History

Frank Salea

candidate for the Ocean City council, 1940 · active 1940

Stood for one of the three Ocean City council seats at the municipal election of 5 August 1940 and polled 127 votes, one fewer than Robert Lee Cropper's 128. Three seats were filled; he missed the last of them by a single vote. He appears nowhere else in the 1940 minute book. The Democratic Messenger of 8 August 1940 reported the result three days later and named him too, and its OCR reads the name as "Frank Sacca" - so two independent records of the same man disagree about his surname and neither has been read from the object itself rather than from a transcription of it.

In the record (2)

  1. 1940 · 1940-08-05

    Ocean City's 1940 election was decided by one vote: the third council seat went to Robert Lee Cropper on 128 against Frank Salea's 127

    'An Election was held in Firemens Building Monday August 5th 1940 for purpose of electing one person for Mayor and three persons for City Councilmen for a term of two years from 2nd Tuesday of September 1940 to 1942.' The polls were open from 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. The returns were filed with the clerk by three election judges, Stephen J. Quillin, Horace H. Richardson and Thomas L. Savage. For Mayor: Clifford P. Cropper 167, Charles W. Purnell 97, C. Parker Smith 2, John B. Lynch 3. For City Council: Harold J. Rayne 208, E. Raymond Bounds 189, Robert Lee Cropper 128, Frank Salea 127, Talbot E. Bunting 91. Three seats were to be filled, so Rayne, Bounds and Robert Lee Cropper took them and Salea missed by a single vote. The new mayor and council were sworn in by Magistrate J. Edward White at nine o'clock on the evening of 10 September, and organised by electing Bounds President of the Council and Rayne Treasurer, and reappointing J. M. Mumford Secretary and Wm. H. Scott attorney.

    Four men stood for mayor and 269 votes were cast for them; five stood for three council seats and 743 votes were cast, so the same electors were plainly splitting their tickets. The mayor the council had appointed in January was confirmed by the town in August with a comfortable majority over the doctor who owned the Atlantic Hotel - and the last seat on the board turned on one elector, in a town whose whole year-round population the census had just put near a thousand.

    Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentClifford P. CropperDr. Charles Washington PurnellHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsRobert Lee CropperJohn B. LynchJ. Edward White (magistrate)William H. ScottJ. M. Mumford

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

  2. 1940 · 1940-08-08

    The county paper printed Ocean City's election three days after it happened and put a figure on the town's whole electorate: 271 votes cast out of 600 eligible

    The Democratic Messenger of 8 August 1940 confirms the minute book almost line for line: 'Mayor Clifford P. Cropper, of Ocean City, won re-election for a two-year term as chief executive of the Maryland resort, in the Ocean City Municipal election held on Monday. Cropper defeated his lone opponent, Charles W. Purnell, in the Mayoralty race, by a vote of 167 to 97 - a majority of 70 ballots. Only 271 votes were cast out of a total of 600 eligible. In the Councilmanic contest, E. Raymond Bounds and Harold J. Rayne, incumbents, were re-elected, the third Council post going to Robert L. Cropper.' Its official list gives Rayne 208, Bounds 189, Robert L. Cropper 128, and the fifth candidate 127, with Talbot E. Bunting last. And it says outright what the clerk left the reader to work out: 'Candidate Frank Sacca fell short one vote to tie R. L. Cropper for the third Council seat.' Two differences from the minute book are worth keeping. The paper calls Purnell Cropper's 'lone opponent' and prints no line for C. Parker Smith's 2 votes or John B. Lynch's 3, which the clerk recorded. And the paper's 271 votes cast does not equal the 269 mayoral votes the clerk added up.

    Six hundred eligible voters. That is the whole political weight of Ocean City in 1940 - fewer people than registered for the draft in the same town ten weeks later - and 271 of them turned out to decide a council seat by one vote. The most useful thing in the paragraph is the denominator, which the minute book never gives and which nobody in this campaign has had before.

    Clifford P. CropperDr. Charles Washington PurnellRobert Lee CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond Bounds

    Source · checked 2026-08-11