John B. Lynch

In the record (9)

1. 1940 · 1940-01-02

   The first money Ocean City voted in 1940 was twenty-five dollars towards lunches for school children

   Immediately after the new mayor had been elected and sworn in on 2 January 1940, 'John B. Lynch appeared before the Council asking for help towards furnishing lunches for school children. The Council donated the sum of $25.00 for this purpose.' Lynch appears three more times in the 1940 record: on the committee the mayor appointed in May to see whether the boatmen, hoteliers and shopkeepers could work together on advertising, on the Advertising Committee itself in the same month, and on the ballot for Mayor in August, where he received three votes.

   Twenty-five dollars, voted in the same sitting that filled the mayor's office, in a town that would raise its tax rate twenty cents six months later because a well had to be paid for. It is the smallest item in the year and the only one about children.

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

2. 1940 · 1940-04-01

   All sixty-two sheets of the 1940 census for Ocean City and West Ocean City have now been read, and they show what the town's minute book never says: Black households living inside the corporate limits, street by street, alongside white ones.

   The 1940 pass reached six of the sixty-two manuscript sheets for enumeration districts 24-22, 24-23, 24-24 and 24-25 and produced the campaign's first named Black households — three of them, on the last block of South Division Street. All sixty-two have now been read. The picture is an order of magnitude larger. Inside the incorporated town, on sheet after sheet of ED 24-22, Black householders rent for six and seven dollars a month between white neighbours: William Pitts, 64, with two lodgers, Agnes Hill, 65, a widow, and William Campbell, 54, born in Georgia; Linton Robbins, 38, and his wife Mary, 37, with three Dennis step-children; George Slowell, 37; Samuel Dennis, 63, and his wife Alice, 51, born in Florida, with a boarder, Emma Brittingham, 19; Louisa Cherry, 49, with her cousin Mary Robbins, a lodger Otis Williams from Virginia and her grandson Earnest Schaffner, 4; Henry Morris, 35, with a housekeeper, Jennie Adkins, 45; Robert Armstrong, 22, and his wife Gladys, 20; John Dennis, 20, and his wife Paulina, 20, with a two-year-old and a one-year-old. And Black women and men are entered as servants in the white houses of the town's officers — Roketta Scott, 28, and Chancil Whittington, 23, in John B. Lynch's house at 1404 Baltimore Avenue; Beatrice Purnell, 23, in Alexander Jackson's on Atlantic Avenue; Edward Purnell in Virginia Ayres's; Maggie Jones, 34, at John S. Townsend's; Flossie Ross, 36, and George B. Ross, 37, at Joseph Mann's. Across the bay in West Ocean City, ED 24-24 is a sustained Black farming and fishing community running unbroken over a dozen sheets — Thomas H. Purnell, 42, and Ida M., 37, with nine children; William S. Davis, 69, and Hester, 61; Arzie L. Dennis, 37, and Persis W.; John W. Kennis, 55, and Mamie J., 52, with six children and a nephew; Elwood Fooks, 32, and Eliza, 31, with six; Harry Henry, 28, and Carrie, 25; and at the head of household 224, renting for three dollars a month, Margaret Reed, 58, a widow born in Texas — a schoolteacher, and the only Black professional the campaign has yet found in this place.

   Margaret ReedLinton RobbinsLouisa CherryAlexander Jackson

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

3. 1940 · 1940-04-01

   The 1940 census names Black Ocean City at last - three households of their own on the last block of South Division Street, between the street and the Inlet

   Enumeration district 24-22, sheet 3B, is the block the enumerator marked 'Here ends Block between S. Division St and Ocean City Inlet. Begin Block on West side of Balto. Ave.' On it, among white households, are three Black households headed by their own people rather than housed as servants. Household 64, renting at $20 a month - the highest rent on the sheet - is headed by John N. [surname uncertain], 26, a manager, born Maryland, with his wife Eva L., 38, their daughter Portia, 19, his brother-in-law Daniel Purnell, 25, a labourer on a chicken farm, and a boarder, Charles Robbins, 25, from Berlin. Household 65, at $10 a month, is headed by Elizabeth Fooks, 39, a married woman living without her husband, with James Graham, 37, born West Virginia, who had been living in Paterson, New Jersey in 1935. Household 70, at $6 a month, is Wade Morgan, 40, a house painter born in North Carolina, and Stella Bowen, 39, his housekeeper. Every one of them is entered in the race column as 'Neg' in the enumerator's own hand. Elsewhere in the same district Black Ocean City appears as it always has in the record - as servants in white houses: Roketta Scott and Chancil Whittington at John B. Lynch's on Baltimore Avenue, Edward Purnell at Virginia Ayres's on Atlantic Avenue, Lulu Franklin, 60, a widow, at Philip C. Dennis's, Katharine Tingle, 20, at Harry J. Cropper's, Edward Shields, 50, a cook at Ella E. Dennis's, and others. — 1942 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Confirmed and very substantially extended. The three households this fact names on the last block of South Division Street were read from one sheet of sixty-two; all sixty-two have now been read and they show Black households throughout the incorporated town — ten on a single sheet of ED 24-22 alone, renting at six and seven dollars a month between white neighbours — and a sustained Black farming and fishing community running unbroken across a dozen sheets of West Ocean City in ED 24-24, headed at one point by a widowed schoolteacher born in Texas. The fact's own theTake, that this is what the thread had been waiting nine years for, is if anything understated. See fact:1940-black-ocean-city-inside-the-town-limits, authored in this fragment and carrying the extension.

