History

I. N. Mills

railroad officer · active 1880

Officer of the Delaware Division of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad who hosted a fifty-man excursion of Maryland and Delaware politicians, judges and editors to Ocean City in July 1880 — the kind of comped press-and-influence trip the railroads used to build the resort's reputation. Sources of the same month style him variously superintendent of the Delaware division, general agent of the Delaware division, and superintendent of the Delaware railroad.

In the record (1)

  1. 1880 · 1880-07-14

    Fifty prominent Marylanders ride a railroad agent's free special to Ocean City in July 1880 — forty miles in an hour, and dinner at Congress Hall.

    "An excursion to Ocean City was given to a number of gentlemen from Maryland and Delaware this week by I. N. Mills, Esq., superintendent of the Delaware division of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad. The company was composed of about fifty gentlemen," among them Congressman Stevenson Archer, Judge J. D. Watters, Major Wm. H. Dallam, Col. Otho S. Lee, Hon. Murray Vandiver, Thos. G. Hayes and a working press contingent from the Harford Republican and the Baltimore Herald. The party left Baltimore about eight in the morning and reached Ocean City at 2:30 in the afternoon "after a run of 237 miles from this city"; the Ocean City correspondent of a Wilmington paper reported that "the train which brought the delegation here made the quick time of forty miles in an hour." On arrival the excursionists split among the three hotels — "the Atlantic Hotel, John Tracy, proprietor; Seaside Hotel, S. J. Massey & Co., proprietors; and Congress Hall, Wm. B. R. Selby, proprietor" — dined together at Congress Hall on Thursday, and held a meeting in the parlors of the Seaside afterwards. The same correspondent: "Crowds are daily arriving, and the season promises to be a remunerative one for the capitalists who have invested their money in Ocean City."

    Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore RailroadJohn TracyS. J. MasseyCol. Wm. B. R. Selby

    Source · checked 2026-08-06