Capt. Joshua J. Dunton

In the record (17)

1. 1892 · 1892-04-09

   Ocean City and Green Run swap keepers, and a visiting reporter prices the job: $900 a year for the keeper, eight months on duty.

   "Capt. Soper, of the Life Saving Station at Ocean City, has been removed to the station at Green Run, and the Captain there, J. J. Dunton, has been transferred to the Ocean City station," the Democratic Messenger reported on April 9, 1892. In September the Bel Air Aegis & Intelligencer printed a long letter from Scott's Beach, Worcester County — "18 miles below Ocean City, on Sinepuxent Bay" — describing the service from the inside: "Each station is in charge of a keeper, whose salary is $900 a year, and seven assistants, who get $65 a month for the time they are on duty, which is from September 1st to May 1st... At nightfall a man, provided with signal lights, leaves each station and patrols the beach in the direction of the next station. Thus these patrols meet and after exchanging checks in proof that they have met, return to their starting points." The Scott's Beach station "is kept by Capt. Adelbert Soper, a broad-shouldered son of Neptune, who has been engaged in the humane work for 14 years and has aided in saving persons from 30 wrecks." The Messenger confirmed the season on August 27: "The life saving station men will resume their duties again Thursday next, the first of September." — 1892 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The keeper swap is confirmed from federal payroll records, and one clause in it should be softened while two figures in it should be re-dated. The Official Register of the United States for July 1, 1891 lists the Fifth District keepers as "Adelbert Soper … Ocean City, Md … $700.00", "John A. J. Hudson … North Beach, Md … 700.00" and "George C. Birch … Green Run Inlet … 700.00". The Official Register for July 1, 1893 lists "Joshua J. Dunton … Ocean City, Md … 900.00", "John A. J. Hudson … North Beach, Md … 900.00" and "Adelbert Soper … Green Run Inlet, Md … 900.00", and the July 1, 1895 edition shows all three unchanged. So Soper did move from Ocean City to Green Run Inlet and Dunton did take Ocean City, exactly as the Democratic Messenger reported on April 9, 1892; North Beach was untouched, so this was not a general reshuffle. Soper's given name Adelbert is confirmed, and Dunton's full name is Joshua J. Dunton. The county paper corroborates the move twice more in its own columns: on September 10, 1892, "Captain Dunton who is in command here is a fine gentleman and every inch a typical life-saving captain. Capt. Hudson of North Beach Station another good man"; and on November 19, in a letter datelined GREEN RUN L. S. STATION, "surfman Gray of this station… returned to the station for Captain Soper and the rest of the crew." TWO CORRECTIONS. (1) The fact says Dunton came from Green Run. On July 1, 1891 the Green Run Inlet keeper was George C. Birch, not Dunton, so either Birch left and Dunton held Green Run for part of one season or the newspaper was loose about where Dunton came from; the biennial Register cannot settle it, and "the Captain there, J. J. Dunton" should be flagged as newspaper testimony rather than established. (2) The $900 salary and $65 monthly surfman's wage are correct for the second half of 1892 but NOT for April 9, when the swap happened: the act of July 22, 1892 raised keepers from $700 to $900 and surfmen from $50 to $65. On the day Soper and Dunton changed places they were $700 men with $50 crews. The eight-month season is right — "Pay of surfmen in District No. 5, from September 1, 1892, to April 30, 1893" — until the act of August 3, 1894 extended it. Finally, the station count: the FY1892 Annual Report's Fifth District table lists seventeen stations, of which exactly THREE are in Maryland — Ocean City ("just north of village"), North Beach ("10 miles south of Ocean City") and Green Run Inlet ("13½ miles northeast of Assateague light"). Fenwick Island is Delaware and was newly established that year; Assateague Beach and Popes Island are Virginia. — 1893 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: The pay figures the campaign took from a Bel Air newspaper feature are half right. The keeper's $900 a year is confirmed exactly by the Official Register of 1 July 1893, which prints $900.00 against every one of the seventeen Fifth District keepers. The crew figure is wrong: the Annual Report for FY1893 says the whole Fifth District was manned "from Sept. 1, 1892, to April 30, 1893; 6 surfmen from Sept. 1, 1892, to Nov. 30, 1892, inclusive, and 7 from Dec. 1, 1892, to Apr. 30, 1893, inclusive" — six men, rising to seven in December, not seven throughout and not eight. Only Hog Island, Virginia carried eight. The eight-month season, 1 September to 30 April, is confirmed. The $65-a-month surfman wage is NOT confirmed by either federal source and remains a newspaper figure.