   This is what the thread has been waiting nine years for. Every previous appearance of a Black person in this campaign's Ocean City record was made by somebody else - a permit refused, a hotel on a white mayor's building list, an old man the council had to decide what to do with, an excursion counted by the truckload. Here they are enumerated as households, with names, ages, birthplaces, rents and the streets they lived on, and the streets are the same streets: Wade Morgan's house at six dollars a month sits between a white fisherman's and a white cinema operator's. And the education column is the thing nobody would have guessed. Eva L., her nineteen-year-old daughter Portia, and Elizabeth Fooks's lodger James Graham are each entered with two years of college, on a sheet where the white neighbours are entered with grades one, four and six.

   Ocean City Inlet & JettyWade MorganStella BowenElizabeth Fooks

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

4. 1940 · 1940-05-14

   Ocean City's advertising was to be paid for by taxing the charter boats - ten dollars for a local boat, twenty-five for an outsider - and the town spent the rest of the year trying to find the legal power to do it

   On 14 May 1940 the Advertising Committee came before the council: Dr. C. W. Purnell as chairman, C. D. Savage, J. D. Jarman, John B. Lynch, Talbot Bunting, C. Parker Smith and Preston Laws, 'and Clarence Carey, a visitor.' Purnell 'outlined a plan for licensing the sport fishing boats of $10 for native and $25 for foreign, and stated they could collect from outside dealers several hundred dollars, so with the licences and what they could get outside they would have $2,000 for advertising.' The council agreed to pay the committee's advertising man not more than $800, and heard two candidates for the post, Joe Pancoast and a Mr. McKimmon of Salisbury. The power to levy the licence did not exist. On 16 April the mayor had already asked the attorney 'to study the Licences and see if there was any way City could licence the fishing boats.' On 2 October the council settled it by voting the Chamber of Commerce the $2,000 outright for the fiscal year 10 September 1940 to 10 September 1941, advancing $350 in cash at once against it, and resolving 'to try to get an act through the Legislature empowering the City to licence the fishing boats, the licence if collected to be given over to the Chamber also.' — 1941 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The scheme's ending is now dated. On 30 July 1941 Capt. Crawford Savage came before the council 'asking that fishing boats be relieved of any lisence for this year', and the council's recorded response was to vote the Chamber of Commerce a further sum not exceeding $500 to settle its deficit, on terms that it cut its budget to the money it had. Fifteen months after the advertising committee proposed to raise $2,000 by licensing the charter fleet at $10 and $25 a boat, the town was still covering the Chamber out of its own funds. ⚠ THE MINUTE DOES NOT SAY WHETHER THE BOATS WERE RELIEVED, and nothing about the licence's fate should be inferred from it.

   The white marlin fleet had made Ocean City famous and the town's answer was to make the fleet pay for the advertising that made it famous - at two and a half times the rate for a boat from somewhere else. It could not, because a Maryland municipality cannot levy what the General Assembly has not authorised, and the Assembly was not sitting. So the town paid the two thousand out of its own pocket and put the licence on the list for Annapolis in 1941. The whole resort economy is in that sequence: an idea in May, a lawyer in April who had already said no, and a bill for the next session.

