxent Beach Company was prostrated. The west end of the Seabright Hotel was stove in by the terrific force of the gale, while a number of pleasure boats moored in Sinepuxent bay were battered to pieces. All the telegraph wires are down, both those of the Western Union Line and of the government life-saving station. The fury of the gale was felt far inland. Some small houses at Berlin, six miles from the coast, were moved on their foundations, but no serious damage was done." The item establishes that the Sinepuxent Beach Company was running its own electric-light plant on the beach in 1896, four years after the Atlantic Hotel was first lit by electricity.

   Sinepuxent Beach CompanyUnited States Life-Saving Service

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

10. 1898

    St. Rose's Industrial School of Washington builds a $15,270 summer home for its sisters and girls at the north end of the boardwalk, paid for by an anonymous donor.

    From Ocean City on 4 March 1898: 'The contract for the building here of the Summer home of the girls and sisters of St. Rose's Industrial School, of Washington, has been given out, the successful bidder being D. J. Adkins, of Berlin, Md., the contract price being $15,270. This proposed structure will be one hundred feet frontage on the beach, extending to the west about one hundred feet. It will in reality be two buildings, connected by a wide corridor, set back a little from the front line. The buildings will be elevated ten feet from the ground level, and will be of two stories, with a pitched roof, a broad porch extending the entire frontage. The style of architecture is mostly colonial, and when erected Ocean City will have one of the most spacious and attractive buildings of any seaside resort on the Atlantic.' The Evening Star's correspondent visited on 13 July: 'Those in charge of the St. Rose Industrial School on G street near 20th northwest have built a beautiful summer home here for pupils and sisters at the north end of the boardwalk. The money was donated by a gentleman who admired the work of the institution, and this site was selected and the building begun last March. Painters and electricians are giving the finishing touches, for it is thoroughly equipped to continue the work of winter school. Broad piazzas facing the ocean, ornamented by blooming plants, give the place a homelike appearance. Sister Clara is in charge. The house accommodates sixty children.' On Friday 24 June a special train ran from Washington and Baltimore to Ocean City 'under the auspices and for the benefit of the St. Rose Industrial School,' limited to a hundred passengers from each city. — 1898 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [reviewed]: Adds the builder, the donor, the plan, the capacity and the site, from two fuller accounts. From the Wilmington Evening Journal of 4 March 1898: the contract went to D. J. Adkins of Berlin, Md. at $15,270; the building would have "one hundred feet frontage on the beach, extending to the west about one hundred feet… in reality two buildings, connected by a wide corridor, set back a little from the front line… elevated ten feet from the ground level, and… of two stories, with a pitched roof, a broad porch extending the entire frontage. The style of architecture is mostly colonial." From the Washington Evening Star's Ocean City correspondence of 13 July 1898: the home stood "at the north end of the boardwalk"; "the money was donated by a gentleman who admired the work of the institution" — anonymous, which is as far as this record can now take the 1898 pass's question about who gave the $15,270; "painters and electricians are giving the finishing touches"; "Sister Clara is in charge"; and "the house accommodates sixty children and fifty sisters. Two hours each day are devoted to study, the other time to housework, sewing and recreation."

    The largest single building contract recorded at Ocean City in the 1890s went not to a hotel syndicate but to a Catholic charity, so that sixty working girls from a Washington industrial school could spend the summer on the beach. The contractor was the same D. J. Adkins who was elected to the city council five months later.

    St. Rose's Industrial School

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

11. 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. PowellReverdy J. DennisCornelius F. CoffinGeorge M. Upshur

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

12. 1899

    Ocean City sues its own railroad for unpaid taxes and wins in the Court of Appeals — and the State promptly uses the ruling to claim $60,000 from the same company.

