Edmond H. Johnson

In the record (25)

1. 1937 · 1937-04-26

   Ocean City passed an ordinance on the occupancy of buildings a week before it settled its biggest permit fight

   'An ordinance Relating to Occupancy of Buildings known as Ordinance #30A was read and after discussion motion was offered by Councilman W. P. Laws, Seconded by Dr. F. J. Townsend that Ordinance be passed. Vote was unanimous.' A week later, on 3 May, 'Attorney Edwin Johnson was present and read Ordinance #30 A relating to Building & Business' - the town solicitor reading his own instrument back to the council on the night it granted John Lambros his permit. The two entries describe the same ordinance by two different subjects, which is as close as the 1937 minutes come to saying what it did. The council had also, on 19 March, discussed a pasteurised milk ordinance and rejected it, and on 7 June it instructed Johnson to prepare an ordinance forbidding reckless driving on Baltimore and Philadelphia Avenues.

   W. Preston LawsFrancis J. Townsend

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

2. 1937 · 1937-06-07

   Ocean City, Berlin and Pocomoke met to go after the county's liquor profits, and Ocean City authorised its solicitor to sue

   The town solicitor 'reported on meeting held in Pocomoke City "Subject Liquor Profits" which he & Mayor Elliott attended at which were present Senator Veasey & Council from Berlin & Pocomoke at which meeting the legal Situation regarding old liquor profits Act were discussed'. On W. Preston Laws's motion, seconded by Dr. Townsend, 'the Council were Unanimous in Authorizeing Mr. Johnson to appear for the City in any legal Proceeding relating to liquor profits and endeavour to obtain Cities Share of Profits.' Three Worcester County towns acting together against the county over the proceeds of the state liquor dispensary is the largest piece of inter-municipal politics in Ocean City's 1937 record, and the town's own minute is the only account of it the campaign holds.

   W. Thomas ElliottW. Preston LawsFrancis J. Townsend

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

3. 1937 · 1937-06-07

   Ocean City put two more men on the beach for the 1937 season

   'Motion was made & carried that life Guard be increased by 2 men' - the last item of the meeting of 7 June 1937, taken with the season a fortnight off. The Beach Patrol had been seven men in August 1936. The same evening the council dealt with the rest of its public safety: Chief L. B. Cropper, Edw. Powell and Nottingham were present, and the council voted to pay Chief Cropper and Nottingham 'one dollar each a week for use of their Cars for town work'; and after discussing 'the regulation of fast driving on Balto & Phila Ave', it agreed to pass an ordinance forbidding reckless driving and instructed the solicitor to prepare it.

   Ocean City Beach PatrolOcean City Police DepartmentL. B. CropperW. Thomas Elliott

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

4. 1937 · 1937-10-05

   A court took possession of $25,517.55 of Worcester County liquor profits with Ocean City among the towns suing for a share

   The meeting the town solicitor reported on in June — Ocean City, Berlin and Pocomoke together at Pocomoke City on the subject of liquor profits, with Senator Veasey present — became litigation. By the autumn the county commissioners were in court against Pocomoke City, Snow Hill, Berlin and Ocean City over $25,517.55 in accumulated net profits of the county liquor dispensary, of which the court took possession on 5 October 1937. Ocean City's council had unanimously authorised its solicitor on 7 June 'to appear for the City in any legal Proceeding relating to liquor profits and endeavour to obtain Cities Share of Profits'; the suit is what that authority was for. On 17 December 1937 the Worcester Democrat reported the County Commissioners' case against Pocomoke City, Ocean City and Berlin proceeding under Judge Crockett's Decree of Interpleader; Snow Hill abstained.

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

5. 1937 · 1937-12-14

   The town's own online minute archive lists 21 Ocean City council meetings for 1937; the minute pages themselves record 24

   The IQM2 calendar returns 21 meetings for 1 January to 31 December 1937, each with exactly one document, all of them Type=15 summary minutes, 21 PDFs carrying 32 scanned page images between them. Reading those 32 images turns up three sittings that have no calendar entry at all: a regular meeting on 25 May 1937, known only from a letter to the Exchange and Savings Bank quoting a resolution 'passed at our regular meeting of May 25th 1937'; a meeting on 13 September 1937 that awarded the winter garbage contract, written into the same page as the 9 September election result; and a meeting on 23 November 1937 that awarded the comfort station contracts, written in behind the minute of 16 November. The council did not meet at all between 13 July and 30 August, or in October, or in December before the 14th. Ocean City's councillors through 1937 were W. Preston Laws, Dr. F. J. Townsend and William H. Scott, with W. Thomas Elliott as mayor, J. M. Mumford as clerk and Edmond Johnson as solicitor - the same five men, unchanged, as in 1936.

