John Walter Smith

In the record (16)

1. 1896 · 1896-03-16

   Congressman Miles introduces a bill for a life-saving station between the Fenwick Island and Ocean City stations, and gets it favourably reported out of House Commerce in May.

   The campaign the county had been running since 1890 reached Congress in 1896. The Messenger of 11 January reported that "Senator Smith, A. Lee Carey, Francis Henry Purnell and other gentlemen of this county, who have for a year or more been petitioning the Government to establish a Life Saving Station between Ocean City and Fenwicks Island are still at work on the project. The number of life-saving stations along the Maryland coast are inadequate for the protection of the thousands of lives annually passing that point and they will petition Congress to authorize another station. The suggestion will be approved by Superintendent Kimball, of the life saving service." On 21 March: "Representative Miles, Monday, introduced a bill for the establishment of a life saving station on the coast of Maryland between the Fenwick Island and Ocean City life saving stations, at such point as the Superintendent of the Life Saving Service may recommend" — the Monday being 16 March 1896. The paper claimed a share of the credit: "we are gratified at the apparent success that is crowning the efforts of Messrs. John Walter Smith, W. Lee Carey, Francis Henry Purnell and the MESSENGER in securing this much needed station. Since 1890 we have advocated it." On 23 May: "Congressman Miles has secured a favorable report from the Committee on Commerce on his bill establishing a life-saving station on the Atlantic coast in Worcester county, midway between Fenwick Island and Ocean City." Nothing read for 1896 shows the bill passing. The need had been argued in blood the previous August, when seven drowned in Isle of Wight Bay opposite the proposed site [fact:1895-drowning-argues-for-a-new-life-saving-station].

   United States Life-Saving ServiceW. Lee CareySumner Increase Kimball

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

2. 1896 · 1896-08-17

   Charlotte Smith, daughter of the future governor John Walter Smith, dies at the Atlantic Hotel and the hotel stops its festivities.

   "Miss Lottie Smith, daughter of Hon. John Walter Smith, of this town, died at the Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City, on Monday evening, after an illness of two weeks. She was taken ill two days after her arrival at Ocean City with an attack of indigestion, which resulted in a complication of diseases, and heart failure. Drs. Finney and Thayer, of the John Hopkins Hospital, were telegraphed for and arrived Monday at one o'clock. An operation was performed, which produced only temporary relief, and she expired at six o'clock Monday evening." Her remains were taken to Snow Hill. The August 8 issue had reported the earlier crisis: three physicians at her bedside, Dr. Paul Jones summoned by telegraph from Snow Hill and driving over from Pocomoke City, and "orders were issued by Manager Page of the Atlantic Hotel that all festivities cease around th[e hotel]." John Walter Smith was then a state senator; he became Governor of Maryland in 1900 and a United States senator after that. Two Johns Hopkins men — J. M. T. Finney and W. S. Thayer — came down the Eastern Shore by train to operate in a beach hotel. — 1896 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Corroborated from outside the county for the first time, and her full name recovered. The Delaware Gazette and State Journal of 20 August 1896, in a dispatch datelined Ocean City, Md., 17 August: "Miss CHARLOTTE WHITTINGTON SMITH, elder daughter of State Senator John Walter Smith, died this evening at the Atlantic." 'Lottie' is a diminutive of Charlotte; the headline of the same column gives the date of death as the evening of 17 August, agreeing with the Messenger.

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

3. 1896 · 1896-12-12

   A life-saving surfman buys the Synepuxent House and its livery stable for $2,470, and thirty-six Taber estate lots are sold off the bay side.

