Edward M. Scott
mayor of Ocean City · active 1918-
Elected mayor of Ocean City at the municipal election of Monday 5 August 1918, on a single citizens' ticket nominated at a town meeting the previous Tuesday. He succeeded William B. S. Powell, who stood on the same ticket for councilman. Nothing else about him appears in the 1918 Maryland corpus: the Democratic Messenger's report of the result survives only as a headline, the body of the story being lost to a faded microfilm frame. Three separate papers in one week of May 1919 style him Mayor of Ocean City — an independent confirmation, from a different year and different titles, of the 1918 election that the registry had missed.
In the record (8)
1918 · 1918-08-05
Edward M. Scott is elected mayor of Ocean City, and W. B. S. Powell -- mayor since 1912 -- goes onto the council.
The Messenger of 27 July 1918: "New Mayor And Council For Ocean City. Last Tuesday night a Citizens' meeting held at Ocean City [nominated the] following ticket to be voted for at the election to be held Monday, August 5th. For Mayor, Edward M. Scott. For Councilmen: William B. S. Powell, Christopher Ludlum, E. E. Collins, Dr. Frank Harmonson, L. D. Lynch." Two weeks later the paper's page-five headline: "Scott Elected Mayor Of Ocean City, Md." This matters beyond the town: the campaign's registry has carried W. B. S. Powell as mayor of Ocean City from 1912 to 1921, and the 1918 election ends that. Powell did not leave public life -- he stood on the same ticket for councilman, and won -- but from August 1918 the mayor of Ocean City is Edward M. Scott. Note also that the whole thing is settled by a single "Citizens' meeting" nominating one uncontested ticket: this is a town of a few hundred winter residents running itself by acclamation.
W. B. S. Powell was mayor from 1912; in August 1918 Edward M. Scott was elected mayor and Powell became a councilman
The Commissioners of Ocean CityWilliam B. S. PowellChristopher LudlamDr. Frank J. Harmonson
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1919
The mayor of Ocean City in 1919 is Edward M. Scott — not W. B. S. Powell.
Three independent papers name him in the same week. The Democratic Messenger of 10 May, the Annapolis Evening Capital of 7 May and the Cambridge Daily Banner of 6 May all list the first party over the new bridge as including "Edward M. Scott, Mayor of Ocean City." The Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum's own chronology likewise places the 4 July 1919 bridge opening in Scott's mayoral term. This corrects a date the campaign has carried: William B. S. Powell, who bought the Atlantic Hotel in 1913 and was mayor from 1912, was still advertising as the Atlantic's proprietor in the Washington Evening Star all through the summer of 1919 — but he was no longer mayor. Ocean City votes in even years, so the election that put Scott in was 1918 or earlier; the town has published no municipal accounts since 1912 and no 1918 or 1919 election return has been found.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1920 · 1920-02-05
"The worst storm in the history of this place" — on 5 February 1920 the ocean crossed the sandbar into Sinepuxent Bay for the first time in living memory, and Mayor Scott put the loss at $300,000.
The dispatch, datelined Ocean City, Md., 5 February, went out on the wire and ran in Cambridge, Annapolis, Alexandria, Washington and Wilmington: "The worst storm in the history of this place is now raging. For the first time in knowledge of anybody here, the ocean has rolled over the sand strip on which the town is built into Sinepuxent Bay. There is no building that has escaped damage from the beating of waves. E. M. Scott, Mayor of the town, estimates the property loss at $300,000. Loss of life was only prevented by the life guards stationed here under Capt. William I. Purnell. The guards have been on the alert night and day since Sunday, when the storm began, and since yesterday afternoon have been constantly taking persons from houses destroyed by wind and the beating of the waves." All day the town was without fresh water: a buoy broke from its ocean moorings, drifted in and struck the water main. It was repaired that night. This was a three-day Atlantic gale that also wrecked Rehoboth Beach and broke the Indian River inlet, and it is the largest single disaster in Ocean City's record between the founding and the 1933 hurricane.
United States Coast GuardCapt. William I. Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1920 · 1920-04-23
Three months before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, Maryland re-enacted Ocean City's charter with the words "the male citizens of Ocean City" untouched — and set the town's election for the first Monday in August 1920.
