Rev. W. C. Poole
pastor, Methodist Episcopal Church, Ocean City · active 1917
Pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Ocean City in 1917. In June he signed the congregation's resolution to Governor Harrington against licensing race-track gambling in Maryland — "any one who would attempt to license race track gambling is more dangerous to America than the German Kaiser, should be classed with Benedict Arnold, and sent to the front line trenches in France at first opportunity." In December he joined the Episcopal rector W. Archbold and the Presbyterian minister R. L. Riddle in calling every preacher in Worcester County to the Presbyterian Church basement to plan a Sabbath-observance campaign for the coming season, arguing that Sunday enforcement was "a county affair" and that the whole county suffered by its disregard. In the same statement he set out an unusually concrete development programme for the town: the M. D. & V. Railroad extended down the beach from Rehoboth, an inlet to salt Sinepuxent Bay, St. Martins River and Assawoman Bay, a dam and a hydroelectric light-heat-and-power plant, and a million-dollar cold storage plant for fish — by his reckoning a winter living for 20,000 people and two million dollars of new taxable property. — 1935 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11: 1935 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11. The condemnation story has a commercial coda and he is still dealing with Ocean City eighteen years after the pastorate the registry records. He wrote to the Mayor and City Council about taxes at least twice in 1935 — his letter is read into the minutes of 8 January and again of 14 May — and on 9 December 1935 the council ordered paid 'Rev. W. C. Pool Right of way 500.00', with $75.00 to Johnson & Johnson for preparing deeds in the same list of bills. The registry already holds him as the Hebron clergyman whose south-end Ocean City building lots the 1933 inlet submerged and who fought the federal condemnation to a jury verdict in December 1934. What the 1935 right of way was FOR is not stated in the minute; the town was at that moment under a federal deadline to deliver the right of way for the Isle of Wight Bay channel, and the sewer's discharge line would also have needed one. The minute writes the surname 'Pool'; the identification rests on the surname, the clerical title and the condemnation history, not on a first name in this source.
In the record (5)
1917 · 1917-12-17
Ocean City's three ministers call the county's preachers together over Sunday observance — and one of them lays out an inlet, a dam, a power plant and a beach railroad.
The Democratic Messenger of 15 December 1917, "BETTER SABBATH FOR OCEAN CITY — All Ministers in the County Invited to Ocean City To Plan Big Campaign": the ministers of Ocean City "have united in a call to all preachers of all Churches in Worcester County to meet them in the basement of the Presbyterian Church next Monday — December 17 — at two o'clock to plan for a reasonable Sabbath Observance in that growing resort next summer. The call is signed by W. C. Poole, Pastor of the Methodist Church, W. Archbold, Rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, R. L. Riddle, Minister of the Presbyterian Church." Poole's supporting statement is the most expansive vision of Ocean City's future anyone put in print this decade: "I see a great future for Ocean City. It must grow. I have visited almost every seashore resort from New Hampshire to Virginia. The Jersey Coast is nearly all occupied. The next development must be between Rehoboth and Ocean City on the Delaware–Maryland ocean front. The M. D. & V. Railroad should be extended from Rehoboth to Ocean City down the beach... Such transportation would double the summer population and hotel business at Ocean City. The proposed inlet, if successful in salting Sinepuxent Bay, St. Martins River, and Assawoman Bay can furnish a living for 20,000 people in winter from oysters and clams, who could keep boarders in summer. The salting of this water would soon add two millions of dollars worth of taxable property to Worcester County." He adds that beyond the "new bridge across the Sinepuxent" the town needs "a million dollar cold storage plant for fish, a million dollar Light, Heat and Power plant along with the inlet, the current to be generated by water power made by inlet and a dam across Sinepuxent bay." A committee of citizens met again on the Sabbath question the week after Christmas. Sixteen years before the storm cut the inlet, the argument for it is being made from a Methodist pulpit, and the case is economic.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1919
The Wilmington Conference sends E. P. Thomas to Ocean City, and W. C. Poole — who preached the inlet from the pulpit — to Parsonsburg.
The Wilmington Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church's 1919 appointments, printed in the Wilmington Evening Journal of 31 March and the Cambridge Daily Banner of 2 April: "Ocean City, Md — E. P. Thomas"; "Parsonsburg, Md — W. C. Poole"; "Snow Hill, Md — L. E. Poole"; "Berlin" and the rest of the circuit. William C. Poole is the Ocean City Methodist pastor who in December 1917 called the county's clergy together for a Sabbath-observance plan and then delivered the most ambitious development speech in the town's record — the inlet, a beach railway from Rehoboth, a million-dollar cold-storage plant and a power dam across Sinepuxent Bay. Fifteen months later the Conference moved him inland.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1933 · 1933-10-04
October: thirteen of fourteen owners sold; the fourteenth was a minister with sixty lots under water
The right of way for the inlet works had to be bought from the people whose lots the ocean had taken. 'Thirteen of the fourteen property owners involved in the right of way proceedings have now agreed to sell their holdings to the government, Mayor McCabe announced. The one stumbling block… Rev. W. C. Po[o]le, of Hebron, Md.' Poole had offered to trade his sixty lots for sixty elsewhere in Ocean City and been refused; he had paid $9,200 for them a few years earlier and the government was offering about $2,500. Condemnation proceedings in the United States District Court were to be started at once, McCabe said as head of the Waterfront Commission. The same column notes, in one plain line, who was doing the first work of all: 'Ocean City coast guards placed telephone cables across the floor of the natural inlet.'
Ocean City Inlet & JettyWilliam W. McCabe
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1935 · 1935-02-26
A February council meeting spent on one taxpayer's arrears, a building-and-loan society in Berlin, and the boardwalk
The regular meeting of 26 February 1935 in its entirety: minutes read and approved, cheques 1784 to 1812 and the receipts read; “Question of Harry Halls taxes was talked over and W. H. Scott was asked to talk with Berlin Building Loan to learn what they desired done”; “Secretary instructed to repair board walk and unload cinders soon as men were available”; adjourned 9.20 p.m. Letters about taxes run through the whole year — from Harrisons Nurseries, Rev. W. C. Poole, R. F. Powell and Lloyd E. Jester on 8 January; from Guy Ayres and Dr. E. W. Cory on 4 February; from Guy P. Ayres and Harry Hall again on 19 March; from W. C. Poole and W. R. Price in May. In the sixth year of the Depression, whether an Ocean City tax bill got paid was a question for a building-and-loan association in the next town.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1935 · 1935-12-09
The town paid the Rev. W. C. Poole $500 for a right of way — the same clergyman whose lots the inlet had drowned
Among the bills ordered paid on 9 December 1935: “Rev. W. C. Pool Right of way 500.00; Ella E. Dennis 100.00; Paul Thebaud Rebate 50.13; Johnson & Johnson Preparing deeds 75.00; Bonds & Coupons Jan 1 3609.70; November Electric Bill 370.80; Community Fund (Xmas treat) 25.00.” The Rev. W. C. Poole of Hebron is the Methodist Episcopal clergyman who owned dozens of south-end building lots that the 1933 inlet put under water, fought the federal condemnation to a jury and had a sealed verdict returned in December 1934. A year later the town itself is buying a right of way from him, with a solicitors' bill for preparing the deeds in the same list — in the ten weeks after a newspaper reported that Ocean City had to hand the federal government a right of way for the Isle of Wight Bay channel by 20 October or lose the money.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-11