   Two sales bracket the year's property record. In August the Ocean City column reported: "A sale of Ocean City lots took place. Thirty-six lots, lying on the bay side of the beach and belonging to the estate of Stephen Taber, deceased — George W. Purnell and George M. Upshur, trustees — were all readily disposed of at satisfactory prices. John Walter Smith, of Snow Hill, bought ten of the lots and James W. Owens bought several. The rest were purchased by residents of Ocean City or vicinity." The newly elected mayor was one of the trustees selling; the state senator was the largest buyer. In December, out of the estate of Isaac S. Jones, "Mr. William Taylor, of Ocean City Life Saving Station, purchased the Sinepuxent House and lot, also the livery stable and lot, each 40x80 feet, at Ocean City of Calvin B. Taylor at public sale last Saturday. He paid $2470 for the two lots, which was considered a good price." A surfman buying a hotel is the clearest single measure of what beach property was worth, and to whom, in 1896. Smaller transfers that year run from $28 for a tax-sale lot to $900 for lot No. 17 with improvements; Sarah Ann Lynch paid $330 in August for lot No. 6 in Block 15 that William W. Bigger had bought from the Sinepuxent Beach Company for $100 in February. — 1896 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Confirmed, with the December buyer identified by occupation. The Messenger of 19 December 1896: 'Mr. William Taylor, of Ocean City Life Saving Station, purchased the Sinepuxent House and lot, also the livery stable and lot, each 40x80 feet, at Ocean City of Calvin B. Taylor at public sale last Saturday. He paid $2470 for the two lots, which was considered a good price.' The purchaser was a serving surfman of the Ocean City station buying a hotel and a livery stable — which is a fact about what federal surfmen's pay and standing could buy on this beach, and it belongs to the life-saving thread as much as to the property record. He or his namesake would offer the same Sinepuxent House at auction in 1908.

   Sinepuxent Beach CompanyStephen TaberGeorge W. Purnell

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

4. 1900

   Both parties hold their First District congressional conventions at the Atlantic Hotel — Ocean City picks two nominees for Congress in three weeks.

   Governor-elect John Walter Smith's resignation from the House left Maryland's First District with two seats to fill at once — the unexpired term of the Fifty-sixth Congress and the full term of the Fifty-seventh — and both parties came to the beach to fill them. The Democratic convention assembled on 15 August: "An unusually large number of representative men have come to Ocean City to take part in the convention. It will meet in the casino of the Atlantic Hotel. [Conventions] have been held in the pavilion of the hotel, but the crowd is so great this time it is necessary" to move. After an hour and a half it named Edwin H. Brown of Queen Anne's for the unexpired term and Senator John P. Moore of Worcester for the Fifty-seventh Congress. The Republicans followed on 5 September, called to order at one o'clock in the Atlantic Hotel Cafe by Adlai P. Barnes of Worcester, with John D. Urie of Kent in the chair and John E. Wilson of Queen Anne's as secretary; they went into executive session to "try and get together" and emerged with Joseph Kerr of Dorchester for the unexpired term and William H. Jackson of Wicomico for the full term. The Eastern Shore of Maryland Board of Development met in the same hotel on 6 September. The county paper's 1899 verdict that Ocean City "might appropriately be changed to Convention City" was, by 1900, an understatement: a resort of 365 people was where the lower Eastern Shore chose its congressmen.

   A town of 365 that could not seat its own conventions in one room, choosing two members of Congress in a hotel cafe and a hotel casino.

   Atlantic Hotel

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

5. 1902 · 1902-06-30

   Ocean City's 1902 season opened with two state conventions back to back at the Atlantic Hotel — the largest teachers' meeting the association had ever held, then the Maryland State Bar Association.