Chapter 299 of the Acts of 1920, approved 23 April 1920, repealed and re-enacted Section 161 of Article 24 of the Code of Public Local Laws, title "Worcester County," sub-title "Ocean City." The re-enacted section reads: "The male citizens of Ocean City above the age of twenty-one years being citizens of the United States who have resided within the corporate limits of said town six months next preceding the election, and all male persons above the age of twenty-one years being citizens of the United States, who own any real estate in the corporate limits of said city, shall on the first Monday in August, 1920, and every second year thereafter elect by ballot one person to be Mayor of said city and three persons to be City Councilmen of said city, all of whom must be owners of real estate therein and at least two of said Council must be bona fide residents of said city, to serve two years from the second Monday in September next after their election." It fixes the succession rules, and provides that a tie is broken by the sitting Councilmen. The first Monday in August 1920 was 2 August; the Nineteenth Amendment was certified on 26 August. Maryland never ratified it. So Ocean City's last all-male municipal election was held sixteen days before American women got the vote, under a franchise the General Assembly had deliberately reopened and left as it was that spring. Elbridge E. Collins's term as mayor, dated 1920-1922 by the state's roster, begins on the second Monday in September 1920 — 13 September — exactly as this section prescribes.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1920 · 1920-07-14
Edward M. Scott was still Mayor of Ocean City in July 1920, three weeks before the election that replaced him.
Two independent 1920 sightings fix Scott in office. On 5 February the storm dispatch quotes "E. M. Scott, Mayor of the town" putting the property loss at $300,000. On 14 July the Cambridge Daily Banner has the Secretary of the State Board of Health and the Attorney General of Maryland "in Ocean City on Sunday in conference with Mayor Edward M. Scott and other officials of the town." Under Chapter 299 of 1920 the town voted on the first Monday in August — 2 August 1920 — and the winner took office on the second Monday in September. The Maryland State Archives roster used by the 1921 pass has Elbridge E. Collins as mayor 1920-1922. So the change of mayor falls in that gap, and the 1919 pass's open question — when Scott's term ran — now has both ends: elected 5 August 1918, still in office 14 July 1920, out by mid-September 1920.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1920 · 1920-07-14
The State Board of Health put a resident inspector in Ocean City for the rest of the 1920 season and sent an expert from Baltimore to kill the flies.
The Cambridge Daily Banner, 14 July 1920, under "STATE BOARD TO AID OCEAN CITY CLEAN UP — Campaign On Flies To Start. Expert In Stamping Out Winged Pests Will Probably Be Sent From Baltimore — Sanitation And Sewerage To Be Improved": "That the State Board of Health will co-operate with the Ocean City authorities in improving sanitation and sewerage facilities of the resort, so as to eliminate some of the objectionable features complained of, was the statement made yesterday by an official of the board. Dr. John S. Fulton, secretary, with Attorney-General Alexander Armstrong, who is ex-officio a member of the board, were in Ocean City on Sunday in conference with Mayor Edward M. Scott and other officials of the town. It was decided to send a representative of the board to Ocean City who will reside there during the rest of the season and who will co-operate with Dr. Francis J. Townsend, the local health officer, in whatever is contemplated for the amelioration of conditions. One feature already planned is the elimination of flies at the resort and a drive to this end will be undertaken with vigor." Twelve years after the town borrowed $30,000 for waterworks and sewerage, the state was in town on a Sunday telling the mayor his sanitation was an "objectionable feature."
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1934 · 1934-12-24
The town secretary sat down and wrote out every mayor Ocean City had ever had — 1892 to 1934, on one page
On 24 December 1934, on Mayor and Council letterhead, secretary and treasurer J. M. Mumford typed a circular beginning: 'I occasionly have an inquiry as to who had served our city as Mayor and their election. So thinking probally others might be interested I have carefully gone over our old records and listed the names and years each served.' What follows is the town's own succession list: three commissioners elected 2 May 1892 — John F. Waggamon, William C. Franklin and William B. Wilson, with Wilson president of the board and Franklin secretary-treasurer; then Wilson elected mayor 7 May 1894; George M. Upshur 1 May 1896; James Z. Powell 1 August 1898; Clayton J. Purnell 6 August 1900; John F. Waggamon 1902, 'Resigned Oct. 20th 1903 remainder of term filled by Capt. Cristropher Ludlam'; Ludlam 1904 and 1906; W. Lee Carey 3 August 1908 and 1 August 1910; William B. S. Powell 1912 and 3 August 1914; Capt. John B. Jones 7 August 1916; Edward M. Scott 5 August 1918; E. E. Collins 2 August 1920; 'William C. McCabe served to Sept 1934'; and 'Aug. 6th 1934 William T. Elliott, 2 years.' The document survives because Mumford filed a copy in the minute book, where it sits as the last item of the 1934 record.