   United States Life-Saving ServiceCapt. Soper

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

2. 1892 · 1892-07-22

   Congress raises the Worcester County surfmen's pay in July 1892: keepers from $700 to $900 a year, surfmen from $50 to $65 a month.

   The pay figures the campaign has been quoting for 1892 are real, but they belong to the second half of the year. The Official Register of the United States for July 1, 1891 lists the keepers at Ocean City, North Beach and Green Run Inlet — Adelbert Soper, John A. J. Hudson and George C. Birch — at $700.00 each, while the three Delaware bay-side stations drew $800.00. The Official Register for July 1, 1893 lists every keeper in the Fifth District at $900.00 flat. Between the two sits "the act of July 22, 1892, entitled 'An act to fix the compensation of keepers and crews of life-saving stations,'" cited by name in the Life-Saving Service's own appropriation tables; the FY1894 report describes it as "the act of July 22, 1892, increasing the rate of compensation of the crews from $50 to $65 per month." The season the money bought is stated in the same tables: "Pay of surfmen in District No. 5, from September 1, 1892, to April 30, 1893 …… 59,280.00." Eight months on the beach, from September 1 to May 1 — and a later act of August 3, 1894 extended the Atlantic season into August and May, so the eight-month year is correct for 1892 and stops being correct after 1894.

   United States Life-Saving ServiceCapt. SoperCapt. John Andrew Jackson Hudson

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

3. 1892 · 1892-09-15

   Capt. Dunton's first recorded save at Ocean City: three men clinging to an upturned rowboat in the breakers, September 15, 1892.

   From the wreck table of the Annual Report of the United States Life-Saving Service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1893: "Sept. 15 | Rowboat; no name.. | Ocean City, Maryland….. | Capsized in breakers. Rescued the three men clinging to bottom of overturned boat and towed latter ashore." It is the earliest service by the Ocean City crew under Joshua J. Dunton that the federal record carries, two weeks after the station reopened for the 1892–93 season on September 1 — the Democratic Messenger had noted that "the crew of the life-saving station began their annual fall drill and review September 1st, and have been on duty since. Captain Dunton who is in command here is a fine gentleman and every inch a typical life-saving captain." No lives were lost.

   United States Life-Saving Service

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

4. 1893 · 1893-07-01

   On 1 July 1893 Maryland's three life-saving stations are kept by Dunton, Hudson and Soper, at $900 a year each, with six surfmen apiece rising to seven in December.

   The *Official Register of the United States… on the First of July, 1893* prints every federal employee by name, station and pay. Under "Life-Saving Service at Large," Fifth District — "coast of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, from Cape Henlopen to Cape Charles" — seventeen keepers are listed at $900.00 each, and exactly three of them are in Maryland: | Station | Keeper | Born | Appointed from | Salary | |---|---|---|---|---| | Ocean City, Md | Joshua J. Dunton | Maryland | Maryland | $900.00 | | North Beach, Md | John A. J. Hudson | Maryland | Maryland | $900.00 | | Green Run Inlet, Md | Adelbert Soper | New Jersey | Maryland | $900.00 | The district superintendent was Benjamin S. Rich of Daugherty, Accomac County, Virginia, at $1,500; the assistant inspector, Lieut. John W. Howison, drew "None." The station on either side of the Maryland three are Fenwick Island, Delaware and Popes Island, Virginia; the next after that is Assateague Beach, Virginia, kept by James T. Tracy — which is the printed federal confirmation that Assateague Beach is a VIRGINIA station and does not belong in a count of Maryland's. The crews are in the *Annual Report* for the fiscal year ending 30 June 1893, under "Employment of surfmen, season of 1892–'93": the whole Fifth District was "Manned from Sept. 1, 1892, to April 30, 1893; 6 surfmen from Sept. 1, 1892, to Nov. 30, 1892, inclusive, and 7 from Dec. 1, 1892, to Apr. 30, 1893, inclusive." So an eight-month season, as the campaign has it — but six men to a station until December, not seven and not eight. Only Hog Island, Virginia had eight. The same report's station list gives the three Maryland stations by latitude and longitude — Ocean City at 38° 20′ 00″ N, 75° 05′ 00″ W; North Beach at 38° 11′ 30″ N, 75° 09′ 20″ W, "13¾ miles northeast of Assateague light"; Green Run Inlet at 38° 04′ 30″ N, 75° 12′ 50″ W, "10 miles northeast of Assateague light." A station of the United States government was still officially named for Green Run Inlet decades after Green Run Inlet had closed.

