Los
Angeles County
Biographies
JOHN JOSEPH
HAGGARTY
John Joseph Haggarty, one of the
foremost merchants in Los Angeles, where he has been actively engaged in
business for more than three decades, is the proprietor of the beautiful and
modern New York Store at 522 West Seventh Street. He also owns other store properties and is
recognized as one of Los Angeles’ most successful businessmen and prosperous
citizens. An earlier biographer
wrote: “He brought with him to the
Pacific coast a wealth of thorough experience in merchandising, but his cash
capital when he and his wife reached Los Angeles amounted to only one hundred
dollars. After working for others to accumulate
the modest sum of twenty-five hundred dollars he engaged in business for
himself, and has built up one of the largest cloak and suit houses on the
Pacific coast.”
Mr. Haggarty was born in London,
England, May 25, 1864, son of John and Elizabeth Ann (Atkinson) Haggarty. His environment until he was grown was in
England, where he was given thorough educational advantages and opportunities
to perfect his knowledge of English merchandising methods. He attended public schools in London, a
private boarding school at Richmond in Yorkshire, and in 1883, at the age of
nineteen, began an apprenticeship in the large dry-goods establishment of
William Bryer & Company on King William Street,
London. During the next four years he
availed himself of every opportunity to perfect his knowledge of merchandising,
and his devotion to his work brought him many commendations from his
employers. Then, in 1887, he came to the
United States and for two years was employed by Nugent Brothers, dry-goods
merchants at St. Louis, being assigned special duties as assistant buyer in the
garment department. During the next two
years he was assistant buyer for Scruggs, Vandervourt
& Barney at St. Louis and in 1893 became buyer for the Silverstein & Bondy Company of Duluth, Minnesota. Mr. Haggarty is well known in the Zenith
city, where he was actively identified with business affairs for nine
years. Leaving Duluth, he came to Los
Angeles in 1902, and for three and one-half years was
buyer and manager of the garment department of Jacoby Brothers. With the capital which he accumulated during
that connection, as mentioned above, he started a small business of his own on
Broadway, and subsequently incorporated the New York Cloak and Suit House, of
which he has been president and chief stockholder. In a few years this business had exceeded a
million dollars annually. From the New
York Store he extended his interest to the control of the Paris Cloak and Suit
House.
On the 24th of August,
1901, in St. Paul, Minnesota, Mr. Haggarty was united in marriage with Miss
Bertha M. Schneider. By a previous
marriage he has a son, James C., who was born in Helena, Montana, October 22,
1890. They have an adopted daughter,
Marie, who was taken when nine years of age, and is now the wife of Salvadore Monica, M. D.
Dr. and Mrs. Monica have two children, Raneto
and Amando, and reside at Long Beach. Mr. Haggarty has one of the most pretentious
homes in the West Adams section of Los Angeles; it is called Castle York and
among its distinguishing features are extensive grounds, a conservatory and a
pipe organ. He also maintains a summer
home in Long Beach that is one of the show places along Ocean Avenue.
Mr. Haggarty is a communicant of the
Catholic Church and a member of the Gamut Club, the Los Angeles Athletic Club,
the California Athletic Club, the Beach Club and the Pacific Coast Club of Long
Beach, California. We quote from
“California and Californians,” published in 1926: “Mr. Haggarty among his friends and
associates is accounted one of the most cultured and well informed men in the
west. He has traveled a great deal for
business and pleasure, it having been his custom for many years to go abroad
annually for business purposes. In his
travels he has kept in touch with world politics as well as business, and has
also used his opportunities to satisfy his taste for literature, painting and
music.”
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 695-697,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPHIES