Rundlet-May family papers, 1770-1934

Historical/Biographical Note

The Rundlet-May Family Manuscript Collection came to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, now Historic New England, in 1971 as part of the contents of the Rundlet-May House, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Built in 1807-08 for James Rundlet, the house remained in the family for four generations before its bequest by Ralph May, great grandson of the builder. Over that time both furnishings and documents of several individuals accumulated within the house. The largest percentage of both relate to James Rundlet, but other items were added in several ways. Personal papers of the residents were added over the years. As other individuals married into the households they brought with them documents relating to their families. Finally, the later generations with an interest in the past collected historic manuscripts.James Rundlet was born on December 8, 1772, in Exeter, New Hampshire, the oldest son of James and Dorothy (Stevens) Rundlet. The family had been in Exeter since the seventeenth century. The senior James is consistently referred to as yeoman though he engaged in property transactions with "gentlemen" and his property holdings included a blacksmith shop and slaughterhouse and his home included a shop. He must have had more cosmopolitan goals for his oldest son, however. In 1785, at age 12, James Jr. was enrolled in the newly formed Phillips Academy to complete his education. James Jr. came to Portsmouth in 1794. He began on a small scale as a commission merchant, but later specialized, importing and retailing textiles. The economic environment was favorable, the young man grew wealthy, and the town was prosperous. During the War of 1812 he began the most important phase of his career turning from sales to manufacturing textiles. He was instrumental in the development of two early woolen mills, one in Amesbury, Massachusetts, in 1814 and in Salmon Falls, New Hampshire, in 1823. During his middle years, however, the climate of Portsmouth changed. Rundlet turned from active merchant and manufacturing activities to a more passive role as investor. He had become one of the town's wealthiest individuals and could live the last twenty-five years of his life on the interest of his earlier accumulation.Rundlet married Jane Hill in Portsmouth on January 1, 1795. Just eleven months after their marriage, Jane Rundlet gave birth to their first child, Harriet (1795-1840). Twelve more children followed, some of whom did not live to adulthood: Caroline (1797-1880), William (1800-1846), Elizabeth (1802-1810), Edward (1804-1805), Edward (1805-1874), John Samuel (1807-1835), George (1808-1830), Alfred (1811-1851), Elizabeth Jane (1813-1839), James (1815-1855), Louisa Catherine (1817-1895), and Francis Matilda (1824-1834)As early as 1821, oldest son William, age twenty-one, entered the textile business. At some point, he apparently took over his father's retail business and his advertisement in Portsmouth papers of the time show his stock to be predominately English imported textiles and more coarse native American products, operating out of his father's Market Street stores. He had little opportunity to achieve prominence on his own, however, leaving Portsmouth in 1834, for the Midwest.Second son Edward had apparently distinguished himself scholastically, for at 1815 at age ten he attended Phillips Academy, Exeter. He later continued at Harvard, completing his A. B. in 1825, his M. D. in 1829. None of Rundlet's other sons were comparably educated, only Alfred having also attended college at Dartmouth. There is some evidence that he was for a short time also engaged as a merchant but spent most of his long life practicing medicine from his father's home on Middle Street.Rundlet's third son John Samuel received his business training in his father's counting rooms. In 1830, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he managed his father's Illinois lands and formed a partnership, Rundlet and Randolph. He died shortly thereafter, however, in 1835, leaving a complicated estate for settlement. Younger brother George also made his way to this part of the country but died in Galena, Illinois, in 1830 at age twenty-two.Alfred Rundlet chose to remain in Portsmouth and at age twenty-three succeeded his brother William in the dry goods business in 1834. He wandered rather far afield than his older brother, appearing in the New York directory of 1842-43 at St. George's Hotel. Youngest brother, James Jr., had appeared there as early as 1838. As the port of New York grew in importance many New England merchants favored it for entry and by this time most mercantile firms could count several New Englanders among their number. By 1850, however, James Jr. had made the next move, following the tide of merchants to California. He settled with his family in Sacramento where he died in 1855 at age 48. Alfred, too, went to California, though not to settle, perhaps expecting to turn a quick profit and return east. He died there shortly after his arrival, in 1851, at age forty.Of his thirteen children, the two oldest, Harriet and Caroline, never married and little is known of their personal lives or education. In 1830, at ages 35 and 32 respectively, they were described among the "Belles of Portsmouth" in a quatrain. Their younger brother Edward also chose not to marry. Four other of Rundlet's children did not survive to marriageable age.Only two of Rundlet's children married into local Portsmouth families. In 1823, his oldest son, William, married Frances Brierly, the daughter of textile/dry goods merchant Benjamin Brierly. Alfred married Martha S. Dwight in 1835. The daughter of Dr. Josiah Dwight, she was the first cousin of Frances (Brierly) Rundlet. Their mothers, Margaret and Susannah, were the daughters of Captain Thomas Thompson, a close business associate and neighbor of former governor John Langdon on Pleasant Street.Each of Rundlet's four youngest children chose his or her spouse from outside the town of Portsmouth. John Samuel married Elizabeth Marshall Williams in August of 1830, just before departing for St. Louis. Her father was Philadelphia merchant, Samuel Williams, a business associate of Rundlet's. More important, however, her mother was Elizabeth (Hill) Williams, sister of Jane (Hill) Rundlet, making the couple first cousins. In 1838 Elizabeth Jane Rundlet married Peter Thatcher Homer, member of the Boston dry goods firm Benjamin Adams & Co. She died in childbirth in Manchester, England, a year later. While in business in New York, James Jr. met and married the daughter of Gilbert Mount, merchant of Front Street. Youngest daughter Louisa Catherine married in 1840 the Hartford born, Savannah merchant, George Hall May. Like so many of Rundlet's family, he died prematurely in 1858. Louisa and her twins, James and Jane Rundlet May, rejoined her family at the Middle Street house. James Rundlet May and his family would later inherit the Middle Street house.The details of James Rundlet's activities in the later years of his life are obscure. He suspended his yearly accounting in 1840, and his ledger was not kept up-to-date. His investments, through the New York investment firm of Prime, Ward, and King, included some slightly more speculative properties, such as insurance policies, municipal public works, but no clear picture emerges. His will provisions were not unusual. The three of his children who made their home with him, Edward, Caroline, and Louisa, were the major beneficiaries. Jane (Hill) Rundlet died in August 1849, at age seventy-five. Two and a half years later, James Rundlet died at age eighty.

