Capt. James Scott

In the record (6)

1. c. 1871

   The region's beach resort in 1871 isn't Ocean City — it's Capt. James Scott's Ocean House on Green Run Beach, Assateague, 'decidedly on the boom.'

   A 1906 Democratic Messenger retrospective, 'Old Days at Scott's Beach,' recalls that 'from the year 1865 up to the year 1876 the place was decidedly on the boom': a bayside hotel on the east side of Green Run Beach opposite Watermelon Point, with a 'spacious hall for dancing purposes,' ten-pin bowling, bay bathing, and dawn ox-cart excursions across the island to the ocean. Guests came from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Wheeling, Ohio, and the lower Shore counties, by hack from Snow Hill to Public Landing and then aboard the sloop Fairfield. Scott's boom years ended almost exactly when Ocean City's began — the railroad-fed new town killed the sloop-fed old resort.

   Ocean City wasn't the first beach resort on this coast; it was the one the railroad picked. Scott's Ocean House is the road not taken, and it's now inside a national seashore.

   Source · checked 2026-08-05

2. 1871 · 1871-08-03

   "A grand boat race, and barrow roll at Green Run beach near Snow Hill, on the 3rd of August" — the coast's beach resort throwing a party in 1871.

   The Smyrna Times of August 2, 1871, under "Maryland Items": "There is to be a grand boat race, and barrow roll at Green Run beach near Snow Hill, on the 3rd of August." Green Run Beach was the site of Capt. James Scott's Ocean House, the bayside hotel that a 1906 memoir remembered as "decidedly on the boom" from 1865 to 1876. This is the only contemporary 1871 notice of activity at Green Run found in Chronicling America, and it corroborates the retrospective account with a dated event: a regatta and a wheelbarrow race on the beach the summer before Ocean City existed. Green Run is now inside Assateague Island National Seashore.

   In 1871 the party on this coast was thirteen miles south, at a hotel you reached by sloop. The wheelbarrow race is the detail that makes it real.

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

3. 1874 · 1874-12-12

   A bride of a few weeks drowns crossing the Synepuxent on the way to Capt. James Scott's Ocean House.

   The Eastern Shoreman of Salisbury reported that on a Saturday morning in December 1874 Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Truitt, married only a few weeks, "started to cross the Synepuxent to visit Captain James Scott, proprietor of the Ocean House." They were alone in a flat scow-like sailing boat. More than half way across Mrs. Truitt complained of the cold; her husband left the tiller in her hand and stepped into the little cabin to make a fire. "He had scarcely entered the cabin when he heard the sail jibe, and sprang on deck only in time to see his wife carried overboard by the sheet-rope, which caught round her neck in passing." He put the boat about and reached for her as it flew past, and missed. Beyond the tragedy the item is evidence that Scott's Ocean House was a going concern and a destination for social visits in the winter of 1874.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

4. 1875 · 1875-12-06

   The steam yacht Rambler, home from Jamaica with bananas, goes to pieces on Synepuxent Beach — all nine aboard saved.

   "The steam yacht Rambler, eighty-three tons, Goslin, master, fifteen days from Annatto Bay, Jamaica, with bananas for Philadelphia, ran ashore on Synepuxent Beach, four miles north of the Government life saving station at Green Run, at 1:30 o'clock on Monday morning last, and became [a] wreck. Her crew consisted of nine persons all told. All were saved. She was under sail at the time she struck and making 12 miles per hour. Captain Goslin was sick in his berth at the time, and is still at Scott's Ocean House receiving medical aid. The Rambler has gone to pieces, and nothing will be saved from her of any material value." — Snow Hill Shield, via the Wilmington Daily Gazette, December 8, 1875.

   Everyone lived, the ship didn't, and the sick captain convalesced at Scott's Ocean House — the Assateague resort that Ocean City was about to bury.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

5. 1892 · 1892-06-20

   Scott's Ocean House at Green Run Beach opens June 20 at $1.50 a day, accommodates 250, and keeps beach ponies for sale.

   The season's standing advertisement in the Democratic Messenger: "GREEN RUN BEACH. SCOTT'S OCEAN HOUSE. WILLIAM T. SCOTT, PROP'R. With the broad Atlantic Ocean on one side and the placid waters of the Synepuxent Bay on the other, this is one of the healthiest resorts on the Atlantic Coast. It cannot be equaled for fine bathing, fishing, gunning, crabbing, boating and many other pleasures. A sail on the Bay may be enjoyed at any time. There is quiet for the invalid and sport for the sportsman at Green Run. OPENS FOR THE SEASON ON JUNE 20. This hotel is situated about 100 feet from Chincoteague Bay and only a short distance from the Ocean; with a large shady lawn in front... The TABLE is always supplied with Oysters, Clams, Fish, Game and every fresh and salt water luxury. Terms, $8 per week: $1.50 per day. Accommodations for 250 guests. BEACH PONIES ALWAYS ON HAND FOR SALE. All parties of five or more will be met by our yacht and conveyed free of charge to the Beach from either Ocean City, Public Landing, Stockton, Girdletree or Franklin City, if we are notified." In June the paper added: "Scott's Ocean House at Green Run Beach has been newly painted inside and out and newly furnished." Two hundred and fifty beds at $1.50 a day, on the barrier beach fifteen-odd miles south of Ocean City, with a yacht service to fetch you — this is the competition the resort was beating in 1892, and the Ocean View House at Public Landing on the Sinepuxent bay was undercutting both at "$1.25 per day; $7.00 per week."

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

6. 1892 · 1892-09-13

   Capt. James Scott dies and the beach he ran is auctioned: 50 beach ponies, 75 cattle, 50 sheep, three yoke of oxen and the yacht Fairfield.

   An Accomack County paper caught his final illness: “James Scott, proprietor of the Green Run Hotel, here for medica[l] treatment for several weeks p[as]t, i[s] very ill” (Peninsula Enterprise, 6 August 1892). He died that week — the Wilmington Evening Journal of 6 August reported the death of “Captain Scott, proprietor of Green Run Beach and Scott's Ocean House,” of whom it wrote “prior to the opening of Ocean City his house was always full of guests” — and the administrators' sale advertised in the Democratic Messenger settles the name the 1892 pass could not find. "By virtue of an order of the Register of Wills of Worcester County, the undersigned will sell at public auction, commencing on TUESDAY, Sept. 13th, 1892, and continuing from day to day until the entire estate is disposed of. Beginning at the late residence of James Scott, late of Worcester county, deceased, on Green Run Beach, and continuing on the farm where John W. Figgs now resides, on the bay shore, all the Personal Property of which said James Scott died possessed" — household and kitchen furniture, feather beds, and then the beach itself in livestock: "50 Head of Fine Beach Ponies. 75 Head of Fine Cattle. 50 Head of Fine Sheep. One Fine Young Mare. One Pair of Young Mules. Three Yoke of Fine Oxen. A Lot of Hogs. Two Large Sail Boats. One Large Monitor" — and the boats by name: "The Fairfield is a large, safe, and commodious fast-sailing yacht with capacity to carry 50 persons or more, especially adapted to carrying passengers and gunning clubs. The Lillie May is a large, safe, and commodious Cat Boat comparatively new." The administrators were James S. Price and William T. Scott. A week earlier the paper had told the county how to get there: "the Administrators have made all the necessary arrangements to convey people over to the beach at the small sum of 25 cents for the round trip."

   Source · checked 2026-08-11