After completing college, Edith Stella boarded an eastbound train to marry Orville. Her siblings helped with the cost of the train. Edith trip took her from Denver to Chicago, then to Washington D.C. where Orville anxiously awaited his future bride. Together once again, they took a streetcar to Riverdale, Maryland which was just a few miles from the college.
Orville writes, “The Episcopalian minister married us in the home of a Catholic friend of mine who was a stenographer. With me a recent Unitarian, and Edith was a Methodist.”
“After a weeks’ time we made our honeymoon trip to a fisherman’s home living on the seashore of the Atlantic Ocean. Before reaching it, we took the train to Baltimore, Maryland. We had our baggage and hurried down the street as we only had a little time left after we got off the train and couldn’t get a streetcar and we almost run down to the docks to catch the boat, but we were politely informed that the water was covered with ice and there was no boat. Well, what should I do? Well, I wasn’t going to be outdone on that deal, so I knew a streetcar across the city. I believe it went underground. We took that and come out on the northern part of Baltimore and then continued over to Wilmington, Delaware and then turned south through Delaware and rode all the length of Delaware, small state, and then we entered Maryland. Then we continued in Maryland until we reached our port, and then to the train down to near Ocean City, Maryland. Then from there we got down to Ocean City proper and stayed with a fisherman and his wife.”
The land the city was built upon, as well as much of the surrounding area, was once owned by Englishman Thomas Fenwick. In 1869, businessman Isaac Coffin built the first beach-front cottage to receive paying guests. During those early days, people arrived by stagecoach and ferry. They came for a variety of reasons; to fish off the shore, collect seashells, walk along the long strip of sandy beach absorbing the natural beauty of the Atlantic Ocean, or simply to sit back and watch the rolling surf.
Soon after, other modest boarding houses were built on the strip of sand. The activity attracting prominent businessmen from the Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware. They came not so much to visit as to survey the split. A decision was made to develop it. Two-hundred-fifty lots were cut into it, and a corporation was formed to assist in the development of the land. The corporation stock of 4,000 shares sold for $25 each.
The first major hotel in the town, The Atlantic Hotel, opened on July 4, 1875. Besides ready access to the beach and Atlantic Ocean, it offered dancing and billiards to the visitors of its more than four-hundred rooms. For years The Atlantic Hotel was the northernmost attraction in Ocean City. By 1878 tourists could come by railroad from Berlin, Maryland to the shores of Sinepuxent Bay across from the town. By 1881, a line was completed across the Sinepuxent Bay to the shore, bringing rail passengers directly into the town.
Upon arriving we rode to the beach, and we enjoyed watching the waves coming in threes, sixes, and nines. The misses enjoyed seeing all those ocean waves come in. It was all new to her. The tide happened to be high. So, we had a few days there, a happy time living with the fisherman and catching crab.
After this we took the train to where we were to transfer to the steamboat to take us to Baltimore, Maryland. We watched in route the jellyfish and other life while enroute. We come back through swamps and cypress trees. Finally, we reached the Chesapeake Bay. The boat was the one we had intended to go down in from Baltimore when we started. From Baltimore we took the Baltimore and Ohio train to Riverdale, Maryland where we were to live. O.G.B.