Elbridge E. Collins
mayor · active 1920–1922
Mayor of Ocean City for the 1920-1922 term, between Edward M. Scott and William W. McCabe. He led the town through its first full Prohibition-era summers, while it was still a rail-excursion resort of about 700 year-round residents.
In the record (8)
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Chapter 299 of the Acts of 1920, approved 23 April 1920, repealed and re-enacted Section 161 of Article 24 of the Code of Public Local Laws, title "Worcester County," sub-title "Ocean City."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
1921
Elbridge E. Collins is Ocean City's mayor, serving the 1920-1922 term between Edward M. Scott and the long McCabe era.
The Maryland State Archives' roster of Ocean City mayors lists Elbridge E. Collins serving 1920-1922. He was the last mayor before William W. McCabe, who took office in 1922 and held it through the 1925 fire and the 1933 storm. Collins thus presided over the town's early-Prohibition summers, when it was still a rail-excursion resort of a few hundred year-round residents. CONFIRMED CONTEMPORANEOUSLY, 2026-08-10: the Democratic Messenger of 23 April 1921 names "E. E. Collins, Mayor of Ocean City" leading a delegation before the Maryland State Board of Health at Baltimore with W. Lee Carey, Jefferson D. Staton and Dr. F. J. Townsend — Governor Ritchie present. The brief flagged this fact as reading like a secondary-source claim; it was right about the sourcing and wrong about the substance.
Source · checked 2026-08-05
1921
E. E. Collins is named Mayor of Ocean City in a contemporary newspaper - the first primary source the campaign has for Collins in office.
The Democratic Messenger of 23 April 1921 reports an Ocean City delegation before the Maryland State Board of Health in Baltimore and names it: "E. E. Collins, Mayor of Ocean City; W. Lee Carey, Jefferson D. Staton and Dr. F. J. Townsend represented Ocean City at this conference." Governor Ritchie attended the meeting. Until now the campaign's only authority for Elbridge E. Collins's 1920-1922 mayoralty was the Maryland State Archives' retrospective roster of mayors. This is a contemporary Worcester County newspaper naming him in office, in the middle of the term, doing municipal business - and it also supplies three of the men who acted with him.
W. Lee CareyFrancis J. Townsend
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1921
Ocean City has defied a State Board of Health order to build a new sewerage system since 1917, and in April 1921 goes to Baltimore to say it still cannot afford one.
"The question of a new sewerage system for Ocean City, which has been debated by the State Board of Health for four years, again was raised at a meeting of the board Wednesday when a delegation from the Eastern Shore resort came to Baltimore to protest against the board's insistence that a new system be built at once. The State board ordered the Ocean City authorities in 1917 to construct a new sewerage system, but the order was not obeyed. Under the law a penalty of up to $500 for failure to obey such an order in the first instance, and up to $50 a day for each day an order remains disobeyed, can be imposed. Governor Ritchie, when Attorney-General, instituted proceedings against Ocean City for recovery of this penalty, but the case was never brought to trial." The town's delegation "protested that at this time the municipal treasury has not enough money to construct a new system"; the board "maintained its position that a new sewerage system is absolutely necessary at the resort," and its committee was to inspect the existing system the following week, when "the matter may then be brought to a definite issue." A resort of about seven hundred winter residents that filled to many thousands every summer was, in 1921, four years into open defiance of the state's sanitary authority - and the sitting Governor had personally sued it.
Maryland State Board of Health
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1922 · 1922-06-19
A crowd breaks down the cell doors of the Ocean City lockup on the night of 19 June 1922 to free two men arrested for drunkenness.
The Messenger of 24 June 1922, under CROWD ATTACKS OCEAN CITY JAIL — "Breaks Down Cell Doors in a Night Attack. — Bad Feeling Toward A Policeman Held Responsible": the crowd freed a Cropper and Ernest Fosky, both arrested on a charge of being intoxicated. Fosky was rearrested by Special Policeman Clarke and taken to the county jail at Snow Hill; another man, "Jim" Casper of Ocean City, was arrested and also taken to Snow Hill, Clarke claiming he was in the crowd that broke into the lockup. "The attack on the lockup caused excitement among the residents here, and State's Attorney William G. Kerbin and Mayor Collins, of Ocean City, have promised to make a thorough investigation and to prosecute the guilty parties, who beat down the doors and shattered several cell bars in order to reach the prisoners. The attack, it was generally rumored, was due to ill feeling toward Special Policeman Clarke. Friends of the prisoners were said to have charged him with being unnecessarily rough in making the arrests." — 1922 RECTIFICATION, 2026-08-10: Three fuller accounts than the one the fact rests on. (1) Worcester Democrat, 24 June, "CROWD FREES TWO IN OCEAN CITY JAIL": "a crowd of men, probably numbering **75**, broke into the small lockup at Ocean City **Monday morning** and released two prisoners **Samuel Crupper and Ernest Fosky**. Both men had been arrested on the charge of being intoxicated. Later Fosky was rearrested by Special Policeman Clarke and taken to the county jail at Snow Hill. Another man, **Jim Caster of Ocean City**, was arrested and also taken to Snow Hill, as Clarke claims he was in the crowd that broke into the lockup." (2) Wilmington Evening Journal, 20 June, with an Ocean City dateline, "MOB LIBERATES TWO DRINKERS — **Battering Rams and Clubs!** Used to Reach Cells at Ocean City, Md." — and it says Fosky was re-arrested by **Deputy Sheriff Dennis**, not by Special Policeman Clarke. (3) The item ran on the national wire: it appears in a Nebraska weekly and, translated, in a Polish-language Philadelphia daily, in a fuller form than any local account — "A mob of more than 100 men stormed the jail here… Some of the residents of the town, who claim to know members of the mob, say that **there were a number of bootleggers in it**. Three doors were smashed before the mob got to the cells in the **concrete building**. Not content with that they **tore out the bars on the windows and demolished parts of the concrete walls**." Record the crowd size (75 vs more than 100) and the arresting officer (Clarke vs Deputy Sheriff Dennis) as conflicts.
Six weeks before an election nobody bothered to contest, the town's own citizens tore the jail apart over a policeman they did not like.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1922 · 1922-08-07
William W. McCabe is elected mayor of Ocean City on Monday 7 August 1922 with nobody running against him — the first uncontested municipal election there in years.
The Democratic Messenger of 12 August 1922, under MCCABE ELECTED OCEAN CITY MAYOR: "Ocean City Municipal election was without a contest last Monday, the following ticket being unopposed: Mayor — William W. McCabe. Councilmen — E. J. Thomas, Clifford Cropper and John W. Mumford. This is the first time for a number of years that the election at Ocean City has not been a hot contest. All united on Mayor-elect McCabe and those elected with him to serve as Councilmen." This dates the start of the McCabe era exactly. His predecessor Elbridge E. Collins was still in office in June, when the Messenger reported "State's Attorney William G. Kerbin and Mayor Collins, of Ocean City" promising an investigation into the attack on the town lockup. McCabe would hold the office until 1934, through the 1925 fire and the 1933 storm, and would be the man who turned the storm-cut inlet into a permanent harbour.
William W. McCabeClifford P. Cropper
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. PowellEdward M. ScottJames Z. PowellJohn F. Waggaman
Source · checked 2026-08-11