   Ocean City Chamber of CommerceOcean City Advertising CommitteeDr. Charles Washington PurnellClarence Carey

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

5. 1940 · 1940-08-05

   Ocean City's 1940 election was decided by one vote: the third council seat went to Robert Lee Cropper on 128 against Frank Salea's 127

   'An Election was held in Firemens Building Monday August 5th 1940 for purpose of electing one person for Mayor and three persons for City Councilmen for a term of two years from 2nd Tuesday of September 1940 to 1942.' The polls were open from 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. The returns were filed with the clerk by three election judges, Stephen J. Quillin, Horace H. Richardson and Thomas L. Savage. For Mayor: Clifford P. Cropper 167, Charles W. Purnell 97, C. Parker Smith 2, John B. Lynch 3. For City Council: Harold J. Rayne 208, E. Raymond Bounds 189, Robert Lee Cropper 128, Frank Salea 127, Talbot E. Bunting 91. Three seats were to be filled, so Rayne, Bounds and Robert Lee Cropper took them and Salea missed by a single vote. The new mayor and council were sworn in by Magistrate J. Edward White at nine o'clock on the evening of 10 September, and organised by electing Bounds President of the Council and Rayne Treasurer, and reappointing J. M. Mumford Secretary and Wm. H. Scott attorney.

   Four men stood for mayor and 269 votes were cast for them; five stood for three council seats and 743 votes were cast, so the same electors were plainly splitting their tickets. The mayor the council had appointed in January was confirmed by the town in August with a comfortable majority over the doctor who owned the Atlantic Hotel - and the last seat on the board turned on one elector, in a town whose whole year-round population the census had just put near a thousand.

   Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentClifford P. CropperDr. Charles Washington PurnellHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsRobert Lee CropperFrank SaleaJ. Edward White (magistrate)William H. ScottJ. M. Mumford

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

6. 1941 · 1941-12-11

   Four days after Pearl Harbor and on the day Germany declared war, the Ocean City council sat down and organised a home defence council — eleven departments, twenty-two names, and a Department of Evacuation.

   The 1940 minute book does not mention the war once, in the year of the fall of France. The 1941 book does not mention it either — until 11 December. The council met at 7:15 on Thursday evening with Mayor C. P. Cropper and Councilmen Harold Rayne and Raymond Bounds, granted a building permit to Chas. S. Powell for a two-apartment dwelling on the alley between 11th and 12th Streets, let the English Diner move to a site next to the Post Office on Dr. Chas. W. Purnell's ground, and resolved to borrow from the Bank of Ocean City to meet bonds and coupons due 1 January. Then: 'Mr. S. Earl Tromley, John I. Timmons and Miss Lena Riggin were present to help in organizeing home defence council and the following were selected to head the orginization.' Those three were not helpful neighbours. As the Worcester Democrat printed a week later, they were the entire executive of the Worcester County Council of Defense — Tromley its Executive Director, Timmons its Chief Air Raid Warden, and Miss Lena H. Riggin its Executive Secretary, all three of Snow Hill — going town to town. They were carrying an order. The same paper prints the telegram that sent them: 'Supplementing my telegram December 10, immediate arrangements must be made to hold blackouts just as quickly as possible. No delay in this matter, as conditions are very serious. Let me know when ready. Col. Henry Barrett, Director of air raid Precaution Service for Maryland.' The roster Ocean City adopted that night, verbatim from the minute: John B. Lynch, Commander. Harold Rayne and L. B. Cropper, Dept. of Public Safety. J. M. Mumford and Robert Allen, Dept. of Public Works. Dr. F. J. Townsend and Guy R. P. Dennis, Dept. Public Health. Archie Davis and Morris Peacock, Dept. Fire Protection. D. Trimper Sr. and Denard Baker, Dept. Transporation. Arthur Davis and Preston Laws, Dept. Gen. Supplies. Rev. Dewees and F. W. Truitt, Dept. Evacuation. Willie Ludlam and Gladys Jackson, Red Cross. E. M. Scott and Chas. J. Jackson, Communication. Bob Jackson and Wm. H. Purnell, Air Wardens. The council adjourned at eleven. Pocomoke City's mayor and council met specially the same Thursday evening and resolved to organise a Civilian Defense Corps of their own, and Pocomoke's published department list — Public Safety, Evacuation, Transportation, Communications, Public Works, Fire Protection, General Supply, Public Health — is the same scheme under the same headings. So the eleven departments were a template handed down, not a local invention; what Ocean City supplied was twenty-two names, and the names are the whole value of the document. By 18 December the county could report that Home Defense Corps in Snow Hill, Pocomoke City, Berlin and Ocean City were 'now complete in every detail', and Mayor Clifford P. Cropper sat on the county council himself.

   Ocean City Home Defense CouncilWorcester County Council of DefenseBank of Ocean CityClifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsS. Earl TromleyMiss Lena H. RigginGladys JacksonMorris PeacockWillie LudlamFrancis J. TownsendArchie DavisL. B. CropperRobert AllenJ. M. MumfordDaniel Trimper, Sr.W. Preston LawsF. W. TruittEdward M. ScottWilliam H. Purnell

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

7. 1941 · 1941-12-14

   Three days after naming them, Ocean City sent its mayor, its defence Commander and one of its two air wardens to a 'Council of War' with the Governor in Annapolis.