   The archive is an index to the minute book, not a copy of it. Three meetings out of twenty-four are invisible to anyone who trusts the calendar - which is a nine per cent error rate on a source this campaign is about to run through ninety more years.

   W. Thomas ElliottW. Preston LawsFrancis J. TownsendWilliam H. ScottJohn M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

6. 1938 · 1938-05-31

   Ocean City's fight for the county's liquor profits ended in a cheque, and the lawyer who won it charged $915 and was mayor by September

   In 1937 Ocean City, Berlin and Pocomoke went after the Worcester County Liquor Control Board's profits and a court took possession of $25,517.55. On 26 May 1938 the council met in special session and unanimously adopted a resolution appointing Edmond H. Johnson 'its true and lawful attorney for it and in its name to examine the Audit of the books of the Liquor Control Board of Worcester County for the Fiscal Year Ending April 30, 1938 and if in the opinion of said attorney the said Audit shall be found Correct to receive from said Liquor Control Board the amount due', to give a receipt and release, and the payment was to be 'a full and Complete satisfaction of any and all claims which said Mayor & City Council of Ocean City might have for the fiscal year Ending April 30, 1938, to the liquor profits'. Five days later, on 31 May, 'Check was delivered by Attorney Edmund Johnson for the Licor money with bill for legal service of 915.00 and check was drawn to pay Mr Johnson.' The town's share is not stated in the minute; the lawyer's fee is. Nine weeks later he was elected mayor.

   Worcester County Liquor Control BoardFrancis J. TownsendWilliam H. Scott

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

7. 1938 · 1938-08-01

   Ocean City turned out its mayor of four years in August 1938 and elected its own lawyer, on 323 votes cast between two o'clock and six

   The minute of 1 August 1938 records 'A Special town Election was held in Firemans Building for purpose of Electing one person for mayor and three persons for Councilmen to serve two Years'. The returns, filed by the election judges Stephen J. Quillen, Horace O. Cropper and Williams, were: 'For Edmund H Johnson for Mayor 323 Votes. Harold J Rayne for Councilman 219 Votes. E Raymond Bounds 216. C.P. Cropper 199. John D Ayres 149. C Parker Smith 136. Dr. Francis J Townsend 154. No other Votes were Cast. Election held from 2 O'Clock P.M. Until 6 O'Clock P.M.' Six men ran for three council seats and the sitting councilman, Dr. Francis J. Townsend, came fourth and lost. W. Thomas Elliott, mayor since 1934, does not appear on the return at all - no votes were cast for him, and he did not stand. The man who replaced him was the town's own solicitor, Edmond H. Johnson, who nine weeks earlier had been appointed the council's attorney to collect Ocean City's share of the Worcester County liquor profits and had been paid $915 for the work on 31 May.

   A four-hour poll in the firehouse, 323 votes, and the resort changed hands. Ocean City did not so much elect an outsider as promote its lawyer - and the councilman who had spent the year pushing sanitary ordinances the council would not second was the one the voters removed.

   W. Thomas ElliottHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsClifford P. CropperFrancis J. TownsendStephen J. QuillenHorace O. CropperC. Parker Smith

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

8. 1938 · 1938-09-12

   The new mayor of Ocean City was sworn in with a bouquet of flowers and a wish for a 'Successful and Harmony Administration'

   'The new Mayor & Council met Promptly at 8 O'Clock P.M. and were sworn in by Magistrate Stephen J. Quillen. Soon as the Ceremony was completed the New Mayor Ed[mond] Johnson was presented with a large Boquet of Flowers by several ladies and gentlemen who expressed their desire to Mayor Johnson and members of Council for a Successful and Harmony Administration.' The councilmen sworn were Clifford P. Cropper, E. Raymond Bounds and Harold J. Rayne. Cropper was unanimously elected President of the Council and Rayne Treasurer; J. M. Mumford was reappointed City Clerk to June 1939; and William H. Scott, who had sat as a councilman under Elliott, was named City Attorney - so the outgoing solicitor became mayor and an outgoing councilman became solicitor. The council's printed letterhead by 20 October reads: EDMOND H. JOHNSON, Mayor; WILLIAM H. SCOTT, Solicitor; J. M. MUMFORD, Sec.-Treas.; COUNCILMEN: CLIFFORD P. CROPPER, Pres.; HAROLD J. RAYNE, Sec.-Treas.; E. RAYMOND BOUNDS.

   Clifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsHarold J. RayneWilliam H. ScottStephen J. QuillenJ. M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

9. 1938 · 1938-11-22

   On 22 November 1938 Ocean City's council unanimously refused a permit for a Colored Recreation Hall, after six named white neighbours objected

   The application ran seven months and three meetings. On 4 April the council told Charles C. Richards to apply again on the proper form and it would notify every owner and set a hearing. On 10 November his application was 'Continued'. On the evening of 22 November it was the first item of business, and the minute is exact: 'Mr. Richards was present and explained he want to use the property for Colored Recreation Hall. Property owners objected by letter were Nancy Truitt & Ida Corey. And the following were present in Person Objecting to Granting of permit, Will Quillen and Windsor Resort. Council promised Mr. Richards they would decide on application within a week and before adjourning unanimously decided to Refuse permit.' Two letters, two men in the room, and a company. Counting the April objectors, six parties are named against the hall across the year - Trimper Bros., Mrs. Charles Hudson, Mrs. Nancy Truitt, Ida Corey, Will Quillen and the Windsor Resort - and not one person is recorded as speaking for it except Richards himself. The council did not even take the week it had just promised. — 1938 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: THE SILENCE IS NOW MEASURED ACROSS A SECOND COMPLETE NEWSPAPER. The 1938 pass established that the refusal appears in none of the 588 pages of the Democratic Messenger. It appears in none of the 704 harvested pages of the Worcester Democrat and the Ledger-Enterprise (sn89060127) either: the phrase 'recreation hall' returns ZERO pages, 'colored hotel' ZERO, 'colored dance' ZERO, 'Henry Hotel' ZERO, and the only 'Ludlam' in the 1938 run is a white Charles Ludlam of Ocean City whose wife was a Red Cross chairman for the town in November 1938. It also appears nowhere in the 1939 Ocean City minute book, in any of the 25 documents and 47 pages read: Charles C. Richards is not mentioned once in 1939, there is no second application, no appeal, and no permit for any recreation hall to anybody. AND IT IS ABSENT FROM THE BLACK PRESS TOO: a sweep of 59 located 1939 issues of the Baltimore Afro-American with 2,537 queries returns ZERO hits for Ludlam, Sam Ludlam or 'excursion Ocean City', and the seven Charles C. Richards hits spot-checked were column-break false positives.

   This is the clearest thing the campaign has ever found about how segregation actually worked in Ocean City, and it is not a sign on a door. It is a building permit, a hearing, a list of neighbours, and a unanimous vote - the ordinary machinery of a small town's planning power, turned on a Black social hall and used to stop it.

   Windsor Resort CompanyCharles C. RichardsMrs. Nancy TruittIda CoreyWill QuillenClifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

10. 1938 · 1938-12-06

    The town that had burned in 1925 finally banned the wooden roof, in December 1938, after catching builders replacing shingles in defiance of it

    On 22 November 1938 Edward Evans's permit for a wood shingle roof was refused outright and the secretary told to notify him. Then: 'A discussion was had on the numerous Shingle Roofs being renewed against City Demand so a new Ordinance was ordered prepared and Secretary instructed to write the builders that they must secure Building permit before beginning any building and no wood shingles would be allowed for Roofs.' The city attorney, W. H. Scott, was instructed to put notices in the county paper that permits must be obtained before starting building. On 6 December the minute records simply: 'Minutes of Nov 22 were approved and Ordinance passed regarding future Roofs of Buildings.' Ocean City lost most of its downtown to fire in 1925 and had been rebuilding in wood ever since; the ban arrived thirteen years later and arrived because the council noticed people were ignoring an instruction it had never actually enacted.

