Jesse Gault

Jesse Gault was born in Hooksett on September 20, 1821, to Jesse Gault Sr. and Dolly Clement. In his early years, he was raised on his father’s farm and then attended public school at Pembroke Academy for his education. When he was 16 years old, he taught his district’s winter school in Suncook and Hooksett Village, and then continued to work at his father’s farm during the summer. At age 22, Gault left home to become a bookkeeper and a surveyor for a group of lumber merchants. After his health became impaired, he returned to Hooksett, where he married Martha A. Otterson on April 23, 1845. Together they had five children, two sons and three daughters, only one living past the age of 16. The surviving child married Frank C. Towle, a Suncook businessman.

Gault opened a brickyard in Hooksett, which he then scaled to a large corporation, producing 6 million bricks a year and employing over 60 men. Additionally, throughout his life, Gault owned part of a railway, a bank, several farms, and various other corporations. Later in his life he became active in various local positions and civil affairs, serving as a selectman, Hooksett's delegate in 1851 to the NH Constitutional Convention, a State representative in the legislature from 1857-1858, and a State Senator in 1885. He died on May 8, 1888.