   On Sunday 14 December 1941 Governor Herbert R. O'Conor held a 'Council of War' in Annapolis for the counties' Local Directors, Chief air raid wardens, State and District defense council members 'and many county and municipal authorities'. Thirteen Worcester County men and women went. From Snow Hill: Mayor John O. Byrd, S. Earl Tromley, John I. Timmons, Samuel E. Shockley and Miss Lena H. Riggin. From Pocomoke City: Eldred C. Hill, Henry P. Walters, Fred U. Henderson, Lacey F. Dryden and William H. Hancock. And from Ocean City: 'Mayor Clifford P. Cropper, John B. Lynch and William H. Purnell' — the mayor, the man the council had made Commander of its home defence council seventy-two hours earlier, and one of its two Air Wardens. The roster written down in the municipal building on the Thursday evening was in the state capital by Sunday. It was the same weekend that the flashes appeared on the Atlantic horizon off the town they had left behind.

   Ocean City Home Defense CouncilWorcester County Council of DefenseClifford P. CropperWilliam H. PurnellS. Earl TromleyJohn I. TimmonsMiss Lena H. Riggin

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

8. 1941 · 1941-12-23

   Ocean City raised $230.00 in the Red Cross Roll Call — fourth of seven Worcester towns — and its war-fund quota, set at $650, was put in the hands of Mrs. Chas. Ludlam, Jack Lynch and Harry Kelley.

   Two December tables measure the town against its neighbours better than any census figure. The Red Cross Roll Call for Worcester County, reported by Mrs. John Timmons of Snow Hill as publicity chairman: 'Pocomoke City, $549.68; Snow Hill, 439.15; Berlin, 368.35; Ocean City, 230.00; Stockton, 62.05; Newark, 60.60; Whaleyville, 58.60.' And the county's war fund appeal, with quotas and co-chairmen by district: Pocomoke City $1,400 under Mrs. Lee Hall and Mr. Raymond Dryden; Berlin $1,250 under Mrs. Richard Phillips and Mr. Sheldon Chandler; Snow Hill $1,100 under Mrs. Helen Smack and Mr. Ben T. Truitt; and 'Ocean City, Mrs. Chas. Ludlam, Mr. Jack Lynch, Harry Kelley; quota, $650.00.' Ocean City is the fourth town of the county on both lists, ahead of the villages and well behind the three market towns — a resort of a thousand year-round people measured, for once, out of season. The names are the interest. 'Jack Lynch' is the John B. Lynch the council had just made Commander of its home defence council; and Harry Kelley is the name the bridge then being finished across Sinepuxent Bay would eventually carry.

   Red Cross Circle of Ocean City

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

9. 1942 · 1942-04-03

   On the night of 3 April 1942 — with thirteen dead men from a shelled freighter lying at its Coast Guard station — Ocean City was plunged into total darkness by an order that was never meant for the town at all.

   'Ocean City, April 4 — An emergency blackout that plunged Ocean City into sudden darkness last night was lifted later with the explanation that the total blackout was a mistake in orders from the Fifth Naval District. Even town officials were taken' by surprise, the Salisbury Times reported under the headline 'Emergency Blackout At Ocean City Is Mistake' and the deck 'ORDER PLUNGES SEASIDE RESORT'. The man who explains it is the Commander of the town's own home defence corps: 'When Fifth Naval District headquarters heard Ocean City was blacked out, the city was called immediately to learn why, Corps Commander Jack Lynch said.' 'When informed that the black out order came from their headquarters, through the Coast Guard, naval authorities explained a mistake had been made, Lynch said. The instructions to "extinguish all lights seaward" was intended only for the Coast Guard station. The "dim-out" adopted by Ocean City last week was sufficient for the remainder of the town.' And: 'Lynch said, removes the possibility at first voiced that Ocean City may remain under blackout for the next several nights.' Two things in that story matter beyond the anecdote. The first is the date. The David H. Atwater had been shelled to pieces on Winter Quarter Shoal on the night of 2 April, and at 2355 on 3 April the Eastern Sea Frontier's own diary recorded that thirteen of her dead were at the Ocean City Coast Guard Station. The town went black on that night, and its officials did not know why. The second is the chronology of the dim-out itself: Ocean City had adopted one 'last week' — that is, in the last days of March 1942, five weeks before the Army's county-wide dim-out order and five weeks before the town's own council got round to passing a blackout ordinance. The resort dimmed itself before anybody made it.

   Ocean City Home Defense CouncilUnited States Coast GuardEastern Sea FrontierCol. Henry S. Barrett

   Source · checked 2026-08-11