    William H. ScottEdward Evans

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

11. 1938 · 1938-12-06

    West Ocean City came to look at the bridge plans in December 1938, and Ocean City's new council took no action and sent the plans back

    Five months after the town's own ordinance gave the state North Division and Caroline Streets, the bridge was still being fought. On 22 November 1938 L. Franklin Purnell came before the council 'asking that City take immediate action asking for Another hearing on Bridge location by War Department', and the mayor and the city attorney were appointed to write the authorities 'to ascertain if any thing could be done'. On 6 December the plans themselves were on the table: 'Bridge plans were examined by many people and many were present from West Ocean City. Council took no action on the Bridge plans and secretary instructed to return plans to Engineers office as requested by them.' A room full of mainlanders, a set of federal plans, and a council that looked and did nothing.

    Maryland State Roads CommissionL. Franklin PurnellWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

12. 1938 · 1938-12-13

    Washington told Ocean City in December 1938 that there was no more money for its sewer and water mains

    The whole utility programme of the 1930s at Ocean City had run on federal loans and grants. The minute of 13 December 1938 ends it in one sentence: 'Letter from Government to Mayor Johnson regarding loan & Grant for Sewer & water mains was read stating there were no more money available for Ocean City Projects.' The town had spent the year borrowing to bridge its own cash flow - $6,000 authorised in February, raised to $10,000 in April on notes from the Salisbury National Bank signed by the mayor and treasurer, and on the same December evening the secretary was instructed to borrow again if necessary 'to care for Coupon & Bond retirement at close of year'. The extension of the sewers, which had been laid on the table at the first meeting of 1938 'until financial requirements for 1938 could be Submitted', was still on the table when the year ended.

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

13. 1938 · 1938-12-27

    Ocean City ended 1938 threatening an injunction against a foundation four feet over the building line on the street it had just given the state

    The council's last act of 1938 was a special meeting called by its president on the evening of 27 December. 'The Question of Mrs. L. M. Mumford building over the 8 ft Building Line on Phila. Ave. at Cor. of Caroline St. was discussed and Council notified that Secretary had notified Mrs. Mumford that they had located the foundation over the line by about 4 feet and required Mrs. Mumford to stop the building.' The Mumfords came before the council; Harold Rayne asked whether they could not build to the ordinance, 'as the City did not want to stop them from building and would like them to save time & money by Complying with the City Ordinance'; and 'After debating for some time the Council finally voted unanimously that the building could not go out 4 feet as started and if they did not move in the foundation the City would have to file an injunction and hold up the building.' The corner in question is Philadelphia Avenue at Caroline Street - one of the two streets the town had deeded to the State Roads Commission for the bridge approach in June, on the avenue it had deeded for the Coastal Highway in July.

    Harold J. RayneClifford P. CropperWilliam H. Scott

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

14. 1939 · 1939-06-02

    Ocean City put a price on thirty-five kinds of business in 1939, and the General Assembly had to give it the power first

    On 7 February 1939 the council passed a licence ordinance on third reading, to take effect 1 May, taxing bicycle stations at $250, dance halls at $150 or $25, rolling chairs at $2 a chair and bingo at $500. It was superseded four months later. Chapter 180 of the Acts of 1939 (House Bill 456), approved 3 May and effective 1 June, added Section 147A to the Ocean City sub-title of the Code of Public Local Laws 'relating to additional license fees which may be imposed by the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City'. On 2 June - the day after the act took effect - the council read a new licence ordinance for the third time and passed it unanimously on the motion of C. P. Cropper, seconded by Rayne. The engrossed copy in the minute file is headed 'ORDINANCE NO. ____' and the number is left blank; the clerk's longhand entry assigns one, and the digits read as 154, though the first character is not certain. The new schedule ran to thirty-five heads, made every fee due on 2 June and expiring 1 June following, required the licence to be conspicuously displayed, and fined $25 an offence with each day separate.

    The February ordinance was the town guessing at its own powers; the June one is the town exercising powers Annapolis had just handed it, one day old. That is the whole relationship between a Maryland municipality and the General Assembly in a single pair of dates.