Description

Materials of James Rundlet are most numerous and cover, however incompletely, his activities as a textile merchant, woolen manufacturer, and investor in Portsmouth. Of particular interest, however, are the records for the building of the house. They include an account of Rundlet's bills paid for labor and supplies, a daily checklist of workmen on the site and a framing record. Next in quantity are documents produced by five of Rundlet's children, Portsmouth merchants, William and Alfred, physician Edward and daughters Elizabeth Jane and Louisa Catherine. James Rundlet May, of the third generation, left a more complete record, particularly of his lifelong interest in theatricals, Harvard alumni activities and the New Hampshire Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. His wife Mary Ann (Morison) May also left personal papers relating to her marriage, her sister's collections and other family memorabilia. She is undoubtedly responsible for the presence of financial and religious documents relating to Samuel Lord, her grandfather. It is not clear what brought the Captain Edmund Roberts papers into the household. Because the documents had been sorted through in the past, provenance could not always be determined. The residue is listed, item by item, in the collection titled "Unassociated Documents."Many manuscript or printed historic documents were collected by Ralph May and for safety are collected here. The large number of documents produced by him, however, remain in his "den" at the Rundlet-May House. While they have been loosely grouped in categories corresponding to those used here, they were not filed and boxed when the finding aid was written due to their number, recent production and survival of his wife, Gladys Weir Smyth May. Similarly, several types of manuscript material have been left at the house, including maps, drawings and photographs which do not relate to the house or add appreciably to our knowledge of its occupants. These too have been centrally located on the third floor.

Arrangement

As far as possible the documents were grouped according to the producer of the document. In cases where an individual produced only a small amount of material it was grouped with a larger, related collection. The result was eleven individual collections. The arrangement of documents within each collection is based on the system devised for the Codman Family Manuscript Collection. Six series types were used in the Rundlet-May Family Manuscript Collection: Correspondence, Financial Records, Legal Papers, Literary Papers, Maps and Drawings, and Printed Materials. Within each series, if the number of documents warrants, sub-series are designated to group related materials. These are listed alphabetically, their contents arranged chronologically. There are, of course, instances where the nature of the materials dictates an alphabetical arrangement, of memoranda, for example. Particularly in the smaller collections, at both the series and sub-series level, the variety or number of materials may dictate an item by item list.Sub-group 1. James Rundlet papers, 1780-1852Series 1: Correspondence, 1806-1846 (5 sub-series)Series 2: Financial records, 1792-1852 (12 sub-series)Series 3: Legal papers, 1780-1851 (5 sub-series)Series 4: Literary papers, 1787-1793 (3 sub-series)Series 5: Printed material, 1796-1845 (3 sub-series)Series 6: Maps and drawings, 1807-1863 (3 sub-series)Sub-group 2. William Rundlet papers, 1822-1829Series 1: Financial recordsSeries 2: Legal papersSub-group 3: Edward Rundlet papers, 1814-1873Series 1: Correspondence, 1857-1858Series 2: Financial records, 1841-1873 (7 sub-series)Series 3: Legal papers, 1852-1872 (6 sub-series)Series 4: Literary papers, 1814-1852Series 5: Printed materials, 1823-1858 (3 sub-series)Sub-group 4: Alfred Rundlet papers, 1847-1863Series 1: CorrespondenceSeries 2: Financial recordsSeries 3: Legal papers Series 4: Literary papersSeries 5: Printed materialsSub-group 5: Elizabeth Jane (Rundlet) Homer papers, 1823-1840Series 1: CorrespondenceSeries 2: Financial recordsSeries 3: Printed materialsSub-group 6: Louisa Catherine (Rundlet) May papers, 1823-1904Series 1: CorrespondenceSeries 2: Financial recordsSeries 3: Legal papersSeries 4: Literary papersSeries 5: Printed materialsSub-group 7: James Rundlet May papers, 1849-1918Series 1: Correspondence, 1849-1918Series 2: Financial records, 1854-1916 (3 sub-series)Series 3: Legal papers, 1874-1896 (3 sub-series)Series 4: Literary papers, 1854-1916 (4 sub-series)Series 5: Printed materials, 1856-1916 (5 sub-series)Series 6: Maps and drawings, undatedSub-group 8: Mary Ann (Morison) May papers, 1862-1935Series 1: Correspondence, 1862-1935Series 2: Financial records, undatedSeries 3: Legal papers, 1867-1918Series 4: Literary papers, 1918, undatedSub-group 9: Samuel Lord papers, 1770-1841Series 1: CorrespondenceSeries 2: Financial recordsSeries 3: Legal papersSeries 4: Literary papersSeries 5: Printed materialsSub-group 10: Captain Edmund Roberts papers, 1821-1834Series 1: Financial (10 sub-series)Sub-group 11: Ralph May, Collector, 1710-1923Sub-group 12: Unassociated papers, 1812-1872, undatedSubgroup 13: Ralph May papers, 1929-1934, undatedSeries 1: CorrespondenceSeries 2: Photographs

Record details

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