   United States Life-Saving ServiceCapt. John Andrew Jackson HudsonCapt. Soper

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

5. 1894 · 1894-09-01

   The county paper names the coast's stations and eight of its men — and reports that the surfmen's pay was cut five dollars a month in the same year their season was lengthened.

   "In compliance with orders from headquarters the crews of Ocean City, North Beach, Green Run, Assateague, and other Life Saving Stations along our coast, went on duty Wednesday of last week at sunset. On Thursday one of the editors of the MESSENGER and a party of three other gentlemen from Snow Hill, witnessed the crew of Green Run Station go through the regulation drill, under Captain Soper... It is a shame that the pay of the men occupying such hazardous positions has been cut down five dollars a month. It is true the time of service has been extended, but many of the men would greatly prefer to be off duty longer and get their old pay." Across the year the paper names, in its North Beach and Ocean City columns: Capt. J. A. J. Hudson, keeper at North Beach, who fetched "the new boat wagon" down from Ocean City in March and was himself capsized in the bateau Florida Timmons in April and "rescued by the Life Saving Crew"; Capt. Dunton, who "put a neat fence around the Life Saving Station" at Ocean City in March; Capt. Soper at Green Run; surfmen William Taylor (off duty in January with a sore foot; moved his family from Berlin down to the beach in December "so long as he stays in the Life saving service"), Curtis Baker of Berlin, William Mumford, and Everitt Truitt of Ironshire, who "left last week to assume his duties in the Life Saving Station on Green Run beach." Lieutenant J. W. Howison, assistant inspector of life-saving stations for the district, visited North Beach in February and was at Chincoteague in April; the district superintendent paid the North Beach men in person that same month. The crews came off duty on 1 May, "leaving only the captain in charge of the station."

   Eight named men and four named stations, assembled out of a year of village-gossip columns — and the year's real news is in the last sentence of the September item. Congress lengthened the season and the Treasury paid for it by taking five dollars a month off the surfmen. The men would rather have had the money.

   United States Life-Saving ServiceCapt. John Andrew Jackson HudsonCapt. Soper

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

6. 1895 · 1895-08-21

   The seven drowned went down 'directly opposite the place where it is being urged to locate a life-saving station' — and Capt. Dunton said a station there might have saved them.

   The Smyrna (Del.) Times of 21 August 1895 places the disaster exactly and turns it into an argument: 'The distressing drowning accident in Isle of Wight bay, or Assawoman bay, as it is sometimes called, happened at a point 6½ miles north of Ocean City, directly opposite the place where it is being urged to locate a life-saving station... Captain Dunton, of the Ocean City lifesaving crew, says that if a lifesaving station had been there on Saturday last if not all of the lives lost might have been saved.' The campaign for that station was already seven months old. On 9 February the Messenger had run 'A NEW L. S. S. — Movement on Foot for Another Life Saving Station,' commending Francis Henry Purnell, Clerk of the Circuit Court for Worcester County, and W. Lee Carey for urging a new station on the coast above Ocean City in Washington; on 10 August the two men put the case to Superintendent Kemble of the Life-Saving Service himself, arguing that the work of the men at the existing stations 'is the most arduous in the service,' that men had quit from overwork, and that the stretch was 'the scene of many wrecks.' Kemble promised to make an examination of the beach. In October the paper reported that John Walter Smith was 'already using his influence to have another Life Saving Station erected along our coast.'

   United States Life-Saving ServiceFrancis Henry PurnellW. Lee Carey

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

7. 1897 · 1897-07-01

   The Ocean City life-saving crew, named for the first time: Keeper Joshua J. Dunton at $900 a year and seven Worcester County surfmen at $60 a month.

