My Genealogy Hound

George A. Head, farmer, stock dealer, and a prominent citizen of Norman Township, was born in Warren County, Penn., in 1843, and is the son of George W. and Zannetta M. (Smiley) Head, natives of Tompkins County, N. Y., born in 1812 and 1820, respectively. They were married there in about 1836, and afterward removed to Warren County, Penn., where the mother died in 1845, and the father in about 1856. Both were members of the Methodist Church, the father being a millwright by trade. William Head, grandfather of subject, was born in New Jersey, and was of English parentage. When a small boy his father’s house was attacked by Indians, who murdered and scalped the entire family with the exception of William, whom they thought they had killed. As he grew to manhood he naturally had a strong hatred for the red race, and soon became one of the greatest Indian fighters of the East. He at last followed them into Michigan, where it was supposed he was roasted by the reds. William Smiley, the maternal grandfather of subject, was born in New Jersey, was of Scotch descent, and was a soldier in the War of 1812. He died in Dent County, in 1875, after having lived here a few years. George W. Head was married three times, his first wife, subject’s mother, bearing him four children. George A. Head was the third child in order of birth. He was educated in the common schools, and remained at home until the death of his father, when he began for himself, as a hand in the lumber woods, until the opening of the war. He then joined Company D, One Hundred and Eleventh Pennsylvania Infantry, in the Potomac army, and remained with the same until the fall of 1863. He then joined the Army of the Cumberland, and was mustered out at Washington City. He was in the fights at Chancellorsville, second Bull Run, Cedar Mountain, Gettysburg, Lookout Mountain, and all through the Atlanta campaign to the sea. He was at the grand review at Washington, D. C. He was never captured nor wounded, and was never in the hospital but a few days. He served over four years, and was never absent but fifteen days, when he went home on a furlough. He was married in 1866 to Miss Margaret S., daughter of William and Eliza Porter, natives of New York and Ireland, respectively. Her parents came to Dent County, Mo., in 1870, and here the father died in 1882, at the age of sixty-six, but the mother is still living. Mrs. Head was born in Chautauqua County, N. Y., and by her marriage became the mother of four children, three now living. In 1866 Mr. and Mrs. Head moved to Dent County, where, some time later, they settled on their present farm, which consists of 243 acres, at the head of Norman Valley, with about 160 acres under cultivation. Mr. Head deals largely in stock; has some fine Durham cattle, Berkshire and Chester White hogs and Merino sheep. He is a stanch Republican in politics, casting his first presidential vote for Lincoln in 1864. He is a member of the A. O. U. W., Salem Post of the G. A. R, and is also a member of the Grange order. Mr. Head is a live and thorough going farmer, and has done much to raise the standard of agriculture and intelligence in his neighborhood, having been reared in a country of good schools, where farming was made a science. Mrs. Head is a cultured and refined lady, and although almost an invalid for some years, her influence in the family is wielded in the direction wherein only a mother’s is felt and remembered.