    The Democratic Messenger of 18 March 1899 reported the decision: "Judge Briscoe rendered the opinion in the suit brought by the mayor and city council of Ocean City against the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway Company to recover certain taxes alleged to be due and unpaid by the defendant company … The principal question presented by the appeal is whether the property formerly owned by the Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad in Ocean City, and now owned by the appellant company, is exempt from taxation, under section 2 of chapter 133 of the acts of 1886. The court says: 'We are of the opinion that the property of the defendant company … is liable for taxation, and, for the reasons we have given, the court committed no error in rejecting the appellant's prayers, so the judgment will be affirmed.'" The Messenger returned to it on 26 August under the head "Claims $60,000 Taxes": the old Eastern Shore Railroad had been exempt under its charter, the new owners "refused to pay taxes to the city authorities of Ocean City," the suit "was instituted by Mayor C. J. Purnell, and Councilmen Powell, Dennis and Adkins and resulted in a verdict in their favor, by the Court of Appeals," and State Tax Collector Parlett was now claiming $60,000 in state taxes on the strength of it, against the company's attorney's denial.

    A resort of a few hundred winter residents took the railway that made it to Maryland's highest court, and beat it — and Annapolis then followed the town through the door it had opened.

    Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayWicomico and Pocomoke RailroadThe Commissioners of Ocean CityClayton J. PurnellJames Z. Powell

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

13. 1899 · 1899-06-05

    Mayor James Z. Powell resigns at a council meeting on 5 June 1899, Clayton J. Purnell is elected in his place — and Powell then takes a seat on the council he had just chaired.

    The Democratic Messenger of 10 June 1899: "At a meeting of the city council of Ocean City held last Monday Mr. James Z. Powell, then mayor, resigned and Clayton J. Purnell, Esq., was unanimously elected to succeed him. Mr. Powell was afterwards elected a member of the city council vice Mr. Cornelius Collins resigned." The Delaware Gazette and State Journal of 15 June carried it independently in its Maryland column: "Clayton J. Purnell has been elected mayor of Ocean City, vice James Z. Powell, resigned … James Z. Powell has been elected a councilman at Ocean City, succeeding Cornelius F. Collin, resigned." By August the county paper was calling him "Mayor C. J. Purnell" as a matter of course, and naming his council alongside him — Powell, Dennis and Adkins. The Maryland Manual's mayors list dates Purnell's term from 1900; the contemporary press puts him in the chair from June 1899. — 1899 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Confirmed word for word from a second, independent filming of the Democratic Messenger of 10 June 1899 held by the Worcester County Library, which reads 'vice Mr. Cornelius Coftin resigned' where Chronicling America reads 'Collins' — the Delaware Gazette's 'Cornelius F. Collin' remains the best reading of the retiring councilman's name. No new evidence bears on the Maryland Manual conflict, which should stand as recorded.

    Purnell succeeded Powell as mayor in June 1899 — a year earlier than the Maryland Manual's list shows.

    The Commissioners of Ocean CityJames Z. PowellClayton J. Purnell

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

14. 1903 · 1903-07-28

    St. Paul's-by-the-Sea is consecrated on 28 July 1903 by the Bishop of Easton — three years after its cornerstone, and three months after it opened itself for a wedding.

