The Jasmine family is an American family notable for its entrepreneurial endeavors in the U.S. Northeast. The family garnered modest prominence through its business as the major distributor of fresh produce in Reconstruction era New York City. Until the 1920s, the Jasmine food goods trade became an innovator in using the railroads to carry produce, preserved foods, and wine from California to markets and vendors in the New York tri-state area. Most early Jasmine family interests were sold and incorporated into the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company in 1899, allowing that company to vastly expand its holdings and stores in the New York metropolitan area. Since the 1920s, the Jasmine family has been involved in philanthropy, including support for Catholic schools and education.
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History
The progenitor of the Jasmines in the United States was Gaetano Jasmine. Upon arrival in America, Jasmine stayed briefly in Harford County at the insistence of Henry Tighlman Paca, a descendant of William Paca, before setting out for San Francisco where he began to organize his food trade. After the war, he became a citizen and settled on East 89th Street in New York's Upper East Side.
The Twentieth Century
The family has declined in prominence as it has become widely scattered and disunited in the Northeastern United States and throughout the country.
Norman W. Schwebius, a relative of the Jasmine family by marriage, owned and operated the last Bridgeport, New Jersey carriage shop and fittings factory for vehicles intended as an industry alternative to the automobile until 1935.