Granville Stokes
landowner · active 1879–1880
Buyer of the Ocean City beach parcel conveyed to him by Stephen Taber in a deed of August 28, 1879. The south line of his land is one of the two boundary lines the 1880 town charter used to fix Ocean City's corporate limits — which makes an otherwise undocumented purchaser one of the two men whose property lines defined the original town.
In the record (5)
1880 · 1880-04-10
The 1880 charter draws the town as a strip between two Stephen Taber deeds, anchored on the Ocean City Bridge Company's bridge.
Section 2 of Chapter 209 fixes the corporate limits: "Beginning at a point in Synepuxent Bay at or near the easternmost end of the Ocean City Bridge Company's bridge," south along the bay to the south line of the land Stephen Taber conveyed to Granville Stokes by deed of August 28, 1879, east across Atlantic Avenue to the ocean, north along the surf to the north line of the land Taber conveyed to Hillary E. Pitts, Benjamin Jones Taylor and George W. Purnell, trustees, by deed of July 28, 1876, then north 76 1/8 degrees west across the beach to the bay and back down to the bridge. The commissioners were ordered to have "a survey made by a competent surveyor of all the streets and avenues of said town" and to set a stone at the north and south sides of every east-west street at its intersection with Atlantic Avenue. The original town of Ocean City is, legally, the ground between two parcels Stephen Taber sold — the same New York congressman who patented the 280-acre beach tract in 1869.
Ocean City Bridge CompanyThe Commissioners of Ocean CityStephen TaberDr. Hilary R. PittsB. Jones TaylorGeorge W. Purnell
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1881 · 1881-12-31
"Fifty dollars reward" — Granville Stokes and others of Ocean City go after the fire-lighters shooting geese and ducks at night on the Isle of Wight Bay.
A standing notice in the Democratic Messenger from the end of December 1881 into January 1882: "Fifty dollars reward will be paid for the detection and conviction of the person or persons shooting wild geese and ducks in the night time by fire light, on the Isle of White Bay, St. Martin's River, or Grays Creek, it being in violation of the law. GRANVILLE STOKES, And others, Ocean City." Ocean City's residents policing their own waters against market gunners — fire-lighting, blinding waterfowl with a lantern from a skiff, was the most effective and the most hated method on the bay. Fifty dollars was three weeks of a life-saving surfman's pay.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1889
After the storm the town physically retreats: cottages hauled 120 yards inland, the post office and the buildings facing the Atlantic jacked up five feet.
The Messenger's Berlin and Ocean City column of October 12, 1889: "Mr. Eugene Adkins, of Berlin, has received the contract for raising and removing the buildings at Ocean City. He is now engaged in moving the cottage of Col. Stokes back from the ocean front to Baltimore street, 120 yards from its present location. The post office and all the buildings facing the Atlantic Hotel will be raised about 5 feet, and no doubt the cottages will all be moved back from the fury of the breakers." Two weeks earlier the paper had reported the decision being taken: "Mr. Granville Stokes, of Ocean City, finding that the waves approach his residence too close for comfort, has decided to move it back in line with the Episcopal Church." John Willett, meanwhile, had bought one of the storm's wrecks and was "busy getting the spars out of" it.
The first documented retreat from the Ocean City oceanfront: not a seawall, not a jetty, just a Berlin contractor with jacks and rollers moving the town a hundred and twenty yards west. Everything the island has since spent on holding the line began as an admission that it could not.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1889 · 1889-04-03
"OCEAN CITY BOOMING" — by April every hotel is let, every cottage is rented, and the county paper says the boom it predicted has arrived.