    Ocean City Chamber of CommerceClifford P. CropperHarold J. Rayne

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

15. 1939 · 1939-06-06

    Ocean City's permit machinery in 1939: notify every owner within 250 feet, set a hearing, and see who turns up

    On 2 June the clerk was 'instructed to notify all property owners within 250 ft of Mrs. Dennis' lot of Application for Bicycle' station, 'of a hearing to be held on the application on Tuesday Evening at 8 P.M. June 6th.' He then wrote out the sixteen people notified, by name, in a column: Mrs. E. E. Dennis, Mr. S. J. Carey, Mrs. Thelma Dennis, Mr. Kinnamon, H. D. Cropper, Dr. F. J. Townsend, Edward H. Johnson, Myrtle Brittingham and others. At the hearing on 6 June the applicant, Mr. Roman, 'stated he was not going to operate only during day light and would place lights on Sign to satisfaction of Mayor. No objectors were present or made so clerk was ordered to grant licence.' A bicycle-renting station cost $250 a year, the second-highest fee in the ordinance. — 1940 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The 1939 fact describes the machinery: notify every owner within 250 feet, set a hearing, see who turns up. 1940 runs it twice more and both runs go the applicant's way. Irving T. Faustin's 90-by-75-foot store building at Ninth Street was granted on 14 October over four objecting households named in the minute. Mrs. Bassett's two stores at the Roosevelt Hotel drew three objectors on 6 November, including the mayor's wife, and produced not a refusal but a councilman's compromise - drop back eight feet to the building line - and a site visit the next morning. Across 1939 and 1940 the rule has now been run six times in the campaign's record; it granted a popcorn stand and a bicycle station over live objectors, refused one white man, granted two more, and refused one Colored Recreation Hall.

    Write the sixteen names out and the machinery stops being abstract. This is the same procedure - the same clerk, the same notice radius, the same hearing - that was turned on Charles C. Richards and the Colored Recreation Hall seven months earlier. When nobody objected it produced a licence in four days.

    Ella DennisMr. RomanJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

16. 1939 · 1939-06-30

    The mayor spent the last hour of June 1939 trying to get the piles pulled out of Ocean City's bathing beach

    At the assessment hearing of Friday afternoon 30 June, held from 3 to 4 o'clock and sitting until 5:25, the minute closes: 'Mayor Johnson talked with Dr. Chas Purnell about the cutting off of Piles on Bathing beach and is to write State Department & State Roads Commission asking order be passed to Dr. Purnell ordering the pulling of piles.' The same meeting passed an ordinance on pin ball machines, signed by the president of the council and the mayor.

    Cutting a pile off at the sand leaves the pile. The mayor understood that, could not make the owner understand it, and went over his head to two state agencies in the last week before the season - which is the most exact picture the year gives of what a mayor of Ocean City actually did.

    Dr. Charles Washington Purnell

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

17. 1939 · 1939-07-22

    Ocean City raised its tax rate from 85 cents to a dollar in 1939, and its own budget sheet shows exactly why

    The clerk's typed 'REPORT AS OF JULY THIRTEENTH 1939' sets out the choice in two columns. Estimated 1940 income at the existing rate: licences $5,500, liquor store $3,000, comfort station $400, dog licences $75, water rent $13,500 and 'tax rate at 85cts' $26,477.65. Beneath it, in the same hand as the rest: 'If tax rate at $1.00 ... increase 4,684.29', bringing the total to $54,036.94 against estimated requirements of some $56,700. On Saturday afternoon 22 July the council met for twenty minutes and did nothing else: 'Question of tax rate was discussed and on motion by Clifford P. Cropper seconded by Harold Rayne Levy was passed to make the tax rate $1.00 per $100.' Adjourned 2:30 P.M.

    The striking of the levy had already been postponed once, on 18 July, because Cropper was absent and the mayor would not do it without a full board. Four days later they came in on a Saturday, took the vote, and went home. A town that will not raise a tax three-to-nothing is a town that knows what it is doing to people.

    Clifford P. CropperHarold J. Rayne

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

18. 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.

