Franklin Upshur

In the record (3)

1. 1926 · 1926-07-10

   A Franklin Upshur of Berlin runs for Congress on the Volstead law, and traces his movement to a Home Rule Convention for the Eastern Shore held at Ocean City in August 1925.

   Worcester Democrat, 10 July 1926, page 1: 'WORCESTER COUNTY MAN IS CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS — Franklin Upshur, Of Berlin, Will Oppose T. Alan Goldsborough In September Primaries — WILL MAKE CAMPAIGN ON VOLSTEAD LAW ISSUE.' 'The movement on the Eastern Shore to voice dissatisfaction with present conditions began last August with the Home Rule Convention for the Eastern Shore of Maryland, which was held at Ocean City. That convention framed and adopted a State rights platform containing seven resolutions, one of which specifically demanded a repeal of all laws which vest or attempt to vest the Federal Government power over such local matters as education, roads and prohibition. The last plank pledged the efforts of the members of the convention to see that the First district 'shall be represented in the next Congress by a man who is sincerely and consistently in [favour of] all the principles of this [platform].' Mr. Upshur was chairman of the committee which presented the resolutions. Other members of the committee were O. C. Blades, E. C. Bowers, H. S. Holden, Jr., William McKenney, Jr., Charles E. Robertson, Dr. H. C. Tull and J. Thomas Taylor, Jr. The officers of the convention were J. H. C. Legg, president; H. W. Hambleton, secretary, and J. Shiles Crockett, temporary chairman.' Upshur: 'Our local option law for Worcester county prohibited the sale of liquor containing more than three per cent of alcohol, and that limit was regarded by its framers as non-intoxicating. I have always been at a loss to understand why the Volstead law should stultify our national Government in the eyes of its people by enacting the lie of one-half of one per cent.' Ocean City in the 1920s is where the Eastern Shore goes to hold a convention, and in August 1925 the convention it held was a states-rights, wet, anti-federal one.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1936 · 1936-03-17

   Ocean City had the only high school in Worcester County without a gymnasium, and in 1936 the town went to Snow Hill to ask for one

   A delegation of Ocean City residents representing the town's civic organisations - Dr. Charles W. Purnell, Capt. W. I. Purnell, Franklin Upshur and others - waited on the Board of County Commissioners at Snow Hill at five o'clock on Tuesday 17 March 1936 and asked for about $8,000 in the next annual levy toward a gymnasium annex at Ocean City High School, promising to raise the balance of the $11,000 estimated cost themselves. 'Every High School in Worcester County has gymnasium facilities except Ocean City, the Commissioners were informed.' The commissioners promised favourable action and asked for an accurate estimate and the Board of Education's approval; the June levy carried $5,000 for a Recreation School building at Ocean City, to be paid only if additional WPA or federal funds were secured. Two days after the delegation, the town's Parent-Teachers' Association appointed a Gymnasium Finance Committee and voted to ask the Board of Education to require all pupils in District 10 to attend the Ocean City school.

   County Commissioners of Worcester CountyBoard of Education of Worcester CountyDr. Charles Washington PurnellCapt. William I. Purnell

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

3. 1936 · 1936-11-17

   The new boardwalk was specified in creosote and no old lumber: 8-inch piling two feet down, caps 8 by 10, and a deck of dense square-edge sound lumber at $57.55 a thousand

   Ocean City's boardwalk committee - Dr. C. W. Purnell, Horace O. Cropper, Edgar J. Ijams, John B. Lynch, Franklin Upshur, Edmond Johnson and Capt. W. I. Purnell - met the council three times in November 1936 to choose what the new walk would be made of. On 9 November they decided unanimously that it should be built of creosote piling and caps: piling of 8-inch butts driven two feet down, caps 8 by 10 for the 24-foot walk and 6 by 8 for the 16-foot walk; the motion was made by H. O. Cropper and seconded by Dr. C. W. Purnell. On 10 November representatives 'from the Wolmanized Salts people', Mr. Clifton of the Wood Preserving Corporation of Baltimore and Mr. Powell of the Adkins Company came to argue the various treatments of lumber and were asked to quote prices. On 17 November their bids were opened: Adkins at $53.25 a thousand for Wolman treatment, $60.50 on round square edge, $62.00 on long leaf and $52.00 on short-leaf heart at 85 per cent heart; the Wood Preserving Company at $57.55 a thousand Wolman treated and $66.00 for creosote stringers. Capt. Purnell moved and Dr. C. W. Purnell seconded that the city buy creosote stringers; Franklin Upshur moved that dense structural square-edge sound lumber be bought for the decking at $57.55, and that no old lumber be used in the construction of the new walk. — 1937 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The specification is now documented from the outside as well as from the minutes. Democratic Messenger, 11 March 1937: 'Fine creosoted-treated piles with the specially chemical-treated sills and stringers placed on the pilings, have been driven. Fourteen-inch drift iron pins have been used in the construction of the sub-walk. The boardwalk will be so strongly built ... that it will take a very severe storm to tear it from the 18-foot pilings.' The lower section, from Dr. F. J. Townsend's drug store to the Coast Guard Station, was finished by 21 January 1937 and 'guaranteed for twenty years'; top decking was Southern pine, delayed by floods in the middle West; and the walk was storm-tested and held on 26 April 1937.

   This is the moment the Ocean City boardwalk stops being a wooden sidewalk that keeps washing away and becomes an engineered structure: pressure-treated piling, specified caps, and a rule against reusing a single old board.

   Ocean City BoardwalkDr. Charles Washington PurnellCapt. William I. Purnell

   Source · checked 2026-08-11