   "The early birds at Ocean City this season will be the members of the State Teachers' Association and the Maryland Bar Association. These two organizations will lap each other in their stay and cover the period from June 30 to July 3, leaving the 4th to be celebrated by excursionists from all parts of the peninsula and from Baltimore, Washington and other cities ... The headquarters of the Teachers' and Bar Associations will be the Atlantic Hotel." The teachers' meeting "was the largest ever held since the formation of the association"; Joseph Blair of Sparrow's Point was elected president, and both State Superintendent M. Bates Stephens and the outgoing president F. Eugene Wathen argued at the opening for better pay for county teachers. The State Board of Education met at Ocean City on 1 July with Governor John Walter Smith presiding and elected the vice-principal of State Normal School No. 2 at Frostburg. The lawyers followed: "Most of the Worcester lawyers are attending the meeting of the State Bar Association now in session at Ocean City ... among the most distinguished visitors are Judges McSherry, Page, Pearce, and other members of the Court of Appeals." Judge James Alfred Pearce used his address there to recount the Civil War arrest of Judge Richard Carmichael, dragged bleeding from his own bench by a federal provost marshal. In May the paper had already run the headline "OCEAN CITY CONVENTIONS — School Teachers And Lawyers Will Assemble This Year," arguing that the pharmaceutical, lawyers', bankers' and Republican delegates who had come before "have almost unanimously so declared" the resort the right place for the state's professional bodies.

   State Teachers' Association of MarylandMaryland State Bar AssociationMaryland Bankers AssociationMaryland Pharmaceutical Association

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

6. 1903 · 1903-06-28

   The Maryland State Teachers' Association brings its 36th session to Ocean City for five days in 1903 — and prints the tariff: $2.50 a day single at the Atlantic, $3.00 round trip from Baltimore.

   From the Association's notice, printed 13 June 1903: "The Thirty-Sixth Annual Session of the Maryland State Teachers' Association will be held at Ocean City, Maryland, June 28th to July 2nd... The headquarters will be at the Atlantic Hotel and the Association's meetings will be held at the Atlantic Casino. The Atlantic will give a rate of $2.00 a day double, and $2.50 single; Plimhimmon, $2.00 two or more, $2.50 single." The railroads matched it: the Pennsylvania "announced a rate of one and one third fare for the round-trip, tickets to be sold from June 25 to July 3d," and "the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway makes a rate of $3.00 for the round-trip from Baltimore to Ocean City." The Colonial Hotel, opening 27 June, advertised "special rates to teachers attending the State Association," as did the Hotel Mount Vernon. Governor John Walter Smith addressed the convention on the Tuesday — his fourth year in office and, he said, his first chance to meet the Association — and Prof. John Coulbourn, principal of Snow Hill High School, gave the address of welcome: "On behalf of the teachers of Worcester county, I welcome you, teachers of Maryland, to Ocean City. For the honor you have done us in electing so soon again to assemble here, we are deeply grateful. The city is yours to enjoy. We don't have to throw open our doors to you — they are never closed." H. Crawford Rounds of Wicomico was elected president. The teachers had met here in 1899 [fact:1899-convention-city] and again in 1902 [fact:1902-teachers-and-lawyers-take-the-atlantic].

   State Teachers' Association of MarylandBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayPennsylvania Railroad CompanyAtlantic Casino Company

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

7. 1904 · 1904-08-10

   In one week of August 1904 both parties held their First District congressional conventions at Ocean City — and nominated two brothers named Jackson.

   The Republicans of the First Congressional District met at Ocean City on Thursday afternoon, 4 August 1904, and renominated Congressman William H. Jackson by acclamation; A. P. Barnes of Snow Hill called the meeting to order, State Senator Henry M. McCullough of Cecil County was chairman and a Mr. Reese of Crisfield secretary. Six days later, on Wednesday 10 August, the Democrats of the same district assembled 'in the hall of the Atlantic Casino' at noon, with Henry R. Lewis of Caroline as chairman and George R. Wilson of Talbot as secretary. Leaders from every county had tendered the nomination to ex-Governor John Walter Smith the night before; he declined, was asked again to name a candidate, and named Elihu E. Jackson of Wicomico, whom he then put in nomination himself after taking the proxy of a Worcester delegate. 'It was ten minutes before he could commence his speech as he was given the greatest ovation ever witnessed in the state.' Jackson was chosen by acclamation. The Messenger of 13 August ran a portrait of Smith under the headline 'Brother Against Brother.'

   Ocean City had been Convention City for the teachers and the bankers since 1898. In 1904 it became the room where the Eastern Shore chose its congressman — twice in seven days, for opposite parties — and the hall it happened in was the Atlantic Casino.

