History

Nancy Massey

servant and nurse · d. 1899

A Black woman living at Ocean City who went with the family of John Willett, an Ocean City hotel keeper, when they moved to Baltimore on 2 October 1899. She and her son Eddie died with the Willetts' six-year-old daughter Louise of gas asphyxiation on their first night in the house at 480 South Charles Street. The newspaper report gives no age for either of them and blames Nancy Massey for the gas cock.

The first Black woman this project can name as having lived and worked at Ocean City, named only because she died in a way that made the Baltimore papers.

In the record (1)

  1. 1899 · 1899-10-03

    Nancy Massey and her son Eddie, brought from Ocean City as servant and nurse, die of gas on their first night in Baltimore — and the county paper's account blames her for it.

    John Willett, a native of Berlin who had been running a hotel at Ocean City, moved his family to Baltimore on Monday 2 October 1899 and took Nancy Massey with them "as a servant and nurse." The Democratic Messenger of 7 October reprinted the Baltimore Sun: "Three persons were found dead from asphyxiation by gas early Tuesday morning, in a sleeping room on the second story of a saloon at 480 South Charles street, owned by John W. Willet. They were Louise Willett, the 6-year-old daughter of John Willett, Nancy Massey, aged — years, and her son, Eddie Massey, aged — years." The servant "had never had occasion to use illuminating gas," and had been shown how to work the bracket; "the servant coaxed little Louise to sleep with her, as the house was strange to them and she wanted company for the first night. It appears that the colored servant only partially turned off the gas, as the stop cock was found next morning half turned on." The child's funeral was held the following afternoon, conducted by the pastor of St. Joseph's Catholic Church, and her remains sent to Berlin for interment. Of the other two the paper wrote only: "The bodies of the colored nurse and her son will be turned over to relatives, and are now in charge of Messrs. Doyle & Son, undertakers." Their ages are blank in the type. The item runs under the head "SUFFOCATED BY GAS. Colored Woman and two Children Found Dead" — a headline that miscounts its own dead.

    Read this against the whole campaign: across eight years of the county paper, the town's Black residents appear as a body that may have been lynched, a boy who drowned, and a woman and her son who died on the one night the record can prove they were somewhere else. Nancy Massey is the first Black woman this project can name as having lived and worked at Ocean City, and the sentence that names her is the sentence that blames her.

    Source · checked 2026-08-11