    Clifford P. CropperE. Raymond BoundsJames D. JarmanCapt. Crawford Savage

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

19. 1939 · 1939-12-11

    Ocean City's last council meeting of 1939 ended with the mayor telling them he would have to resign

    The minute of Monday evening 11 December 1939, the last meeting of the year, closes: 'Mayor Edmond H. Johnson told the Council he would have to hand in his resignation to take effect Dec. 30, 1939.' A line is then interlined above the signature in the same hand: 'Motion by Rayne sec'd by Cropper that Johnson's Resignation be accepted.' The meeting adjourned at 9:45 P.M. Johnson had presided over every one of the year's twenty-five meetings and had personally signed the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company franchise ordinance that same evening. The minute gives no reason. The council did not meet again in 1939. — 1940 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The 1939 fact ends with the mayor telling the council he would have to resign and no successor named. The 1940 record closes it: the office was declared vacant at 2 P.M. on Tuesday 2 January 1940 and filled the same afternoon by Clifford P. Cropper, President of the City Council, nominated by Harold Rayne, seconded by E. Raymond Bounds, elected unanimously for the unexpired term and sworn before J. Edward White, Justice of the Peace. The 1940 minute also gives the effective date of the resignation as 1 January 1940 rather than the 30 December 1939 the December minute anticipated. ⚠ The other half of the 1939 question - WHY he resigned - is NOT answered: the word does not appear again in the 1940 book, and Johnson is not mentioned in any 1940 document except the printed letterhead that had not yet been reset.

    The clerk wrote the resignation in as an afterthought, squeezed between the last motion and his own signature - which is either how fast it happened or how little he wanted to write it down. Whichever it was, Ocean City went into 1940, and into the last two years before the war, without the man who had run it.

    Harold J. RayneClifford P. CropperJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

20. 1940 · 1940-01-02

    Ocean City's council filled the mayor's chair from among itself in a single afternoon sitting, and the man who took it was the man who had been chairing the meeting

    The first council meeting of 1940 opened at 2 P.M. on Tuesday 2 January with three councilmen present and no mayor. Clifford P. Cropper, President of the City Council, presided. 'By reason of the resignation of Mayor Edmond H. Johnson effective as of January 1, 1940, which had been accepted by the City Council, the President of the City Council declared the office of Mayor of Mayor and City Council of Ocean City vacant and asked for nominations for that office.' Harold Rayne nominated Cropper 'to be appointed Mayor to serve until the next election'; E. Raymond Bounds seconded; there were no other nominations, and Cropper was unanimously elected for the unexpired term. He then resigned as President of the Council, took the oath of office as Mayor before J. Edward White, Justice of the Peace, and as Mayor asked for nominations for his own vacated chair, to which Bounds was elected. The meeting adjourned at 4 P.M. The document exists in two forms: the clerk's longhand and a typed carbon on the town's own letterhead, which still prints 'EDMOND H. JOHNSON, Mayor' at its head.

    Three men, two hours, and the whole succession settled by nomination, second and oath - with the outgoing mayor's name still printed on the paper it was typed on. 1939 closed with Edmond H. Johnson saying he would have to resign and no reason given; 1940 opens with the council quietly promoting its own chairman and moving on to the school lunches. The reason he resigned is still not in the record.

    Clifford P. CropperJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

21. 1941 · 1941-06-03

    On 3 June 1941 Ocean City's clerk opened a new minute book and stopped writing by hand — and went on using letterhead that named a mayor who had resigned eighteen months earlier.

    The second page of the 3 June 1941 document is a flyleaf carrying five hand-printed words: 'MINUTE BOOK FOR MEETINGS OF MAYOR & CITY COUNCIL BEGINNING JUNE 3 - 1941'. Everything before it in 1941 — 7 January, 12 March, 21 March, 21 April, 6 May, 12 May — is J. M. Mumford's longhand in a ruled ledger. Everything after it is typed on the council's printed letterhead. Sixty years of Ocean City's record change hands from pen to machine on one Tuesday evening in the middle of the last pre-war season, and the change is worth knowing about because it changes what a later reader can do with the source: a page of Mumford's cursive must be read by eye, a typed page can be read by anyone. It also introduces a trap. The letterhead the town used through 1941 comes from at least three print runs, and the sheets used for the minutes of 15 and 25 September 1941 still carry 'EDMOND H. JOHNSON, Mayor' at the top left and 'CLIFFORD P. CROPPER, Pres.' among the councilmen — although Johnson had resigned with effect from 30 December 1939 and the body of both minutes names Mayor C. P. Cropper. The letterhead of an Ocean City minute is stationery, not evidence of who held office.

