Santa
Clara County
Biographies
THADDEUS
W. HOBSON
For more than one-half century the Hobson
family has been closely identified with the history of San Jose, of which Mr.
Hobson is a native and where he is now a leading citizen, identified with commercal (sic) affairs as the president of the T. W.
Hobson Company, Incorporated. The family is of southern extraction. His father,
George Hobson, was born in North Carolina in February, 1823, and at an early
age went to Missouri, where he met Miss Sarah Speinhour,
a native of North Carolina, born May 18, 1828. Their marriage occurred January
10, 1847, and in the spring of the same year they started for the then unknown
west, traveling with an emigrant train of sixty wagons via Forts Laramie and
Hall. In October they arrived at Johnson’s ranch, near the present site of
Sacramento, and from there came to San Jose, but soon proceeded to Monterey,
then the capital of the state. After a brief sojourn they returned to San Jose,
in January, 1849, and this city has been the family home ever since.
Like the majority of the pioneers of
California, George Hobson tried his luck in the mines, where he met with
gratifying success. With his companions he struck a rich lead, from one pocket
of which each of the men washed out $1,000 in three days, and one of them
secured $886 from a single pan of dust. After two years in the mines, in 1850
he turned his attention to farming, which was then conducted in a primeval
fashion in the Santa Clara valley, the manual labor being performed by Digger
Indians, who were driven like slaves by the ranch owners. The now beautiful city
of San Jose was then a squalid village, whose best residences were rude adobe
huts and whose citizens were Spaniards and Mexicans of an uneducated type. The
influence of Anglo-Saxon civilization had not yet commenced its benignant work.
On every hand were apparent the decadent influences of the Spanish regime. With
his customary enterprise, he took up farm pursuits, also engaged in the dairy
business, and drove the first milk wagon ever seen in the streets of the town.
In 1861 he removed to the present family homestead on the street called in his
honor, and there he and his wife, with their to sons and four daughters, established a home where
hospitality and courtesy reigned.
The boyhood years of Thaddeus W.
Hobson were spent in San Jose, where he was born July 15, 1850, and where he
had the advantages of a public and high-school education, also attendance at
Freeman Gates’ private school. His initiation into the business with which he
is now connected took place April 1, 1868, when he became an employe of T. W. Spring. From 1875 until 1879 he was
employed in the Corner Cash store, after which he bought a one-third interest
in a clothing house owned by O’Banion & Kent, on
Santa Clara street. Three years later, in 1882, he
bought out both of his partners, his father and brother, William B., acquiring
an interest in the business, which became known by the title of T. W. Hobson
& Co. In 1895 the T. W. Hobson
Company was incorporated with himself as president and principal stockholder.
The store was removed from Santa Clara street to Post and First streets in
September, 1901, and the following year he bought our his brother’s interest,
since which time he has been sole proprietor. Two floors are occupied by the
large stock of goods, in a building 44 x 120 feet in dimensions. Without
exception there is no larger business of its kind in the entire valley. Every
department shows the painstaking oversight and sagacious judgment of the
proprietor, who, with the assistance of his large force of trained and successful
salesmen, has gained a reputation for reliable business dealings and unvarying
courtesy.
Large as is the clothing business,
its management does not represent the limit of Mr. Hobson’s activities. From
the organization of the Mineral King Fruit Company, Incorporated, at Visalia,
he has been its president. The company owns six hundred and seventy acres in
Tulare county, of which five hundred acres are in
prunes and peaches. Facilities for irrigation are furnished by the ditch
running from St. John and supplying water to every part of the orchard. To add
to the convenience of the work, the company has erected its own packing plant,
with dryers, shipping department, etc. The orchard is in fine bearing condition
and its well-kept appearance testifies to the careful oversight of the owners.
Another industry in which Mr. Hobson holds an interest and of which he has
served as president since its organization is the O’Toole Produce Company, a
corporation for handling produce. In this he has a partner F. L. Cottle. The company rents, one and one-quarter miles from
Milpitas, one thousand acres, on which they conduct a dairy of four hundred and
fifty cows of the Red Polled (sic) breed, the milk from the dairy being shipped
principally to San Francisco.
The marriage of Mr. Hobson, in San
Jose, united him with Miss Rose Calahan, a native of
this city and a daughter of James Calahan, one of the
valley’s pioneer farmers. Though not a partisan in political preferences, Mr.
Hobson never fails to give his allegiance to the Republican
party. Among the local commercial agencies with which he is identified may be
mentioned the Chamber of Commerce, Board of Trade and Merchants Association.
Popular as a citizen, genial in disposition, and fond of the amenities of life,
he has never allowed his diversified business interests to engross his time to
the exclusion of the friendships that elevate existence, and we find him active
in the St. Claire Club, a member of the lodge, canton and encampment of Odd
Fellows, also of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, and interested in the
San Jose Parlor No. 22, of the Native Sons of the Golden West. Movements having
for their object the promotion of the city’s best interests find in him a stanch friend, and his support is always to be relied upon
in securing their success.
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 345-346. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Cecelia M. Setty.