 On April 30, 1877 he married Marcelline (née Bourassa), a native of Buckingham, Quebec.Their first child, a son named Robert, was born in 1878, followed by a daughter, Margaret, in 1879; both were born in Ottawa.In 1882 James accepted a job in Western Ontario as superintendent of construction for the Canadian Pacific Railway transcontinental rail line, and the family moved to Rat Portage, near the Ontario border with Manitoba.