    J. M. MumfordClifford P. Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

22. 1941 · 1941-09-29

    Ocean City's council met fourteen times in 1941, none of them in August, and agreed to a fifteenth meeting with its former mayor for which no minute exists.

    The IQM2 archive holds seventeen documents for the town in 1941 and the first week of 1942. Two of them are not meeting minutes at all — a hearing notice of 15 March and an engrossed resolution certified on 26 March — so the year's actual count is fourteen council meetings, on 7 January, 12 March, 21 March, 21 April, 6 May, 12 May, 3 June, 13 June, 30 July, 15 September, 25 September, 31 October, 13 November and 11 December, with a fifteenth sitting reconvened after adjournment on the night of 21 March that appears on no calendar. Every stated weekday in the year's minutes is correct for its date, which is worth recording because it is not usual: 1938 and 1939 each contained meetings mis-filed by the archive, one of them onto a Sunday. What 1941 has instead is a gap. On 25 September the council read 'Letter from Edmond Johnson asking for meeting with Council on Monday Morning at 9 O'clock A.M. Monday Sept.29th' and 'Council agreed to the meeting.' There is no document in the archive for 29 September 1941 and no calendar entry for it. The town's previous mayor, who had resigned with effect from 30 December 1939 for reasons the record has never given, asked the sitting council for a nine o'clock morning appointment; they said yes; and whatever passed between them is not in the book. The other gaps are seasonal and tell their own story — nine weeks between 7 January and 12 March, six weeks over the height of the season between 30 July and 15 September, and no meeting at all in August, the month two Ocean City women were killed on the road west of town.

    Clifford P. CropperJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

23. 1942 · 1942-06-17

    Ocean City's 1942 tax rate was $1.20 per hundred, and by then the town had authorised borrowing $6,000 on notes from a bank in Berlin and sold the bank shares it took in settlement of its frozen deposits.

    Four minutes describe the town's money in 1942 and they run in sequence. On 3 March, 'resolution was offered by Harold Rayne and seconed by Raymond that city borrow on notes as needed up to $6000. from Exchange & Savin[gs] bank of Berlin Maryland, resolution carried' — authorised outside the town's own Bank of Ocean City, which had carried the 1941 note. On 14 April, 'Motion was made by Rayne Seconed by Bounds that city sell the bank shares received in final settlement of the tied up funds, motion carried' — the closing entry on money the town had had frozen, taken at last in stock and turned back into cash. On 17 June the council read the secretary's report of finances and resolved that 'Tax rate for 1942 be struck at $1.20 per hundred and that books be set up at that basis'. And the year's real revenue problem was three years old: on 11 November the council took up 'the question of 1939 taxes' and decided to write the delinquents; on 9 December it handed the statement of tax accounts round and instructed the secretary to have attorney Edmond Johnson write the 1939 delinquents if they had not paid by the last of the month; and on 3 January 1943 it decided to wait on Mr Ernest Hastings and Leroy Cropper until the next meeting. A resort with no visitors was still chasing the taxes of the year before the war.

    Harold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsClifford P. CropperJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

24. 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. ParsonsClarence WrightCharles T. JacksonJohn J. RayneEdward WhiteJ. M. MumfordL. B. CropperRobert Lee Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

25. 1942 · 1942-12-09

    Ocean City's fire hose failed in 1942 and the town could not simply buy more — the War Production Board had to rate it.

    The war reached the fire company through its plumbing. On 11 November 1942 a delegation from the Fire Company came before the council asking 'that the House manager be informed of his duties and that a check of the equipment be made by him on return of apparatus after being used'. The same minute records the substance: hose bought on 23 July 1940 having gone bad, the council decided to ship three sections back for examination and to ask that 600 feet be shipped at once to replace it. Four weeks later, on 9 December, the answer had come from two directions: 'Letters was read from War Production Board reference to rating on hose and from American La-France Foamite Corp. reference to finding of hose returned for inspection.' A town on a barrier island, whose whole history is fire, needed a federal priority rating to replace two-year-old hose. The matter was still unfinished on 3 January 1943, when a letter from Ryder about the hose was read at the first meeting of the new year. That 9 December meeting is the shortest in the 1942 book: convened at 7.30, adjourned at 7.45.

    Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentClifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsHerman D. Parsons

    Source · checked 2026-08-11