MACMURDO, LESLIE BEECHER (1874-1932)
MACMURDO, LESLIE BEECHER, merchant tailor and businessman; mayor of Newcastle, 1910-11; b. Alberton, P.E.I., 18 Feb 1874, s/o John MacMurdo and Sarah Clark (adopted s/o George Clark and h/w Jane); m. 1896, Laura Miller, sister of Stanley Wallace Miller; and 1924, Isabel (Caie) Tozer, wid/o Thomas V. Tozer, of Newcastle and Moncton; d. Moncton, 4 Jun 1932.
Leslie B. MacMurdo came to Newcastle in 1895 from Campbellton, where he had been working as a tailor. He opened a tailoring shop and men's wear store in Newcastle, which he advertised extensively in the Miramichi newspapers. In 1897 he added a dry cleaning service to his business, and two years later he appended a bicycle agency.
In 1909 MacMurdo became managing director of the Advocate Publishing Co., which was formed to continue publication of the Union Advocate after members of the Anslow family withdrew from its management. In 1910-11 he was the mayor of Newcastle. Soon afterwards he wound up his business affairs and moved to Calgary, Alta. He returned in 1913, however, and entered the dry cleaning field in Moncton. He was later a partner in the Moncton firm of Donald & MacMurdo, merchant tailors.
MacMurdo performed publicly as a "vocal artist" and was one of the leading members of the choir of the Methodist church in Newcastle. Later he was prominent in fraternal and business circles in Moncton and was president of the Moncton Retail Merchants' Association in 1922. He was survived in 1932 by his wife Isabel (Caie) Tozer, five sons, and a daughter.
Sources
[b] PAPEI (church records) [m] official records; Advocate 19 Dec 1924 [d] Advocate 8 Jun 1932 / Advocate 27 Mar 1895, 29 Dec 1897, 5 Sep 1899 (ad), 4 Jul 1906, 14 Dec 1909, 21 Feb 1911, 31 May 1911, 7 Jun 1911, 31 Jan 1913, 27 Aug 1913, 8 Apr 1919, 21 Feb 1922; Island Register online ("The Descendants of Archibald McMurdo," by Debbie McMurdo); Leader, 26 Jun 1974; World 27 Aug 1913
Remarques
MacMurdo's first wife died in 1919. In a strangely-worded report in the Union Advocate of 22 Jun 1920 his marriage to Ethel Helena Hinton was announced. A similar notice of this event was copied by the Moncton Daily Times from the Charlottetown Guardian. Such a marriage was not mentioned in McMurdo's obituary or elsewhere, however, and it is not known if the newspaper reports concerning it were authentic.