cupied by the residence of his grandson. He prospered in life and accumulated a handsome property. He was a man of great energy and independence of character, as well as sound practical judgment, and, holding the position of Justice of the Peace, as well as the confidence of the people throughout the community, he became practically the lawyer for all the surrounding region, and was largely engaged in the settlement of disputes and the transaction of legal business for his neighbors and townsmen. He had nine children, five sons and four daughter. Of these, Samuel, the eldest, was the proprietor of the celebrated "Head Tavern" in Hooksett. John, the youngest of the five sons, and the father of the subject of our sketch, remained upon the homestead. He married, in 1791, Anna Brown, a daughter of William Brown, a retired sea captain, and sister of Hon. Hiram Brown, the first mayor of Manchester, now a resident of Virginia, and father of the wife of Hon. Isaac W. Smith of the Supreme Court. He became an influencial citizen of the town, was a successful farmer, and engaged in the manufacture and sale of lumber. He was prominent in the militia, and attained the rank of Colonel. He died in middle life, August, 1836, leaving five children to the care of his widow, a woman of rare mental powers, and executive ability surpassing most men, who proved herself fully equal to the task of administering the large estate, and managing and even enlarging the extensive business in which her husband had been engaged, as well as rearing her children to become true and earnest men and women, and valuable members of society.
Natt Head was the eldest son, and third child, two sisters being older and two brothers younger than himself. The eldest of the sisters married the late Col. Josiah Stevens, formerly of Concord, who died in Manchester a few years since; while the younger, now deceased, was the wife of Hall B. Emery of Pembroke. The eldest of his two brothers, John A. Head, has resided many years at the West, and is now Auditor of Broome County, Iowa. He was for some time engaged as a contractor in the construction of the Northwestern railroad, and subsequently several years Superintendent of the Iowa division of that road. The youngest brother, William F., still resides in Hooksett, living in a substantial residence not far from that of Natt, the two having all along been in partnership in the various operations in which they have been engaged, farming, lumbering, brick-making, contracting, etc., or rather they have done business in common, never dividing a dollar, but each using what he needed or pleased, the interest of the other brother and sisters having been purchased by Natt when he became of age. His father died when Natt was but eight years old, and the advantages afforded by the district school, supplemented by a few terms attendance at Pembroke Academy, furnished all the education he secured, aside from that obtained through discipline of active life, in the various departments of labor and of business in which he has been engaged, Few men in the State are more extensively engaged in agricultural operations, and certainly no one has done more to promote the interests of the cause of agriculture. The Head farm contains some two hundred acres of cultivated land, upon which is cut, annually, from two hundred to two hundred and fifty tons of hay. Altogether, the brothers own some fifteen hundred acres of land, which includes several valuable tracts of timber land in other towns, one of 600 acres lying in the town of Groton.
The lumber business in which their father was engaged has been continued, fron 500,000 to 1,000,000 feet of lumber being manufactured annually at their mills. As manufacturers of brick, however, they have attained their greatest celebrity, their business in this line being the most extensive in the State, and the quality of their brick unsurpassed. This business was commenced by their mother after her husband's decease, soon after the beginning of mill building at Manchester, which opened a ready market for vast quantities of this valuable
