F. Joseph Miller
merchant and hotel keeper · active 1882-
Berlin merchant who in September 1882 moved his family to Ocean City and announced he would keep the Seaside Hotel open through the winter — the earliest documented attempt to run an Ocean City hotel out of season. He had been ill with bronchitis that spring and was negotiating the sale of his Berlin business stand to C. Mumford & Co. at the same time.
In the record (1)
1885 · 1885-09-10
After a dismal 1884, all three hotels open for 1885 and the season 'turned out very well.'
The Delaware Gazette and State Journal of September 10, 1885 ran the season's obituary under the head 'Close of the Ocean City Season': 'The season at Ocean City, Md., has about closed for this year. The Atlantic has discharged most of its waiters ... the Seaside has also discharged [its] orchestra. When the season began it was thought that it would [be an] extraordinarily poor one, but it turned out very well. As all three hotels were open the [arrivals were] very ... but the registers show that the resort was very well attended.' The Seaside Hotel's own season-long advertisement, running in Virginia's Peninsula Enterprise from July into September under the proprietorship of Parsons & Nicols, makes the comparison explicit: 'Notwithstanding the well-known fact of the Atlantic seacoast resorts being poorly patronized last summer, THE SEASIDE was comfortably filled during the season.' The house dates the resort's own age in the same copy: Ocean City 'has been visited in the past ten years by thousands of health and pleasure seekers annually.' Meanwhile the Synepuxent House was being kept by F. Joseph Miller — the Berlin merchant who in 1882 had moved his family to the beach to winter the Seaside — and was recommended to Delaware readers as 'a boss place.'
1884 was a bad year on the whole Atlantic coast. 1885 was the year Ocean City found out it could survive one.
Source · checked 2026-08-06