Tuckerton Lumber Company helped build Long Beach Island

Sometimes what starts out as a means of survival turns into a fruitful blessing. For the Tuckerton Lumber Company, the need to provide for a family turned into an 80-year dynasty rich in business and in love.

Photo courtesy of TLC

Times were tough during the Great Depression in 1932. Work was scarce, and money was even harder to find. But people still married and children were still born. For newlyweds Fred and Mildred Bunnell, raising a family obviously meant providing income. When their only daughter, Claire, was born that year, finding work became an even bigger priority.

Sensing this growing need, Fred's father, Fred Bunnell Sr., a family doctor in Barnegat, decided to purchase the Tuckerton branch of his uncle’s lumber company in Toms River, so the family could provide for their own. Fred ran the lumberyard on Railroad Avenue in Tuckerton, and Mildred, alongside one other employee, ran the hardware store on Main Street.

During World War II, Mildred continued to run the hardware store, while Fred worked at the lumberyard after working a full day at the fish factory in the middle of Great Bay, where he caught and cooked bunker fish and helped produce fertilizers and weaponry for the war.

Making a living during the war was even harder than it was before, and business was tough. Ordering merchandise for the lumber company was next to impossible.

“We had been able to get nothing in the store,” said Claire Laird, choking up a bit at the thought. “Maybe we might get some hammers, or maybe we might get some screws. But you couldn’t just order things and (expect) they would come because we were in a war. There was rationing all over.

“Then all of a sudden, the world started to boom again. But (local) business was not real good,” she remembered.

Bunnell Sr. continued his medical practice in both Barnegat and on Long Beach Island, seeing patients, delivering babies and occasionally removing fishhooks caught in someone’s arm or leg. He and his wife spent their weekends in a small cottage on 13th Street in Ship Bottom, which they purchased years earlier. When money was tight, some patients paid him in property for their medical bills.

Photo courtesy of TLC

“The land was worthless in those days,” said Laird. “It had gravel roads, and it wasn’t developed that much. So some of the people said, ‘Pay the doctor with this land over here. It’s nothing but weeds and mosquitoes.’”

When the war ended, business began to boom. Mildred filled up the Tuckerton hardware shop on Main Street with apple cookie jars, ivy bowls and French cottages. The merchandise went flying out the door; life was good again.

Mildred sensed that the extra free land on the Island that her father-in-law acquired from his patients could be of good use. She urged her husband to open up shop in Surf City, and in 1945 a gift shop called Bunnell’s was opened on North 2nd Street.

Although the store only carried knick-knacks and souvenirs, Mildred told customers who came in looking for paint, hammers and other small tools that she could have the supplies delivered to the store the following day on behalf of the Tuckerton Lumber Company.

The lumber company’s reputation grew, and over time there was enough business to add on additional stock rooms, an apartment and a storage shed to the gift shop in Surf City. It was later renamed the Tuckerton Lumber Company in 1948.

The company continued to grow stronger every year, as building progressed during the off-season and seasonal residents came scurrying in during the summer months. Family members continued to help out with the stores. Laird, known as the “barefoot teenager,” helped out wherever she could, counting screws or wrapping purchased merchandise in paper and bags.

“I used to work there, and I’d say, ‘Can I help you with something?’ And a man would say, ‘Look, I’ve been in Philadelphia all week, and I’ve come down here, and I’m just roaming around this store; I’m just looking at everything,’" remembered Laird. "It would be almost like a treat for them. They’d come down and just check out everything that we had. And we always kept, I think, pretty up-to-date with everything. We would have everything people needed. 

“It was really funny weighing out nails with a claw hammer and counting out screws. Things are so different nowadays. It was all taking care of everybody with little bags and little packages and little things,” she added, snickering at the memories.

Though things have certainly changed and some of the family members have come and gone, others have stuck with the business. Laird's three children and their husbands and wives have all worked at the store at one time or another. Her son, Bruce Nelson, is chief executive officer of the Surf City store, and her daughter, Elizabeth Harrigle, is financial secretary. Harrigle’s husband, Timothy, runs the Tuckerton Lumber branch in Tuckerton. And the family couldn’t be happier.

Photo by Kristin Blair

“We are so grateful to the people of Long Beach Island and the people that came from Philadelphia and North Jersey because they made business such a fun thing,” said Laird. “And we were, of course, able then to get all kinds of supplies; all of the sudden the world just started to boom. The Island grew and grew, and we eventually became what we are today: a great, big store with a lumberyard in back and lumberyards at the side, and all that,” she added with delight.

The gift shop was given up three years ago when Laird decided she had enough of gift shows. But the hardware, paint and building supplies are still thriving. 

“We’re so grateful to all the people that have been such faithful customers of ours and the builders that are still making Long Beach Island such a wonderful place to come and live,” she said.

“It’s great being in a family business. It’s been a real blessing to be a part of it,” agreed Harrigle. “Eighty years is a long time, but there’s never a dull moment. Sometimes business is tough, and we’re challenged to stay current with our products. But it’s very good to us,” she added with a smile.

The family hopes to see the Tuckerton Lumber Company surpass another 80 years. But while they’re waiting for life to take its course, they’re content sharing the wealth of good business and even better family.


This article was published in The Beachcomber.