William Vassall Hayden III died in the early morning of July 30, 2026 at his home in Madison, N.H., with his wife, Iona, and his children Stephanie and Erik at his side.
He was born on March 22, 1938 in Enfield, N.H., the son of William V. Hayden Jr. and Ruth Slater Hayden, and grew up in Swampscott with his siblings Judith and John, making friends there he kept for life. He played Big Blue football and graduated from Swampscott High School in 1957, then deployed on a submarine as a Naval Reservist. He earned his degree at Wentworth Institute of Technology, built a career in fabrication and precision metalwork and founded North American Mechanical in Salem. He kayaked rivers and open water, hunted, shot and camped, told stories that carried family dinners, and went back again and again to New Orleans and the California wine country, often with his sister Judith Butterman and her family.
He leaves his wife, Iona Hayden; his children, Stephanie Howard of Peabody, Kimberley Hayden of Salem, and Erik Hayden and his wife Nili of Fairfield, Conn.; and his grandchildren, Jake and Taylor Howard and Ever and Tennyson Hayden.
A celebration of his life is Saturday, September 12 at 1 p.m. at The Madison Church, 53 Conway Road, Madison, N.H. Arrangements are by the Cremation Society of New Hampshire. The family suggests donations to the Visiting Nurse Home Care and Hospice of Carroll County and Western Maine, P.O. Box 432, North Conway, NH 03860, or the Gibson Center for Senior Services, P.O. Box 655, North Conway, NH 03860.
Compiled from information published by Cremation Society of New Hampshire. Photograph courtesy of the family via Cremation Society of New Hampshire. This is our own summary, not the family’s obituary; read the full obituary and leave a condolence at the funeral home’s page on Legacy.com. Corrections: we will fix any error promptly.