   The roster the campaign has been owed for five years, from the Official Register of the United States for 1 July 1897 (Vol. I, "Life-Saving Service at Large", Fifth District, pp. 289–290). Keeper Joshua J. Dunton, born Virginia, appointed from Worcester County, Maryland, $900.00 a year. Surfmen, in the order printed: Baldwin F. Williams, John S. Pruitt, William Taylor, Robert C. Quillin, Albert C. Carey, Thomas B. Birch — each at $60.00 a month — and Samuel J. Massey at $65.00. All seven were Maryland-born Worcester County men. The register has no rank column; the $5 premium is how the No. 1 surfman (the boat-steerer) is identified in every other station block on the same page, so Massey is very probably the No. 1 surfman, but the document does not print the rank. The same pages give the two other Maryland stations: North Beach under Keeper John A. J. Hudson, and Green Run Inlet under Keeper Adelbert Soper — the man Dunton had swapped posts with in April 1892. Fifth District Superintendent Benjamin S. Rich sat at Daugherty, Va., at $1,600. Assateague Beach is listed under Virginia, and Maryland has exactly three stations in 1897; Isle of Wight, added in FY1898, is the fourth.

   Eight men held the ocean front of Maryland, all of them from the county, six of them paid the same sixty dollars a month. This is what the town's only public institution actually consisted of.

   United States Life-Saving ServiceAlbert C. Carey

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

8. 1898 · 1898-04-13

   Two sturgeon fishermen drown on the bar half a mile below the life-saving station; surfman Albert C. Carey takes out a second dory and dives, fully clothed, to save a sinking man.

   At about 6.20 on the morning of 13 April 1898 a dory carrying Charles W. Powell, Frank Parker, William J. Purnell and Joshua Quillin capsized on the bar some 150 yards offshore, half a mile south-southwest of the Ocean City Life-Saving Station, Fifth District, coast of Maryland. The crew fished sturgeon for a local firm; the weather was clear with a light northwest breeze but the surf was too high for a fishing boat. Surfman Albert C. Carey, on patrol to the southward, saw two dories preparing to launch, ran to argue them out of it, and reached the second boat only as the first swamped. He asked leave to take charge of the second dory; Thomas Richardson and John W. Quillin went with him. They pulled Joshua Quillin aboard, then reached William J. Purnell, who had already sunk two or three feet below the surface — 'Carey now rose up, and with all his clothes upon him dived boldly into the water beneath the sinking man and bore him to the surface and alongside the boat.' Purnell was resuscitated on the sand and moved to the station; Keeper Dunton and the crew took over the care of the rescued men and telegraphed for Dr. Edwin J. Dirickson of the Marine-Hospital Service at Berlin. Powell's body was recovered from the surf about a mile below the station, tangled in the seine; Parker's two days later, six miles south. Dr. Dirickson wrote to the General Superintendent on 21 April commending Carey's 'noble effort... at the imminent peril of his own life.' The Wilmington Evening Journal carried the story from Ocean City on 14 April.

   The service's own annual report calls Carey's judgment 'faultless.' If he is the Albert C. Carey elected to the city council in 1896 — the only resident on that board — then the town's councilman spent the following spring diving under a drowning man in an April surf.

   United States Life-Saving ServiceAlbert C. CareyEdwin J. Dirickson

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

9. 1899

   What 1899 says about the Ocean City life-saving station: a seventh man taken on in January, the crew on duty from 1 August, morning drills watched by the summer crowd, and a station standing between the Atlantic and the Plimhimmon.

   Four scattered notices in the county paper assemble the year's picture of Station No. 4. 28 January, Ocean City column: "Mr. Frank Quillin has been made seventh man in the Life Saving Station. Mr. Quillin's family is occupying the cottage owned by Dr. Paul Jones of Snow Hill." 4 March: "The crew of the Life Saving Station found a very valuable piece of timber on the beach this week. It is a large mast of a vessel and made of white pine." 5 August: "The morning drills of the men employed in the Life Saving Station at this place, who went on duty August 1st, are always largely witnessed and are both instructive and interesting." And a standing advertisement of George W. Covington's, running through March, fixes where the station stood: "CHOICE Building Lots At Ocean City. For Sale: One of the two lots just above the Life Saving Station, about mid-way between Atlantic and Plimhimmon Hotels." Along the coast the same year the paper names Capt. Long at Fenwick Island, Capt. Jones at Isle of Wight, Capt. John A. J. Hudson at North Beach and John Quillin of Green Run station.

   Ocean City Life-Saving Station MuseumAtlantic HotelPlimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaUnited States Life-Saving Service

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

10. 1899 · 1899-07-22

    Two Washington brothers drown off Ocean City on 22 July 1899, and their twelve-year-old brother — who could not swim — marks the spot with a hatchet on a rope and sails a mile alone to the life-saving station.