   Atlantic Casino CompanyElihu Emory JacksonHon. William H. JacksonHon. Thomas A. Smith

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

8. 1910

   Congressman Covington introduces a bill for a new life-saving station between Ocean City and North Beach — at Mayor Carey's prompting.

   'Member of Congress from the First Congressional District of Maryland, has introduced a bill in Congress providing for a life saving station between Ocean City, Maryland, and North Beach on the coast of Worcester County. Mr. Covington writes the Messenger that he has had an interview with Superintendent Kimball of the U. S. Life Saving Service in connection with this measure and the Committee of Interstate Commerce of the House of Representatives has promised to give him a special hearing on the bill. Mr. Covington is making a vigorous effort to secure the construction of this life saving station. Mr. W. Lee Carey is very much interested in the matter and brought it to the attention of Mr. Covington. Of course Senator Smith will use his influence in the Senate to the same end.' Ocean City's mayor lobbying his congressman for federal coastal infrastructure, with the state's senior senator in reserve, is the earliest instance of that pattern the campaign has documented — and the superintendent named is Sumner I. Kimball, who had run the Life-Saving Service since 1878.

   Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.

   United States Life-Saving ServiceW. Lee Carey

   Source · checked 2026-08-06

9. 1911 · 1911-07-08

   U.S. Senator John Walter Smith flees the Baltimore heat for the Atlantic Hotel and talks governor-making on the porch.

   On Saturday, July 8, 1911 — in the middle of the historic July heat wave — U.S. Senator John Walter Smith of Snow Hill, Maryland's political boss of the Eastern Shore, left broiling Baltimore and came down to Ocean City on the evening train with Mayor W. Lee Carey, staying several days at the Atlantic Hotel. The Democratic Messenger reported he 'held conferences with many of his Eastern Shore friends and lieutenants,' pressing the candidacy of Buchanan Schley for Governor of Maryland between discussions of 'the outlook for party success, and hot weather.' CONFIRMED. Messenger, 15 July 1911, under the head 'Senator Smith at Ocean City': 'The intense heat in Baltimore last Saturday morning drove Senator Smith to the Seashore. He came down to Ocean City with Mayor Lee Carey on the Saturday evening train and remained with him at the Atlantic Hotel several days.' The paper says the heat drove him out on Saturday MORNING and that he travelled on the Saturday EVENING train; the existing detail's 'fled Baltimore on the evening train' is right. ADD, from 29 July: 'Mr. and Mrs. Lee Carey, who are spending the summer at the Atlantic, Ocean City' - the mayor was not merely meeting the senator there, he was living at the hotel for the season. The gubernatorial conversation is as described: 'They discussed the availability of various gentlemen for gubernatorial honors, the outlook for party success, and hot weather.'

   In 1911 the Atlantic Hotel porch was as close as the Eastern Shore got to a smoke-filled room.

   Atlantic HotelW. Lee Carey

   Source · checked 2026-08-11

10. 1916

    The Maryland State Teachers' Association holds its forty-ninth annual meeting at Ocean City, 27-30 June 1916, with U.S. Senator John Walter Smith giving the address of welcome.

    Cambridge *Daily Banner*, 8 May 1916: the programme of the forty-ninth annual meeting, to be held at Ocean City 27-30 June, "has just been completed. The meeting will open with an invocation to be delivered by the Rev. S. A. Potter, of Ocean City. The address of welcome will be delivered by United States Senator John Walter Smith." The association's executive committee voted to award a certificate at the Ocean City meeting to every county superintendent who enrolled all his teachers as members. The *Banner* of 30 June carried the working sessions from the town — "O[c]ean City, Md., June 28. The primary section of the Maryland State Teachers' Association began its session this afternoon with Miss M. Annie Grace, of Baltimore, as chairman, and Miss Mary Weagley, of Westminster, as secretary." A Teachers' Training School ran at Ocean City through that summer (Prof. A. R. Spaid, late superintendent of Dorchester County schools, among the instructors), and the twelfth Tri-County Institute followed from 30 August to 7 September, opening in "the new Public School building."

