John R. Purnell
bridge company incorporator · active 1876
Named in Chapter 24 of the Maryland Acts of 1876 as one of the five men who built the Sinepuxent Bay drawbridge to Ocean City at their own expense and were incorporated as the Ocean City Bridge Company on February 24, 1876. A delegate named Purnell chaired the House select committee that reported the incorporating bill favourably on January 20, 1876 — if he is the same man, the bridge's builders wrote their own charter.
In the record (3)
1876 · 1876-02-24
Maryland charters the Ocean City Bridge Company — and the act reveals the bay bridge was already built, privately, without permission.
Chapter 24 of the Acts of 1876, approved February 24, 1876, incorporated the Ocean City Bridge Company. Its preamble is the year's most useful sentence: "during the interval since the last session of the Legislature, public necessity urgently demanded a bridge across Synepuxent Bay, from Hommock Point to Ocean city, in Worcester county, and WHEREAS, to meet this necessity and relying upon future legislation to authorize and confirm their act, Hillary P. Pitts, William Showell, Cyrus L. Williams, John M. Taylor, John R. Purnell, and others, associated together and at their own expense, constructed a secure and substantial bridge at the above named point, with a draw in the same twenty-five feet wide, which will admit the convenient passage of all boats and vessels capable of navigating this portion of said bay." Section 1 retroactively authorized the structure; capital stock was capped at $10,000 in 400 shares of $25; the stockholders were to meet at Berlin on the first Monday of March (March 6, 1876) to elect five directors; Section 6 required a keeper "always in readiness to open" the draw free of charge; Section 9 denied banking privileges; Section 10 reserved the General Assembly's right to amend at pleasure. The bill was reported favorably in the House by Mr. Purnell on January 20, 1876 and passed the Senate 15–0 on February 14, 1876.
The bridge that made Ocean City a resort was built first and legalized afterwards. Five men put up their own money, threw a drawbridge across the bay, and then asked Annapolis to make it legal — which Annapolis did, in one page, with no fine imposed.
Ocean City Bridge CompanyWicomico and Pocomoke RailroadDr. Hilary R. PittsWilliam ShowellCyrus L. WilliamsJohn M. Taylor
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1882 · 1882-07-16
The Bishop of Easton preaches to a large congregation in Ocean City's year-old chapel.
Democratic Messenger, July 22, 1882: "Bishop Lay preached in the P. E. Chapel at Ocean City on Sunday last to a large congregation." Henry Champlin Lay, first Bishop of Easton, was preaching in the mission chapel that the papers first recorded in August 1881 as "a new Episcopal Church here, called 'St. Paul's by the Sea'" — the direct ancestor of the 1900 Carpenter Gothic St. Paul's by-the-Sea on Baltimore Avenue. The Berlin rector, the Rev. Mr. Lee, left in late July for a six-week rest cure at the Virginia sulphur springs, John R. Purnell acting as lay reader in his absence.
St. Paul's by-the-Sea Episcopal ChurchRt. Rev. Henry Champlin Lay
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1882 · 1882-09-02
A man walks onto a staked-off oyster bed in Synepuxent Bay on purpose, to make Maryland's courts say who owns the bottom.
Under the Act of 1880, ch. 214, William Primer of Worcester County staked off a plot of no more than five acres in Synepuxent Bay and, with John R. Purnell, planted a large quantity of oysters on it. It was then discovered that about four-tenths of an acre inside the stakes was arguably a "natural rock" — public bottom reserved to the tongmen. James Workman, "in order to test the law, openly went upon said portion and, in the presence of witnesses, caught oysters" there. The resulting opinion, printed in full in the Democratic Messenger of September 2, 1882, turned on "what sort of lands may be staked off by individuals and held and used for the planting of oysters, and what lands are reserved for the use of tongmen." The same bay carried the county's own oyster planting: in April 1882 the Worcester commissioners advertised for proposals to plant a stated number of bushels in the Synepuxent out of a tongers'-licence fund of a little over $540, spent every two years, the previous contract having gone to Capt. Gabriel DeWaal. And a Census Bureau report on the Maryland oyster industry that January singled the bay out: "Synepuxent bay, a small inlet running between Worcester county and Ocean City beach, has a very fine and palatable oyster with a dark green covering... it is very popular in both Baltimore and Philadelphia markets."
Before the bay was a view, it was a farm — and in 1882 somebody went to court over who owned four-tenths of an acre of it.
Source · checked 2026-08-06