William H. Scott
solicitor to the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City · active 1938-
Town solicitor of Ocean City, printed as 'WILLIAM H. SCOTT, Solicitor' on the council's own letterhead from 1938, and reappointed attorney by the incoming council on 10 September 1940. He was the lawyer of every difficult question the town had in 1940. On 12 March the council asked him 'to learn whether the cancelling ordinance to State Roads Commission to rights of street beds of North Div. street was valid or if the granting by previous council still held' - that is, whether the ordinance it had passed eight weeks earlier had worked. On 16 April the mayor asked him to study the licences and find any way the city could licence the fishing boats; the answer, implicitly, was that there was none, and in October the council resolved to seek an act of the General Assembly instead. In October and November he handled the personal-injury claim of a woman who fell from the sidewalk at Caroline Street by the Maryland Hotel, settled at $100. At the last meeting of the year he was instructed to write letters arguing why the State should erect a jetty from the Inlet to South Division Street to protect the town's south beach.
In the record (7)
1940 · 1940-08-05
Ocean City's 1940 election was decided by one vote: the third council seat went to Robert Lee Cropper on 128 against Frank Salea's 127
'An Election was held in Firemens Building Monday August 5th 1940 for purpose of electing one person for Mayor and three persons for City Councilmen for a term of two years from 2nd Tuesday of September 1940 to 1942.' The polls were open from 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. The returns were filed with the clerk by three election judges, Stephen J. Quillin, Horace H. Richardson and Thomas L. Savage. For Mayor: Clifford P. Cropper 167, Charles W. Purnell 97, C. Parker Smith 2, John B. Lynch 3. For City Council: Harold J. Rayne 208, E. Raymond Bounds 189, Robert Lee Cropper 128, Frank Salea 127, Talbot E. Bunting 91. Three seats were to be filled, so Rayne, Bounds and Robert Lee Cropper took them and Salea missed by a single vote. The new mayor and council were sworn in by Magistrate J. Edward White at nine o'clock on the evening of 10 September, and organised by electing Bounds President of the Council and Rayne Treasurer, and reappointing J. M. Mumford Secretary and Wm. H. Scott attorney.
Four men stood for mayor and 269 votes were cast for them; five stood for three council seats and 743 votes were cast, so the same electors were plainly splitting their tickets. The mayor the council had appointed in January was confirmed by the town in August with a comfortable majority over the doctor who owned the Atlantic Hotel - and the last seat on the board turned on one elector, in a town whose whole year-round population the census had just put near a thousand.
Ocean City Volunteer Fire DepartmentClifford P. CropperDr. Charles Washington PurnellHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsRobert Lee CropperFrank SaleaJohn B. LynchJ. Edward White (magistrate)J. M. Mumford
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1940 · 1940-11-29
At its last meeting of 1940 Ocean City instructed its lawyer to argue for a State jetty running from the Inlet up to South Division Street, to protect the south beach
The final item of the final meeting of 1940, on the evening of Friday 29 November: 'Letters regarding the State erecting Jetty from Inlet to S. Div. Street were discussed and Attorney Scott instructed to write letters stating why this work should be done to protect the South Beach of city.' The council had by then been asking about the jetties for two years - in February 1939 a councilman wrote to the War Department to ask whether it intended to do anything at all about them. The same meeting settled a personal-injury claim: the attorney read correspondence from the lawyer for 'the lady who claimed to have got hurt by falling off the Side walk at Caroline Street by Maryland Hotel', and 'Council agreed to offer $100. as settlement of claim.' By resolution the town borrowed a further $6,000 from the Exchange and Savings Bank to retire bonds and coupons falling due on 1 January 1941.
Eight federal jetties reports in a row had described the Ocean City works as capstone, one-man stone and minor repairs, and never once as anything new. So the town stopped asking the War Department and started asking the State - for a structure the federal project did not contain, running north from the Inlet along the beach the Inlet had been eating since 1933. The inlet thread's whole second half is in that instruction: whoever will build it.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1941 · 1941-03-12
The town told its solicitor to write a charter bill on 12 March; the General Assembly passed exactly the two changes he was asked for, and the Governor approved them on 28 April.
This is the cleanest two-source chain the campaign has for how a small town legislated. On 7 January 1941 the council 'discussed the need for new legislation and was decided to go over the entire charter and decide just what changes were needed'. On 12 March: 'Changes in Charter were discussed and attorney Wm. H. Scott instructed to prepare bill for same. Changes were in Holding Election, and printing city audit.' Both landed. Chapter 573 of the Acts of 1941 (Senate Bill 474) added Sections 135A and 135B to the Ocean City sub-title of Article 24 of the Code of Public Local Laws: a candidate for Mayor or Councilman must now file a written statement of candidacy with the City Clerk five days before the election, and the official ballot must list every qualified candidate alphabetically by office, with write-ins permitted. Chapter 568 repealed and re-enacted Section 150 with amendments, 'changing the date of publication of annual receipts and expenditures of Mayor and City Council of Ocean City' — an itemised statement of every dollar received and spent, published in a Worcester County newspaper by the first week of November each year. Both were approved 28 April 1941 and took effect 1 June 1941. The election bill is the town's answer to 1940, when a council seat had turned on a single vote and the fifth candidate's own surname could not be read the same way twice.
Clifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneRobert Lee CropperE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1941 · 1941-03-21
The town leased a corner of its own land at Philadelphia Avenue and North 14th Street to the Eastern Shore Gas Company for a storage tank — twenty years at a hundred dollars.
On 12 March 1941 a gas company's offer to lease city property on the 14th Street side for a tank was discussed at $100 a year. On the evening of Friday 21 March the council met, granted Cullin S. Jenkins his building permit, heard a Mr. Wolf 'in interest of leasing 50 x 100 ft on city land' for a storage gas tank, adjourned at ten — and then, the clerk records, 'After adjurning Council went in Session again & recommended leasing City [land] for storage tank to Eastern Shore Gas Co. and lease and Resolution was prepared & signed.' The engrossed resolution, certified by the secretary on 26 March 1941, recites a quorum present and voting on Friday 21 March at 7:30, and authorises a lease to Eastern Shore Gas Company 'for a certain lot owned by the town, situated at the northwest corner of the intersection of Philadelphia Avenue and North Fourteenth Street... having a frontage of 50 feet on the west side of Philadelphia Avenue and an even depth westerly of 100 feet along the south side of North Fourteenth Street, and being a part of Lot No. 7 in Block No. 53 North as shown on the plat of the property of the Sinepuxent Beach Company of Baltimore City, for a term of twenty years at an annual rental of one hundred dollars ($100.00), payable semi-annually in advance.' A resort that had bought its light from a company that burned down in 1925 was now selling twenty years of its own ground for a bottled-gas tank, and the sixty-six-year-old Sinepuxent Beach Company plat was still the instrument that described where.
Eastern Shore Gas CompanyClifford P. CropperRobert Lee CropperHarold J. Rayne
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1941 · 1941-09-25
The town sold something it called 'kits hill' to James R. Kelly for three hundred dollars, and the minute says nothing else about it.
The whole entry, from the typewritten minute of 25 September 1941, is: 'Motion was made by Harold Rayne seconed by Raymond Bounds that city sell kits hill to James R.Kelly for $300. was carried.' Nothing in the Ocean City record before or after 1941 explains what Kit's Hill was, where it stood or how the town came to own it — and on a barrier island whose highest natural ground is a dune, a place named a hill is worth finding. The same meeting granted John D. Ayers a dwelling on lot 1 block 20, let Wm. Hasting move his house, and let John Jones move his from North Division Street to 6th Street on condition the solicitor drew the permit and Jones signed an agreement protecting the city from any damage — North Division Street being, by then, the street the new bridge was about to land in.
Harold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsClifford P. Cropper
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1942 · 1942-04-14
In April 1942 Ocean City made Baltimore Avenue, Philadelphia Avenue, Caroline Street and North Division Street one-way, at the State Roads Commission's request, to handle traffic from a bridge that would not open for seven months.
The new Sinepuxent Bay bridge had been structurally complete since 8 December 1941 and stood closed, waiting on the Herring Creek approaches; it did not carry traffic until 16 November 1942. That did not stop the State Roads Commission from arranging the town behind it. At the meeting of 14 April 1942, after the air-raid wardens had retired, 'the ordinance for placeing signs makeing Baltimore avenue, Philadelphia Ave., Caroline and North Div. streets one way street was read and passed', and the clerk added the reason in his own parenthesis: '(this ordinance was at request of state roads commission that they might put up the necessary signs to handle traffif from the new bridge.)' It is the town's whole future street pattern being set, in wartime, for a road nobody could yet drive. A letter from the same Commission about traffic signs and lights had already been read and answered by the town's attorney on 3 March. The same April meeting also closed a chapter: 'Motion was made by Rayne Seconed by Bounds that city sell the bank shares received in final settlement of the tied up funds.'
Route 50 Drawbridge (Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge)Clifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsRobert Lee Cropper
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1942 · 1942-05-02
Ocean City's air-raid wardens had to argue the council into it, and then the town passed a blackout ordinance on a Saturday night in May and put a man on the payroll at forty dollars a week to screen the lights.
The war had been in the minute book since 11 December 1941, but the machinery took five months to bite. On the evening of Tuesday 14 April 1942 the Mayor and Council did something they had not done before: they met with the wardens. The clerk's sentence is careful and it records a disagreement. 'After listening to arguments about ordinance being passed to enable the enforcement of blackouts the council assured the wardens that they would submit such an ordinance to our attorney and when put in proper form would pass same and would support the wardens in any thing reasonable.' The wardens then retired, and the council turned to one-way streets. It took two and a half more weeks. On Saturday evening 2 May 1942 the council met specially: 'Ordinance relative to air-raid precaution and blackout in Ocean [City] were read and on motion by Harold Rayne Seconed by Raymond Bounds Ordinance was passed.' In the same sitting the council hired the enforcement: 'Bert Cropper was present and council agreed to employ him at $40.00 week beginning May 11th until June 15th to direct the screenin of lights where they had to be shielded.' Forty dollars a week was more than the town paid its captain of lifeguards ($25) and twice what it paid a lifeguard ($20). Five weeks of it, ending 15 June — which is to say the lights were to be shielded before the season opened, not after. The police got a five-dollar raise from 1 June. Set the calendar against the water: the Atwater was shot to pieces twenty miles offshore on 2 April, the wardens came to the council on the 14th, and the ordinance passed on 2 May.
Ocean City Home Defense CouncilClifford P. CropperHarold J. RayneE. Raymond BoundsJ. M. Mumford
Source · checked 2026-08-11