    State Teachers' Association of Maryland

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

11. 1919 · 1919-07-04

    Ten thousand people and 1,185 automobiles come to Ocean City for the formal opening of the bay bridge on the Fourth of July.

    The Mayor and Council of Ocean City invited "all of the citizens of Maryland, Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Virginia" to the dedication. The Baltimore Sun's staff correspondent, reprinted in the Messenger of 12 July: "Dual celebration of the national holiday and of the formal opening of the new State highway bridge across Sinepuxent Bay caused the only seaside resort of Maryland to suddenly bound today from lethargy into as great summer activity as it has ever known. Governor Harrington and about 10,000 other residents of the State cooperated to make the day memorable in the city's history. By actual count, 1,185 automobiles had come into this city at 3 P. M., over the bridge, and 8,000 visitors, about 360 of whom were from Baltimore, by train." The Governor motored over from Cambridge with his family; the Pocomoke City Band announced his two-o'clock arrival with "Maryland, My Maryland" and then led the procession out to the drawkeeper's house, midway of the bridge, where the ceremonies took place. Small evergreen trees had been planted at intervals along the entire length of the bridge; they and a few flags on the drawkeeper's house "were the only decorations." John W. Ennis of Pocomoke called for order. Chief engineer Mackall said the bridge "was the last link in the chain of good roads from Ocean City to Western Maryland."

    1,185 cars counted by three in the afternoon, against 8,000 people off the trains. The road had not beaten the railroad yet — but for the first time in Ocean City's history somebody thought the cars were worth counting.

    Maryland State Roads CommissionOrlando HarrisonPhillips Lee GoldsboroughF. H. Zouck

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

12. 1920 · 1920-08-15

    Frank A. Furst came to Ocean City with U.S. Senator John Walter Smith to inspect the new inlet, and fell down the Atlantic Hotel's porch steps instead.

    "Frank A. Furst, who, with United States Senator John Walter Smith, motored to Ocean City, Md., Saturday to inspect a natural inlet in Sinepuxent Bay below Ocean City, fell from the [ninth] step of the porch of the Atlantic Hotel, at the resort, yesterday morning, sustaining a bad bruise over the left eye and a severe shaking up. … After first aid treatment by Dr. F. J. Townsend, of Ocean City, Mr. Furst, accompanied by Dr. Townsend, Senator Smith and others, was taken in Mr. Furst's limousine to Berlin, Md., about 7 miles from Ocean City, where arrangements had been made by telephone with Horace F. Harmonson, proprietor, to receive him at the Atlantic Hotel." Dr. J. McFadden Dick of Salisbury was hunted across two counties by telephone, found bathing, and driven to Berlin in the Internal Revenue Collector's car. "Mr. Furst and Senator Smith, with State Senator Orlando Harrison and Ocean City residents, were to start at about 9.30 o'clock for a boat ride to inspect the natural inlet which last winter's storm opened in the Sinepuxent, when Mr. Furst fell. … Saturday night's rain had made the hotel steps slippery." Furst kept joking: Senator Smith had called him "Exhibit A" in his Senatorial campaign the day before, and Furst told him "Senator, your Exhibit A has been out." He was back in Baltimore by Monday evening, having driven home by way of Elkton "because the road was good all the way." Read past the slapstick: a sitting United States Senator, the state senator for Worcester, and one of Baltimore's largest contractors all went to Ocean City in August 1920 to look at a hole the sea had made in February.

    Atlantic HotelAtlantic Hotel BerlinOrlando HarrisonFrancis J. Townsend

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

13. 1921

    Who was buying and selling in Ocean City in 1921, street by street - including a town lot sold by former Governor John Walter Smith.

