CHARLES A. HAGAN
SAN JOSE GAS WORKS
Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: QUILTY
engaged in plumbing, gas, and steam fitting, No. 82 East
Santa Clara Street, San Jose, is the successor of James Hagan, who has been so
well and favorably known and identified with the interests and enterprises of
San Jose since 1860. The latter was born in County Cavan, Ireland, in 1830.
About the age of twenty years he came to America, settling first in New York,
and later removing to Boston.
Coming to California, in 1854, he worked for some years for the gas company in San Francisco, where he became an adept in the art of gas manufacture, as well as an expert in the business of gas fitting, plumbing, and incidentally of steam fitting. He later started for himself in San Francisco a factory called the Metropolitan Gas Works, which he afterward sold to the present San Francisco Gas Company. In 1860 he came to San Jose, where he established the San Jose Gas Works, with two partners, which enterprise was afterward transformed into the San Jose Gas Company. In this he was one of the principal stockholders and managers up to the time of his death, in 1883, his widow, Mrs. Hagan, still retaining the same interest in the company. The gas works at Los Angeles and Salinas likewise owe their existence to his foresight and enterprise. He later sold out his interest in the Los Angeles Company, but retained that in Salinas. He also opened in San Jose a gas-fitting, plumbing, and steam-fitting establishment, carrying a full stock of pipe, fittings, and fixtures, the same now conducted by the subject of this sketch. Naturally a man of large views and enterprise, he was energetic in pushing to completion and making a success of any project he became interested in.
Mr. Hagan's
father, a short time before his death, purchased a tract of 100 acres of land
about five miles from San Jose, on the Storey road. This he had partially
planted in fruit at the time of his death. Mr. Hagan was married, in Boston, in
1857, during a trip East. The only daughter, Mary, is now the wife of Charles W.
Quilty, an attorney-at-law in San Jose. Charles A. Hagan was educated in the
public school of San Jose, and in Santa Clara College. He is at present an
officer in the National Guard of California, and a prominent member of the Young
Men's Institute of San Jose. His mother, Mrs. Hagan, resides in the home built
by Mr. Hagan, at 156 South Third Street, San Jose.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 631-632
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Mary Hagan, married Charles W. Quilty and operated Tassajara Springs----------
here are some notes:
Salinas Weekly Index
August 23 1888
transcribed by Chris Havnar
**Tassajara Springs -- We glean the following items of general interest
from a private letter received from friends of ours now sojourning at
Tassajara Springs:
-We left Pacific Grove at 6 o’clock a.m., drawn by 4 good horses.
We lunched at Chupines creek and reached the ranch of Jas. LEWIS about
4 o’clock, where we stayed over night and made the remaining 17 miles
the next day. The road has been constructed to within 1 mile of the
springs and will be finished all the way within a month. It is a very
good mountain road.
-Board is $1 a day at the eating house, and baths $3 per week for each person. There are 2 nicely fitted up bath houses.
-There is no feed for horses here, and the nearest place it can be obtained is at Bruce’s 12 miles from the springs.
-Work has commenced on the stone hotel, which is expected to be
completed in a year from now. They are going to blast away 30 feet of
the mountain and erect cottages.
-We bathe and sweat and eat and sleep. The weather is very warm,
but we all feel better already and are acquiring ravenous appetites.
-Mr.&Mrs. FOSS from San Jose and Mrs. & Miss SNYDER from
Mountain View are here. They came in with J.H. McDOUGALL who has
returned to Salinas.
-Mr. QUILTY and wife and several other parties are expected soon.
-There is no family in charge here at present -- only the hired men at work on the road.
-Mr. LEWIS brings passengers and the mail from Salinas, leaving there Saturday morning and reaching the Springs on Sunday.
SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHY PROJECT