History

Willard Thomson

railroad president · active 1902

President of the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway — by then a Pennsylvania Railroad property — and simultaneously president of the Ocean City Bridge Company, re-elected to both at meetings held the same day at Salisbury in November 1902. The bridge company's board that year was Robert P. Graham, Thomson, the B.C.&A.'s superintendent A. J. Benjamin, and W. L. Rothstein.

In the record (1)

  1. 1902 · 1902-11-08

    The only road onto the beach was a toll bridge run by the railroad's own president — and the county paid it five times what it paid the town.

    At the annual meeting of the Ocean City Bridge Company, held at Salisbury on the same day as the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic's own election of officers, President Willard Thomson was re-elected, with directors Robert P. Graham, Willard Thomson, A. J. Benjamin and W. L. Rothstein. Thomson was president of the B.C.&A.; Benjamin was its superintendent. The 1902 Worcester County levy, printed in full in July, lists "Ocean City Bridge Co. $500.00" against "Mayor & city council Ocean City $100.00" (the same $100 the county paid Snow Hill). In August citizens were petitioning the County Commissioners to widen the road leading from Berlin to Ocean City.

    By 1902 the Pennsylvania Railroad's Eastern Shore subsidiary owned the rails into Ocean City and its president chaired the company that owned the bridge. Getting to the beach at all meant paying the same men twice.

    Ocean City Bridge CompanyBaltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway

    Source · checked 2026-08-06