A special dispatch datelined Ocean City, April 3, ran in the Democratic Messenger under the headline "OCEAN CITY BOOMING. Hotels all to be in Operation this Summer. COTTAGES ALL RENTED. A Bright Out-Look for our City by the Sea." It reported that "Ocean City has become the centre of extensive real estate speculations of late. The 'boom' the MESSENGER predicted some time ago is in fair prospect of being a reality." Spofford had signed for the Atlantic; the Seaside's proprietor had had several applications and would open under new management; "a party from Baltimore is negotiating with Mr. Selby with the object of renting Congress Hall. It is in a splendid location and is next to the Atlantic in size"; W. Purnell had rented the Ayers Cottage from G. G. Stokes; the Goldsboro Cottage had two applicants; "nearly every house is rented for the coming season"; and the railroad had rented the Excursion House and would "fix it up for use during the summer season" and "put on a first-class fast train service on their road for Ocean City travel." Congress Hall — shut and advertised for sale since 1884 — did open, about July 1, under Selby, Powell & Co.
Three seasons earlier Congress Hall was a hundred empty rooms in a Philadelphia classified. In 1889 the whole beach was spoken for by April.
Atlantic HotelCol. Wm. B. R. Selby
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1896 · 1896-10-12
The October 1896 storm washes away the board walk from Congress Hall to the south end — the first documented destruction of Ocean City's boardwalk.
Under the head "A DISASTROUS STORM — Ocean City Cottages Surrounded by Water and the Surf Beats Over the Beach," the Democratic Messenger of October 17, 1896 printed a dispatch from Ocean City written on Monday, October 12: "This has been a very stormy day at Ocean City, the tide having washed all the boardwalk away from Congress Hall down to the south end. A portion of the walk above the Atlantic Hotel is up. The Stokes and Taber cottages are surrounded by water. Mrs. Stokes moved over to the mainland. All the cottage people have left the front, except Captain Hobbs, of the Eastern Shore House, and Trimper, of the Seabright Hotel." The tennis court was washed away; "no material damage was done to the Colonial or Maryland cottages." The dispatch closes: "At 3.45 o'clock this afternoon the storm was about over, but the surf was still breaking over the beach. All the board walk south of the life-saving station has been torn up, but not much damage was done to other property." Two structural details come free: the front walk stood "about ten feet higher than the bay," and "the Atlantic Casino is all right and the walk in front of it intact." The paper credits the town's relative escape to shoals "about five miles east of Ocean City" on which "all the tremendous gales which wreck the Jersey coast spend their fury." This fills the campaign's 1896 gap in the board-walk thread and dates the walk's extent: a continuous front walk running past the Atlantic Hotel and the life-saving station, from Congress Hall to the south end of town. — 1896 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Confirmed, and the north end the record was missing is now partly supplied — by a second dispatch on the same page that the 1896 pass did not use. The Monday dispatch gives the south: 'the tide having washed all the boardwalk away from Congress Hall down to the south end. A portion of the walk above the Atlantic Hotel is up.' A later dispatch dated Oct. 15 gives another landmark: 'At 3.45 o'clock this afternoon the storm was about over, but the surf was still breaking over the beach. All the board walk south of the life-saving station has been torn up, but not much damage was done to other property.' The rest of the inventory: 'The Stokes and Taber cottages are surrounded by water. Mrs. Stokes moved over to the mainland. All the cottage people have left the front, except Captain Hobbs, of the Eastern Shore House, and Trimper, of the Seabright Hotel. Congress Hall is surrounded. The kitchen chimney of the Plimhimmon Hotel was blown down and broke the roof in. The tennis court is washed away. No material damage was done to the Colonial or Maryland cottages nor any of the cottages along the front. The walk between the Atlantic Hotel and the Meyer's cottage is nearly all gone, the bank cut away, and the water, which runs over the bank with the high tide, flows back to Baltimore avenue, as the front walk is about ten feet higher than the bay is generally.' And the paper's explanation for why the town got off lightly: 'Ocean City, as usual, has fared better than most of the ocean resorts, owing to the presence of "Little and Great Gull shoals," about five miles east of Ocean City.'
Source · checked 2026-08-06