The most useful thing in the 1934 minute book is not a decision at all. It is a clerk answering the same question often enough that he finally wrote the answer down — and in doing so he left the campaign a primary-source succession list for forty-two years of a town whose own books were supposed to have been mutilated in 1896.
John M. MumfordWilliam W. McCabeClayton J. PurnellW. Lee CareyWilliam B. S. PowellElbridge E. CollinsJames Z. PowellJohn F. Waggaman
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1941 · 1941-12-11
Four days after Pearl Harbor and on the day Germany declared war, the Ocean City council sat down and organised a home defence council — eleven departments, twenty-two names, and a Department of Evacuation.
The 1940 minute book does not mention the war once, in the year of the fall of France. The 1941 book does not mention it either — until 11 December. The council met at 7:15 on Thursday evening with Mayor C. P. Cropper and Councilmen Harold Rayne and Raymond Bounds, granted a building permit to Chas. S. Powell for a two-apartment dwelling on the alley between 11th and 12th Streets, let the English Diner move to a site next to the Post Office on Dr. Chas. W. Purnell's ground, and resolved to borrow from the Bank of Ocean City to meet bonds and coupons due 1 January. Then: 'Mr. S. Earl Tromley, John I. Timmons and Miss Lena Riggin were present to help in organizeing home defence council and the following were selected to head the orginization.' Those three were not helpful neighbours. As the Worcester Democrat printed a week later, they were the entire executive of the Worcester County Council of Defense — Tromley its Executive Director, Timmons its Chief Air Raid Warden, and Miss Lena H. Riggin its Executive Secretary, all three of Snow Hill — going town to town. They were carrying an order. The same paper prints the telegram that sent them: 'Supplementing my telegram December 10, immediate arrangements must be made to hold blackouts just as quickly as possible. No delay in this matter, as conditions are very serious. Let me know when ready. Col. Henry Barrett, Director of air raid Precaution Service for Maryland.' The roster Ocean City adopted that night, verbatim from the minute: John B. Lynch, Commander. Harold Rayne and L. B. Cropper, Dept. of Public Safety. J. M. Mumford and Robert Allen, Dept. of Public Works. Dr. F. J. Townsend and Guy R. P. Dennis, Dept. Public Health. Archie Davis and Morris Peacock, Dept. Fire Protection. D. Trimper Sr. and Denard Baker, Dept. Transporation. Arthur Davis and Preston Laws, Dept. Gen. Supplies. Rev. Dewees and F. W. Truitt, Dept. Evacuation. Willie Ludlam and Gladys Jackson, Red Cross. E. M. Scott and Chas. J. Jackson, Communication. Bob Jackson and Wm. H. Purnell, Air Wardens. The council adjourned at eleven. Pocomoke City's mayor and council met specially the same Thursday evening and resolved to organise a Civilian Defense Corps of their own, and Pocomoke's published department list — Public Safety, Evacuation, Transportation, Communications, Public Works, Fire Protection, General Supply, Public Health — is the same scheme under the same headings. So the eleven departments were a template handed down, not a local invention; what Ocean City supplied was twenty-two names, and the names are the whole value of the document. By 18 December the county could report that Home Defense Corps in Snow Hill, Pocomoke City, Berlin and Ocean City were 'now complete in every detail', and Mayor Clifford P. Cropper sat on the county council himself.
Ocean City Home Defense CouncilWorcester County Council of DefenseBank of Ocean CityClifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsJohn B. LynchS. Earl TromleyMiss Lena H. RigginGladys JacksonMorris PeacockWillie LudlamFrancis J. TownsendArchie DavisL. B. CropperRobert AllenJ. M. MumfordDaniel Trimper, Sr.W. Preston LawsF. W. TruittWilliam H. Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-11