THOMAS
S. MONTGOMERY
MONTGOMERY, REA & Co.
Bio- Pen Pictures
SURNAMES:
THOMAS S. MONTGOMERY, President and Manager of the firm of Montgomery,
Rea & Co., is one of the representative business men of San Jose,
whose career has been exceptionally successful. The company of which he
is the head was incorporated in November, 1887, to carry on a general
real-estate, building, insurance, and loaning and investment business,
and is the outgrowth of the real-estate business established ten years
previously by Mr. Montgomery in San Jose. After nine years of
profitable operations alone, he formed a partnership with Mr. James
Rea, the Vice-President of the company, in 1886; and a year later other
gentlemen became interested, and articles of incorporation were taken
out. The company makes a specialty of building and selling houses on
the installment plan. The volume of business transacted is among the
largest in the Santa Clara Valley, their sales of real estate alone, in
1887, aggregating $2,000,000. In one day in August, 1887, their sales
amounted to nearly $400,000. Besides their real estate and insurance,
the company has a large rental and collection business, including the
control of many of the prominent blocks of the city. Mr. Montgomery
estimates that the value of all classes of real estate in and about San
Jose has doubled during the past seven years.
The gentleman whose name heads this sketch is a native son of the Santa
Clara Valley, born thirty-two years ago. At thirteen years of age he
started out in life as a newsboy, and at sixteen became entirely
self-dependent. He took a course of business training, graduated at two
business colleges, and taught in the San Jose Institute two years. He
was then employed as bookkeeper two years, after which he began dealing
in real estate. He is the director in the company which erected and
owns the Hotel Vendome, incorporated for
$250,000, and also one of the
organizers and a director of the Garden City National Bank. His parents
settled in Santa Clara County in 1853, and still reside here. His
father is a Virginian by birth, and his mother is a native of Ohio.
SOURCE: 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. page 253 Transcribed by Carol Lackey
SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES
SANTA CLARA COUNTY HISTORY AND GENEALOGY