    The Democratic Messenger printed Worcester County's real-estate transfers every week, and the 1921 Ocean City entries are the closest thing the year has to a town record: Sarah M. Collin from Clinton Coffin, real estate on Baltimore Avenue in Ocean City (January); William Larson from Gustavus Larson and wife, "house and lot at the foot of Wicomico Street, in Ocean City," $400 (March); Harry Williams from Daniel P. Lynch and wife, 7.72 acres "on the mainland opposite Ocean City and on the southerly side of the State stone road leading from Berlin to Ocean City," $1,600 (March); Daniel P. Lynch from William J. Cropper and wife, 1.47 acres "on the mainland opposite Ocean City" (June); and in November, Wm. J. Quillen from Wm. B. S. Powell and wife, real estate near Ocean City; Louisa M. Mumford from James D. Fallow and wife, "real estate on the westerly side of Philadelphia Ave., in Ocean City"; and John W. Hudson from John Walter Smith et al., "real estate on the north side of Dorchester Street, in Ocean City." Two things stand out. The mainland strip along the Berlin road is being broken up and sold in 1921 - the first sign of the mainland development the bay bridge made possible. And the former Governor and United States Senator John Walter Smith was still holding, and now selling, Ocean City town lots.

    William B. S. Powell

    Source · checked 2026-08-10

14. 1923 · 1923-07-28

    Senator John Walter Smith and Mrs. John Waggaman sign the Plimhimmon's register, and the Coast Guard keeper gives a terrapin dinner for the mayor.

    Worcester Democrat, 28 July 1923: "Captain William I. Purnell gave a terrapin dinner to a number of his friends at the Maryland Inn, among whom were Messrs. F. W. C. Webb, W. G. Gordy, Marion Humphreys, Graham Gunby, of Salisbury, and Mayor Wm. W. McCabe of Ocean City. Recent visitors at the Plimhimmon during last week were Senator John Walter Smith, of Baltimore; Mrs. John Waggeman, of Annapolis, and Mrs. McCallum of Philadelphia; Mrs. William Price of Centreville, and Mr. and Mrs. Walter V. Harrison, of Baltimore." Earlier in July the Plimhimmon had registered "Mrs. Charles E. Bentley, of New York… for the summer," entertaining friends from New York.

    Plimhimmon Hotel / Plim PlazaJohn F. WaggamanCapt. William I. PurnellWilliam W. McCabe

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

15. 1924

    George M. Upshur, once Mayor of Ocean City, dies at Snow Hill.

    Worcester Democrat, 31 May 1924: 'GEORGE M. UPSHUR DIES IN SNOW HILL … He also served as colonel on Governor Smith's staff and was once Mayor of Ocean City. Mr. Upshur is survived by a son, Franklin Upshur, who is a member of the present House of Delegates; by two daughters, Mrs. John B. Whaley of Snow Hill and Mrs. Harry F. Covington; by a brother, Francis B. Upshur of Baltimore, and by two sisters … In addition to his numerous political offices, Mr. Upshur was one of the Maryland Commissioners to the Chicago World's Fair. As a delegate to the Democratic National Convention which first nominated Grover Cleveland for the Presidency, he made the motion by which Cleveland's nomination was made unanimous.' His son Franklin Upshur had sold The Gables at Ocean City to Oscar M. Chandler three months earlier.

    George M. Upshur

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

16. 1933 · 1933-08-03

    W. Lee Carey, the Eastern Shore's 'old school' Democratic boss, died at his Ocean City home three weeks before the storm

    'OCEAN CITY, Md., Aug. 4. Funeral services were being arranged today for W. Lee Carey, probably the best known of the "old school" Democrats, who died here suddenly yesterday, aged 71. Leaving the high school at Berlin, where he was principal, Carey years ago cast his lot in politics with the late John Walter Smith, who became Governor and Senator. He was the powerful leader's highest lieutenant and confidential advisor.' The Smyrna Times adds that his health had been failing for eight years, that a heart attack was given as the cause, that he was a native of Worcester County, and that after the classroom he represented a firm publishing school books and supplies.

    W. Lee Carey

    Source · checked 2026-08-10