GNB
Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

1,109 records available in this database
IntroductionIntroduction | Name IndexName Index | Occupation IndexOccupation Index | Organization IndexOrganization Index | Full-Text SearchFull-Text Search | The DictionaryThe Dictionary

LanguageLanguage
Page 878 of 1109

jump to page
RUNDLE, JAMES ALEXANDER (1861-1932)

RUNDLE, JAMES ALEXANDER, wholesale merchant and sawmill owner; b. Newcastle, 11 Aug 1861, s/o John Rundle and Mary Walter; m. 1885, Elizabeth Marion MacMillan, d/o Miles MacMillan and Sarah Catherine Pond; d. Newcastle, 7 Jun 1932.

James A. Rundle's father had a mercantile establishment in Newcastle by the 1840s, and in the late 60s he acquired the former Harding sawmill, on what was later the Ritchie site. In 1871 his mill and the store connected with it were among the most valuable properties in the county, but within two years he was dead, and the sawmill was in ashes.

In 1883 James A. Rundle left the Miramichi to seek his fortune in Brandon, Manitoba, but he soon returned and took a job with James Robinson of Millerton. He was later a wholesale merchant on the Newcastle waterfront for more than ten years, but he was restless for an opportunity to become wealthy. When he learned in 1899 that A. Ernest G. McKenzie and a companion had discovered copper on the Escuminac River in Quebec, he took the express train to Campbellton and purchased a one-third interest in the exploration and development company which the men set up. In October 1906 he created the lumber firm of James A. Rundle & Co. under a ten-year partnership agreement with James Robinson, and he built a sawmill on Bartibog Island. Soon afterwards he sold his wholesale firm to Baird & Peters Ltd of Saint John. He appeared to prosper in his new business, which was said to have sawn some of the lumber used in the construction of the New York subway.

As long as the money flowed Rundle and his family lived on a grand scale, with a colonial-style mansion on the hillside to the rear of the courthouse in Newcastle and a summer home at Bay du Vin. The mansion, which was erected in 1911 by the Newcastle contractor Walter Morell, was lost six years later, along with the sawmill and all the rest of Rundle's property, when James Robinson withdrew from the financially-troubled partnership at the expiration of the initial ten-year term. When the mansion was sold at auction in 1918 it did not leave the family, however, since it was bought by Rundle's retired bachelor brother, John T. Rundle, who had previously been manager at Chatham with the William Richards Co. and its successor, the Miramichi Lumber Co.

After his business collapsed James A. Rundle and his family moved to Halifax, where he worked as a lumber broker. He later came back to Newcastle and was living in retirement in the town at the time of his death. He was survived by his wife, Elizabeth M. MacMillan, two sons, and four daughters. His daughter Lillian A. (Rundle) Cusick acquired the Rundle mansion in her retirement years, after it had been made into an apartment house, and she was its resident manager until her death in 1982. Several years of neglect preceded the demolition of the structure in 1992.

Sources

[b] church records [m] Advocate 18 Nov 1885 [d] Advocate 8 Jun 1932 / Advance 17 Aug 1899; Advocate 17 Jan 1883, 26 Jul 1916, 6 Sep 1917, 17 May 1917, 10 Jan 1918; Leader 26 Apr 1907, 22 Nov 1907; Martin; News 13 Jan 1982; Ritchie business data; World 16 Dec 1916


4.11.1