Rourke House - St. Martins
A Quaint and Charming Town on new Brunswick's Rugged Shore
Tis Crowned with Nature's Glories
The Rourke house was built circa 1850 by one of the premier shipbuilding families in St. Martins. There are no surviving records, but construction of the house is credited to James, son of William Henry Rourke Sr., a shipbuilder and mill owner who came to Canada from Dungannon, Ireland. James married Charlotte Wishart, daughter of Captain Benjamin Wishart and Charlotte W. Moran on March 16, 1871 in St. Martins. The Wishart family lived in the "pink house" which is located at 197 Main Street, St. Martins.
James and Charlotte had 7 children, Helen (1872), who died at age 11 months. Her headstone can be seen under the apple trees in the garden. James Ernest (1873), Henry Wishart (1875), Charlotte (1877), Allison (1880), Clara Selina (1883), and Ella May, 1885.
James Sr., died March 3, 1914 aged 75 and his wife Charlotte lived on in the house until her death on May 28, 1944 at the age of 93. The house had passed to James & Charlotte's son Allison after James died, and the last Rourke to reside in the house was Phyllis Rourke Moran (Uncle Al's niece whom he had raised from early childhood). Phyllis lived in the house until her death in 1988, when the house was sold outside the Rourke family.
Between 1867 and 1892 the Rourke family built a total of 17 ships ranging in size from a 60 ton schooner (Selina) to a 1,134 ton ship (The Agnes Sutherland, launched July 3, 1875**), at their yard located on Vaughan's Creek in St. Martins.
There was a time many years ago when more ships were built upon Quaco beaches than in any other port in the world. These ships were of the sturdy kind, big square riggers made of the tough spruces and tamarack of the forests behind the town. It took a fortune to build one of these ships. They cost on average $90,000 a piece. Sometimes they were lost on the first trip, but more often than not they sailed for years . They earned a lot of money for their owners. One ship that cost $110.000 when she sailed out of the bay carried a cargo of lumber to Liverpool, and a second cargo of cotton from New Orleans to England and another cargo to and from Calcutta, and those three cargoes alone paid every dollar of her cost. At one time there were twenty-six of these great ships being built at the same time on the beaches of St. Martins and not one less than 1,000 tons.* Those were the good times during which St. Martins earned the title of "the wealthiest village in the British Empire."
*Quaco Sleeps by the Sea (Kansas City Star 1902)
**A picture of the Agnes Sutherland can be seen at www.atlanticships.ca Ships Gallery
Information on the Rourke Family was supplied by Faye Marks, Archivist at the Quaco Museum Archives, St. Martins, NB
For more information on Shipbuilding and to see the location of the numerous shipbuilding yards in St. Martins when it was known as "the wealthiest village in the British Empire" visit the Quaco Museum, 236 Main Street, St. Martins, New Brunswick
