Franklin H. Head (1832 - 1914)

Franklin Harvey Head was born in Oneida County, New York, in 1832, of good New England stock. After law studies with Professor Timothy Dwight, Mr. Head migrated to Kenosha, Wisconsin, beginning there the practice of law.

Following an attack of typhoid fever, a few years of open air life was advised. The appointment of Mrs. Head’s uncle as governor of the Territory of Utah, gave opportunity, and with him Mr. and Mrs. Head went west in 1866, travelling by wagon from Council Bluffs to Salt Lake City, where about four years of ranch life on the edge of town filled the doctor’s prescription and restored health. His efficiency, integrity, and ability, backed by his great personal charm, quickly made him friends in Salt Lake City, as elsewhere, and inspired the respect of Mormons, Gentiles, and Indians alike, while the Government, recognizing his growing influence in all quarters, appointed him Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Utah.

His gentle, refined wife, as always, did her effective loyal part, often under most trying conditions - as when frequently groups of strange Indians slunk, unasked, into her kitchen and sat there through speechless hours. Or when Brigham Young attended her parties bringing with him nineteen of his wives. The home was a center to which gravitated the best people in the region. Ben Holliday of the famous Pony Express was among the frequent visitors. Major J. W. Powell outfitted there for his first survey of the Colorado Canyon. Bret Harte brought there the manuscript of The Heathen Chinee to ask if it was worth publishing.

After the completion of the Union Pacific Road (1869) the Head family returned for a few years to Kenosha, and then moved to their permanent abiding place, Chicago (1872).

He had great personal qualities of charm, whimsicality, integrity, and lovableness, combined with resourceful ability, that always made him a man of mark, and surrounded him with swarms of friends — leaders in commercial, political, literary, and artistic life — and made him an outstanding figure in the most American of communities for forty years, until his death in 1914. (from introduction to collection of works published 1923)