José Catasús Ferret (1825-1878)

José Catasús Ferret (or Josep in Catalan) was born in Sitges on 5th October 1825 and died in Sitges 9th December 1878. He was an industrialist and worked in many areas from importing wine, timber trade and oil importing and refining.

Together with his brothers he formed various companies: in Cuba they formed Catasús Bros (later Catasús i Casanovas), in Barcelona they formed Catasús and Co., Gas-Motor Catasús. (More on that in a later post.)

José married his cousin, Maria Bués Catasús. Maria was born in Sitges on 22nd July 1831 and died at Rambla de Cataluña 85, Barcelona at 10pm on 25th April 1906. They were married on the 8th June 1857 in Sitges.

My great grandmother, Dolores Catasús Bués, was their 5th child. Other children (that I currently know of) were Antonio Catasús Bués and Gertrudis Catasús Bués (known to my grandfather as 'Aunt Tula').

Sitges
In 2006 I was told that someone in my family had built the stairs to the church in Sitges. So I went to Sitges and looked at the stairs of La Punta (Sant Bartomeu i Santa Tecla). I found a plaque on the side of the stairs. This plaque refers to 'Pepe Catasús Ferret'.

I have been told since that this should read 'Pere'. And Pepe (=Jose) died in 1878, so he would not have been around to see the start of the stairs being built.

The stairs of La Punta were proposed in 1890 and completed 26th August 1900. More on this later, under Pere Catasús Ferret.

La Punta in Sitges