Mark Matthew Fagan was an Irish Catholic

Irish Catholic

Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...

 mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey

Jersey City, New Jersey

Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, from 1902 to 1907 and 1913 to 1917.

Biography

He was born on September 29, 1869 in Jersey City. He had little formal education, and as a youth, he worked for his uncle as an undertaker. A Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

, he entered politics while still in his twenties becoming a county freeholder though he was not re-elected.

In 1901, Republican Party boss, Colonel Samuel D. Dickinson, asked him to run for mayor, which Fagan did and won becoming the 27th mayor of Jersey City. At age 32, he was the youngest mayor elected in Jersey City until that time and only the fifth Republican. He was re-elected for three consecutive two-year terms however, after feuding with his own party, he was defeated for re-election in 1907 by H. Otto Wittpenn

H. Otto Wittpenn

Henry Otto Wittpenn was the Mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey from January 1, 1908 to June 16, 1913. He was a member of the New Jersey State Highway Commission and was the president of both the Hoboken Land and Improvement Company and the First National Bank of Hoboken...

. He unsuccessfully ran again in 1909.

In 1913, Jersey City went to a city commission form of government, and Fagan was elected commissioner. He was then chosen by his colleagues to be mayor once more. As mayor, he was famous for building schools. In 1917, he stepped down as mayor, retired from politics and continued his career as an undertaker.

Political boss Frank Hague

Frank Hague

Frank Hague was an American Democratic Party politician who served as the mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey from 1917 to 1947, Democratic National Committeeman from New Jersey from 1922 until 1949, and Vice-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1924 until 1949.Hague has a widely-known...

 succeeded him as mayor. It would be 75 years before another Republican, Bret Schundler

Bret Schundler

Bret D. Schundler is an American politician from New Jersey. He served in the Cabinet of Governor Chris Christie as New Jersey Commissioner of Education until he was dismissed on August 27, 2010....

, would be elected mayor of Jersey City.

Fagan died on July 16, 1955 and was buried in Holy Name Cemetery

Holy Name Cemetery, Jersey City

Holy Name Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery in Jersey City, New Jersey administered by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. It was established in 1866 and at the end of calendar year 2002 has accepted 264,984 burials. The cemetery parcel is and all but has been developed and sold for...

in Jersey City.