    The rector's own notice, printed 25 July 1903 over the signature "J. Gibson Gantt, Rector": "On Tuesday, July 28th, at 11 A.M. the beautiful St. Paul's-by-the-Sea, the new Episcopal Church at Ocean City, Md., will be consecrated by Bishop Adams, who will also preach the sermon. The Deans of Trinity Cathedral and of the Southern Convocation with its Clergy will be present, and the Vested Choir of Berlin and Salisbury will render the music. In the afternoon at 4 o'clock the Dean of Trinity Cathedral will make an address at a Woman's Auxiliary rally and at night the Southern Convocation will begin a series of services lasting throughout Wednesday. On Tuesday the 28th, the B. C. & A. R. R. will run a train back as far as Salisbury, leaving Ocean City at 10 p. m." The bishop is William Forbes Adams of Easton. Three months earlier, on 25 April, the paper had reported the building "now practically finished... the largest and most beautiful church in Ocean City. It was opened last week for the marriage of Mr. Harvey Hastings, of Wilmington, Del., and Miss Kate Trimper, of Ocean City" — built "under the direction of D. J. Adkins, architect and builder," with an open roof, painted ceiling and exposed timbers, Gothic arches to sanctuary, chancel, organ chamber and sacristy, and a chancel twenty feet deep. In May the church received a quartered-oak altar from the Woman's Auxiliary of the Diocese of Easton, placed by Charles B. Flowers of Easton, and an Italian marble font from Mrs. Josephine L. Massey of Baltimore, proprietor of a hotel at Ocean City, inscribed "To the glory of God, and in loving remembrance of my little daughter, Florence Massey." In August the parish raised money with a children's calisthenics-and-tableaux exhibition — fifty children, "beautiful stage effects" — in the Plimhimmon Casino.

    St. Paul's by-the-Sea Episcopal ChurchRev. J. Gibson GanttJosephine L. Massey

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

15. 1905 · 1905-05-12

    A crowded meeting at the railroad depot organises the Ocean City Pier and Improvement Company to build an ocean pier — the third such company since 1896, and the first to build one.

    "A New Pier for Ocean City. A company was organized last Friday to erect an ocean pier out from the beach at Ocean City — a project long contemplated. A largely attended meeting was held at the railroad depot." R. Lee Purnell of Snow Hill chaired and J. E. Ijams of Baltimore was secretary. Officers of the Ocean City Pier and Improvement Company of Ocean City, Maryland: president Christopher Ludlam of Ocean City (the town's mayor); vice-president L. L. Dirickson, Jr., of Berlin; treasurer D. J. Adkins of Berlin; secretary R. L. Purnell of Snow Hill; assistant secretary J. E. Ijams of Baltimore. A board of directors was elected to serve one year, and it was proposed "to erect the pier at once and to capitalize the company at $20,000." By 8 July R. Lee Purnell reported plans to build "just below the Atlantic Hotel, extending [900] feet into the Ocean."

    capitalised at $10,000–$20,000 — the two Messenger reports disagree

    Ocean City Pier and Improvement CompanySteel Pier and Railway Company of Ocean CityOcean City Steel Pier Railway and Amusement CompanyChristopher LudlamCol. L. L. DiricksonRobert Lee PurnellJ. Edgar Ijams

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

16. 1905 · 1905-10-16

    Pile-driving for the Ocean City pier starts on 16 October 1905 — 900 feet of hickory piles, a 120-by-70-foot convention and dancing hall at the shore end, and a pavilion at the far end.

    "Building Ocean City Pier. Active operations began Monday, the 16th instant, on the construction of the pier at Ocean City, giving employment to a great number of workmen. The beach in the neighborhood of the [locality] where the pier is being constructed is strewn with stout timbers, including hickory piles for the structure. The builders claim that hickory trees cut at the season of the year when the bark will remain are more durable than iron or steel in salt water. The building of the pier will be continued throughout the winter … The plans call for a pier 900 feet long and 130 feet wide. At the shore end there will be a hall for conventions and dancing, 120 feet long by 70 feet wide. At the other end of the pier will be another pavilion. From the shore the pier will extend over the outer bar into deep water." Robert Lee Purnell was promoter and general manager. At the company's annual stockholders' meeting, reported 16 December, Capt. Christopher Ludlam was re-elected president, Calvin B. Taylor treasurer and R. Lee Purnell secretary, with Taylor and John W. Staton as counsel, and "the pier will be completed for the opening of the coming season."

    Ocean City Pier and Improvement CompanyRobert Lee PurnellChristopher LudlamCalvin B. TaylorWilliam T. TaberThomas J. CropperJohn L. JohnsonJoseph SchaeferCapt. Joshua J. DuntonCol. L. L. Dirickson

    Source · checked 2026-08-06