Santa
Clara County
Biographies
JOHN F. CAREY
Prominent among the representative citizens of
San Jose is John F. Carey an active participant in both the business and
municipal life of the community. Ever since his entrance into business life he
has been identified with his brothers in a butcher business, conducted as a
retail establishment up to 1903, when they sold out and established the
wholesale concern which is now numbered among the most important enterprises of
San Jose. Born in Limerick, Ireland, March 28, 1872, he was a son of Patrick
Carey, now living retired in San Jose at the age of eighty-one years.
Patrick Carey emigrated from his
native land in 1874, bringing his family to the United States and thence to
California. From San Francisco, in the following year, he came to Sunol valley
Alameda county, and engaged in farming and stock-raising, in the dry year of
1876 removing to Calaveras valley, where he continued in the same occupation.
He bought a ranch in the last named valley and remained so located until 1894,
when he retired from the active cares of life and located permanently in San
Jose. In his younger days he was a noted jockey, and was as successful in that
line as he afterward became as an agriculturist. His wife, formerly Amelia
Scott, who was born in Ireland of Scotch descent, is also living and sharing in
the peace and plenty which their labor of earlier years has brought to them.
They became the parents of eight children, of whom four sons and one daughter
are now living. The sons are: W. P., G. J., R. T., and J. F. The first named
and last two are partners in the wholesale meat business recently established.
G. J. Carey is located in Palo Alto.
The youngest child of his parents,
John F. Carey was reared in Calaveras valley and Santa Clara county,
his youth interspersed with the duties incident to life on a ranch and an
attendance of the district school in the vicinity of his home. He attended the
Horace Mann school in San Jose from which institution
he was eventually graduated. During these years he had been connected with the
retail meat business with his brothers their store being first located in East
San Jose. This property was later sold and a store opened on the corner of St.
John’s and First streets, where the retail business was continued until 1903,
when they once more sold out. Establishing then their wholesale business they
now have a custom which extends throughout Santa Clara county
and into Santa Cruz, in addition to the shipping of live stock to San
Francisco. Their yards and slaughter house are at the foot of Taylor street on Coyote creek, where they have an extensive plant,
while they are contemplating building in the near future a cold storage plant
in San Jose. W. P. Carey is the buyer for the firm; R. T. the outside manager,
and John F. Carey superintends the office details.
Mr. Carey is prominent in the
political life of the city being a stanch Democrat in national politics, and
locally supporting the man whom he thinks best qualified for the discharge of
public duty. Upon the death of Councilman Cherry of the Second ward, in the
fall of 1903, Mr. Carey was appointed to fill the vacancy. In May, 1904, he was
elected to the office on the Good Government ticket. He is now chairman of the
Park and Cemetery Committee, and a member of the Committee on Ordinances, and
Street Lands and Squares, (sic) He is likewise an active member of the Chamber
of Commerce. Fraternally he affiliates with the Benevolent and Protective Order
of Elks, Knights of Columbus, Young Men’s Institute, Woodmen of the World, and
Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast
Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 1304-1305. The
Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.