    James and Arthur Birney, eighteen and sixteen, sons of Arthur Alexis Birney of Washington, capsized while sailing and drowned trying to get back aboard. "The youngest of the brothers, William, who is twelve years of age, was not able to assist his brothers, as he could not swim. After waiting for them for some time, he marked the spot by staking a hatchet tied to a rope with a float on its other end, and steered the boat to the nearest shore." He beat the boat back against a stiff wind to the Isle of Wight life-saving station a mile away and telephoned Ocean City. "The gayety of this city was suddenly changed to that of gloom Saturday afternoon by the circulation of a report that two boys … were drowned … In a few minutes the station here was crowded with weeping parents who had boys out, and feared it was their sons who had met a sad fate." Twelve or fifteen sailboats went out; the searchers came in at dark; at four o'clock the next morning Capt. Dunton of the Ocean City life-saving station went to the scene and after several hours' hard work recovered both bodies, which were laid out at the station and taken to Washington. — 1899 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: THE AGES AND THE MECHANISM ARE WRONG. The Democratic Messenger's own account, read whole in the Worcester portal filming, gives three brothers: "William, twelve years old; James, fourteen years old, and Arthur sixteen years." The published fact says James and Arthur were eighteen and sixteen, following the Evening Star. The boat did not capsize: "They had just turned their course homeward and were 'beating' back when James' hat blew off, and in his effort to get it he fell overboard. His older brother jumped over to rescue him. He swam to him, and after great effort managed to get him nearly to the side of the boat, when he became exhausted and could not go further, so the two went down together." The buoy the youngest boy built is described here as "a hatchet, a rope and a shingle." The Messenger also says the bodies were recovered the following morning by the Isle of Wight crew and searching parties and taken to the Ocean City life-saving station, "where they were prepared for burial by Mr James B. Wise and sons, of Berlin, and on Monday were taken to Washington."

    Sources disagree on this.

    Ocean City Life-Saving Station MuseumUnited States Life-Saving Service

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

11. 1900 · 1900-11-25

    A 506-foot British steamer mistakes Fenwick light for a passing ship and drives ashore beside the Isle of Wight station.

    Before dawn on Sunday 25 November the British steamship Margaret Jones, Capt. Thomas Thomas, twenty-four days out of Cardiff for the Delaware Breakwater to load grain at Philadelphia, ran onto the Maryland beach about five miles north of Ocean City, within a hundred yards of the Isle of Wight Life-Saving Station. She was making about twelve knots in a dense fog with a strong easterly gale; the captain had turned in at midnight leaving the mate in charge; the mate took the Fenwick Island light for the light of an approaching steamer and altered course to pass to port of it, turning the ship straight at the shore. She "plowed a furrow through the sand twenty feet in length" and stuck so far up the beach that visitors walked to her bow at low tide. Capt. John Jones of the Isle of Wight station, with Capt. Long of Fenwick's and Capt. Dunton of Ocean City and their crews, boarded her; patrolmen South and Truitt of the Isle of Wight crew were near the spot when she came ashore. The tugs North America and Spartan raced from the Breakwater to claim the job and arrived together. The ship — 506 feet, 41 feet beam, steel, triple expansion, built 1893, owned by W. H. H. T. Jones of Wales — lay tight and easy while wreckers laid anchors and cables; "hundreds of visitors came from all directions to see the craft." By 28 November three tugs were readying "an extraordinary effort to float her on the high water to-night," and on Saturday 1 December the North America, the Spartan and the Somers N. Smith got her off: "She was found to be uninjured, and was towed" away, lying off Ocean City awaiting orders on the 3rd. Eight days ashore, and no lives lost.

    Ocean City's biggest wreck of the year was a grain tramp beached by a mate who mistook a lighthouse for a ship, and the town treated it as an off-season attraction.

    United States Life-Saving ServiceCapt. John Jones

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

12. 1903 · 1903-03-14

    The Ocean City life-saving crew charges its keeper with neglect, liquor at the station and a punitive Christmas Eve — Washington sends a judge, takes ten days of testimony, and keeps Capt. Dunton in post.

