History

Frank H. Phelps

trustee in bankruptcy, Ocean City Development Company · active 1907–1908

Appointed trustee in bankruptcy of the Ocean City Development Company after it was adjudicated bankrupt, with its own consent, on 9 November 1907. In January 1908 he petitioned Judge Morris of the United States District Court and won an injunction stopping the foreclosure sale of the company's Ocean City land under John F. Waggaman's $59,000 mortgage, on the ground that the property would not fetch its value and that no one but the mortgagee would bid. By the end of 1908 he was selling the company's Atlantic Avenue frontage himself — one parcel to Robert D. Grier for $1,500.

In the record (1)

  1. 1908 · 1908-01-04

    The Ocean City Development Company is in bankruptcy, and a federal judge stops the foreclosure of John F. Waggaman's $59,000 mortgage on its land.

    Under the head "SALE OF LAND STOPPED — Trustee Of The Ocean City Company Granted An Injunction," the Democratic Messenger of 4 January 1908 reported that on the petition of Frank H. Phelps, trustee in bankruptcy of the Ocean City Development Company, Judge Morris of the United States District Court had granted an injunction "restraining the sale of property of the company on January 8 next under foreclosure of a mortgage to John F. Waggaman, of Washington. The mortgage is for $59,000." The sale had been advertised by John W. Brawner of Washington and John W. Staton of Snow Hill, trustees, on a petition filed in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County. Phelps swore the property could not fetch its full value at that moment and that creditors would do better if the trustee sold later; Nicholas P. Bond deposed that "it would be practically impossible to obtain any bidder for it now other than the mortgagee." The company had been adjudicated bankrupt, with its own consent, on 9 November 1907 — three weeks into the Panic of 1907. This is the clearest Ocean City evidence of the panic yet found, and it fixes Waggaman's position at the start of 1908: no longer the town's proprietor but its largest mortgage creditor, about to be told by a federal court that nobody but him would bid. By December 1908 Phelps was conveying the company's Atlantic Avenue frontage — one parcel to Robert D. Grier for $1,500. In the same year's Berlin column, "Mr. and Mrs. John Waggaman and family, of Washington, have rented a cottage on Sinepuxent avenue for the summer," and a "Miss Waggaman" was working as stenographer at the Atlantic Hotel.

    Ocean City Development CompanyJohn F. Waggaman

    Source · checked 2026-08-06