History

William E. Rayne

hotel proprietor · active 1893

Leased Congress Hall at Ocean City for the 1893 season and opened it as proprietor on July 1 with John L. Nock as clerk, claiming "the best beds on the beach." The county paper thought well of him: "Will is as full of energy as a dog is of licks. Everybody likes him." — 1893 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11: The 1893 record says he did not only lease Congress Hall. A Baltimore Sun correspondent reprinted in the Democratic Messenger of 15 July 1893 names "Mr. William R. Rayne, who has just bought of William B. R. Selby's estate the large hotel known as Congress Hall and proposes to put $10,000 worth of improvements on it" — a purchase inside a fortnight of opening as lessee. The paper spells him William E. (8 July), William R. (15 July) and "Will" (24 June) in three consecutive weeks. THE CAMPAIGN CARRIES TWO SEPARATE PERSON RECORDS, person:william-e-rayne (hotel proprietor, 1893) and person:william-r-rayne (Ocean City councilman, 1894-96). This is evidence they may be the same man and a reason to look, but the merge should rest on a Worcester County deed, not on a newspaper initial. Do not merge on this.

In the record (2)

  1. 1893

    Three hotels open the eighteenth season, and the Atlantic Hotel company rents Congress Hall as well.

    "The Atlantic Hotel, at Ocean City, was opened for the reception of guests on the first day of June," the Democratic Messenger reported on June 3. "The hotel company have rented Congress Hotel for the season, and will run it on the European plan." Theodore L. Page managed the Atlantic and a Baltimore Sun correspondent singled him out in July as a man who "has put his house on the same plane as the best houses at any" resort. The Sea Side Hotel "was opened to guests by Proprietor John Tracey" on Tuesday June 13; the Sun's man called Tracy "the veteran Salisbury hotel keeper... who has been doing business every summer at Ocean City with success, for the past fifteen or twenty years." Congress Hall's arrangement changed hands over the summer: on June 24 "Will Rayne has leased Congress Hall, Ocean City, for the season," and on July 8 "Congress Hall, Ocean City, opened on Saturday last with William E. Rayne proprietor and John L. Nock clerk." Billy McKew took the Hotel de Purnell. By July 1 there were "about two hundred people at the various hotels, more than usually found at Ocean City so early in the season," four cottages were building, and "many improvements have been made about the beach." George W. Purnell announced he would build "a handsome cottage at Ocean City between now and next season" on "one of the choicest lots on the beach," and William Warrington, secretary of the Sinepuxent Beach Company, meant to put up a cottage on Atlantic Avenue. — 1893 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [corrected]: The Congress Hall conflict has a third state that resolves the shape of it: Rayne did not only lease, he bought. A Baltimore Sun correspondent reprinted in the Messenger of 15 July 1893 names "Mr. William R. Rayne, who has just bought of William B. R. Selby's estate the large hotel known as Congress Hall and proposes to put $10,000 worth of improvements on it." So the sequence is: the Atlantic Hotel company rented Congress Hall for the season on 3 June; Will Rayne leased it on 24 June and opened it on 1 July; and within a fortnight of opening he bought the freehold out of the Selby estate. The two claims in the conflict are both true and sequential. Add also that by late October the hotel was in winter care: "Mr John Willet moved his family to Ocean City Wednesday, and will take care of Congress Hall during the winter." And in March 1893 the Baltimore & Ohio had sent an agent to Ocean City "to examine the Congress Hall property with a view to purchasing the same" — a railroad nearly bought the hotel five months before Rayne did.

    Congress Hall changed hands between June and July 1893 — the hotel company took it first, Will Rayne ran it

    Atlantic Hotel CompanySinepuxent Beach CompanyTheodore L. PageJohn TracyGeorge W. PurnellWilliam Warrington

    Source · checked 2026-08-06

  2. 1893 · 1893-07-15

    William R. Rayne buys Congress Hall out of the Selby estate and promises $10,000 of improvements — he had only leased it a month earlier.

    A Baltimore Sun correspondent's piece, reprinted in the Messenger of 15 July 1893 under the heading "OCEAN CITY. She is Going Ahead and Promises Well for the Future," turns on the mayor's theory of the town: "Mayor Wilson, in talking of the progress which Ocean City has made, said it is due to the fact that the men who are pushing the interests of the place are working men. 'The working man,' Mr. Wilson says, 'will always get there.'" The working men he then names are the town's three hotel keepers: Theodore L. Page of the Atlantic, "who has put his house on the same plane as the best houses at any other seaside resort"; John Tracy of the Sea Side, "the veteran Salisbury hotel-keeper... who has been doing business every summer at Ocean City with success, for the past fifteen or twenty years"; and "Mr. William R. Rayne, who has just bought of William B. R. Selby's estate the large hotel known as Congress Hall and proposes to put $10,000 worth of improvements on it." That last clause changes the year's hotel story. The campaign has Congress Hall as a lease — the Atlantic's company rented it on 3 June, Will Rayne leased it on 24 June and opened it on 1 July — and has the disagreement filed as a conflict. It was not only a lease. Inside a fortnight of opening, the lessee bought the freehold from the estate of the man who had run it, and announced a sum for improvements larger than the whole Scott's Beach property fetched that autumn.

    Theodore L. PageJohn TracyWilliam Sydney Wilson

    Source · checked 2026-08-11