    Democratic Messenger, 14 March 1903: "There seems to be a considerable scrap on between the Captain of the Ocean City Life Saving Station and the crew of the same. Lawyer Clayton J. Purnell as the representative of Dunton and William G. Kerbin representing the crew have been at Ocean City for the past ten days engaged in examining witnesses for the belligerents. The men charge Captain Dunton with neglect of duty, ungentlemanly conduct toward the crew, keeping liquor at the station and with compelling them to perform unnecessary duties last Christmas eve. In regard to the last charge Captain Dunton claims that the men were intoxicated and what he did was for the good of the men and the service. The whole affair is to be regretted." The outcome came on 11 April: "The surfmen's charges against Keeper Dunton, of Ocean City L. S. S., which were under investigation for ten days by Judge Summers, who was sent from Washington by the Life Saving [Service] to take the testimony at Ocean City, have been passed upon with the result that the keeper has been retained." Dunton had been keeper since at least 1892 and was still in post in September 1903. The town's ex-mayor defended him; the crew's lawyer was the same William G. Kerbin who a year earlier had been on the other side of the town's business.

    United States Life-Saving ServiceClayton J. PurnellWilliam G. Kerbin

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

13. 1903 · 1903-06-10

    Three hundred and fifty surfmen convene at the Atlantic Casino in June 1903 and stage a wreck off the beach — and their notice records that Ocean City, Md., is a SIXTH District station, not a Fifth.

    The Surfmen's Mutual Benefit Association held its annual meeting at Ocean City on 10–11 June 1903, in the theatre of the Atlantic Casino. The Messenger's advance notice of 30 May: "As this is the first time the Association has met in the Sixth District the members of the Life-Saving Service in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia are desirous that this year's convention shall be the most interesting in the history of the Association. There will be addresses by the General or Assistant General Superintendent of the Life Saving Service, members of Congress and other noted men. There will be exhibition drills of the Service on the afternoon of June 10th." The report of 13 June counted "about 350 members of the life[-saving] service of the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina [districts]," brought in part by a government steamer, and described the drill: "Three long poles, representing masts, were settled in the ocean about 200 yards from shore and rigged to represent a stranded vessel, and from this men were brought ashore in the breeches buoy." Berlin's column adds that the town "was well represented at Ocean City on Wednesday" for it. **The district number matters.** This campaign has carried a standing warning that Ocean City, Md., is Station No. 4 of the FIFTH District; by 1903 that is wrong. The U.S. Life-Saving Service annual reports for FY1903 and FY1904 both place Ocean City, Md., in the "SIXTH DISTRICT — COAST BETWEEN DELAWARE AND CHESAPEAKE BAYS," and put the FIFTH District wholly on the coast of New Jersey — where a different Ocean City station sits. A Maryland newspaper and two federal volumes agree.

    The best free show on the beach in 1903 was the government drowning a pretend ship twice a day.

    United States Life-Saving ServiceSurfmen's Mutual Benefit AssociationAtlantic Casino Company

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

14. 1903 · 1903-09-29

    29 September 1903: a seven-man fish boat capsizes on the Ocean City bar coming in from the pounds and George Cropper drowns, a hundred yards from a life-saving crew already on the water.

    The U.S. Life-Saving Service's annual report for the fiscal year ending 30 June 1904 records the death in full, from the testimony of the witnesses. The boat "left the beach just after sunrise to get the fish which they expected to find in a pound about a mile and a half off shore. The sea was heavy, the surf breaking high on the beach, and the wind stiff from the northwest, but the hardy men who engage in fishing along that shore took no especial note of the conditions, and all testify that they gave no thought to danger. Right on the bar, however, which they reached on their return at a little past 8 o'clock, a much heavier sea than usual made up and broke under the stern of the boat, which rising on top of the wave, took a rank sheer and turned over, throwing all hands into the surf." Cropper was amidships, clinging to the hull, when a second sea "str[uck] it in about that place, knocking him off and sending him drifting along the bar. He cried for help and his comrades perceived his half-paralyzed condition, but the circumstances were such that they could do no more than put forth their best efforts, each for his own preservation." Captain Charles Ludlam, in from his own pound and watching from the beach, launched and "in five minutes, it is stated, he had all hands in his boat, but Cropper was apparently dead when taken from the water." Captain Christopher Ludlam, a former keeper in the Service, began resuscitation ashore; Keeper Dunton and the Ocean City crew — out on the bar pulling for drill when they saw the capsize — rowed in and joined him. "All their efforts, however, proved unavailing." The Service's finding: the crew "reached the scene as soon as was possible and did all they could to save life and property, and in no respect failed in the performance of their duty."

    The nearest thing 1903 had to a lifeguard was seven men rowing a drill, and it was not enough.

    United States Life-Saving ServiceGeorge Cropper

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

15. 1905 · 1905-10-16

    Pile-driving for the Ocean City pier starts on 16 October 1905 — 900 feet of hickory piles, a 120-by-70-foot convention and dancing hall at the shore end, and a pavilion at the far end.

    "Building Ocean City Pier. Active operations began Monday, the 16th instant, on the construction of the pier at Ocean City, giving employment to a great number of workmen. The beach in the neighborhood of the [locality] where the pier is being constructed is strewn with stout timbers, including hickory piles for the structure. The builders claim that hickory trees cut at the season of the year when the bark will remain are more durable than iron or steel in salt water. The building of the pier will be continued throughout the winter … The plans call for a pier 900 feet long and 130 feet wide. At the shore end there will be a hall for conventions and dancing, 120 feet long by 70 feet wide. At the other end of the pier will be another pavilion. From the shore the pier will extend over the outer bar into deep water." Robert Lee Purnell was promoter and general manager. At the company's annual stockholders' meeting, reported 16 December, Capt. Christopher Ludlam was re-elected president, Calvin B. Taylor treasurer and R. Lee Purnell secretary, with Taylor and John W. Staton as counsel, and "the pier will be completed for the opening of the coming season."

    Ocean City Pier and Improvement CompanyRobert Lee PurnellChristopher LudlamCalvin B. TaylorWilliam T. TaberThomas J. CropperJohn L. JohnsonJoseph SchaeferDavid J. AdkinsCol. L. L. Dirickson

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

16. 1906

    Ocean City lots in 1906: $200 for a bare corner on Baltimore Avenue, $1,060 for oceanfront next to the Life-Saving Station.

    The Worcester County real-estate transfer column gives a run of 1906 Ocean City prices. In March, John D. Showell bought from Elizabeth R. Talty et al. a lot "situate in Ocean City, fronting on Atlantic Avenue and immediately north of the Government Life Saving Station" for $1,060. In February, Daniel Trimper, Jr. bought from Edward M. and Elizabeth M. Scott a lot with improvements on Caroline Street for $1,200. In November, Clayton J. Purnell bought from Joshua J. Dunton — the Ocean City life-saving keeper — the vacant lot at Baltimore Avenue and North Division Street for $200, and announced he would "erect thereon a two story house before next summer"; the same column records Robert L. Purnell buying the lot at the south-east corner of Baltimore Avenue and Caroline Street from the Markoes for $500, and Joshua J. Dunton buying a lot in or near Ocean City on the Sinepuxent Beach from Joseph C. S. Blackburn, Trustee. In January, Mary L. Dean bought a piece of ground with buildings in Ocean City from Katherine E. Malone for $6,500 and William B. S. Powell a tract in Ocean City on Synepuxent Beach for $1,400, while William J. Quillin, Jr. paid $375 for a house and lot at Talbot Street and St. Louis Avenue. And in December, William B. S. Powell bought from Joshua J. Dunton and wife a lot with buildings "in or near Ocean City, on the Sinepuxent Beach" for $1,000, while Edward M. Scott bought a lot with buildings on Sinepuxent Beach from the Ocean City Development Company for a nominal consideration.

    John D. ShowellDaniel W. Trimper, Jr.Clayton J. PurnellJoseph C. S. BlackburnWilliam B. S. Powell

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

17. 1907 · 1907-06-23

    Capt. Joshua J. Dunton, seventeen years head of the Ocean City life-saving crew, dies suddenly at Pocomoke City, aged 48.

    The Washington Evening Star of 26 June 1907 reported: "Capt. Joshua J. Dunton, forty-eight years old, for seventeen years the head of the lifesaving corps at Ocean City, died suddenly Sunday at Pocomoke City. Until last summer, when he retired, he had been actively engaged at the lifesaving station." This is the first source in the campaign to give the keeper's full first name; earlier records carry him only as Capt. J. J. Dunton. He was transferred to the Ocean City station from Green Run in April 1892, survived a formal investigation into his conduct in 1903, and by this notice served until his retirement in 1906.

    Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

    Ocean City Life-Saving Station MuseumUnited States Life-Saving Service

    Source · checked 2026-08-06