Lake County IN Archives Biographies.....Higgins, John 1822 - 1904
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 17, 2006, 9:41 pm

Author: T. H. Ball (1904)

JOHN HIGGINS, M. D.

    Dr. John Higgins, who for some time before his death, on April 7, 1904,
lived as a retired physician, was one of the early settlers of Crown Point, and
in community affairs was prominent and influential, so that his life record
forms an important chapter in the history of the city in which he made his home.
He was born in Perry, Wyoming county. New York, May 28, 1822. Ebenezer Higgins,
his grandfather, was born in Connecticut, the family having continuously
remained in that portion of the country. David Higgins, the father, was also
born in Connecticut and became a civil engineer. He married Miss Eunice Sackett,
a native of Vermont, and his death occurred in New York. In their family were
ten children, of whom Dr. Higgins was the seventh in order of birth. He was only
about four years old when his parents removed from Wyoming county to Osborn, New
York, where he remained until fourteen years of age. The family home was then
established at Seneca Falls, where he remained until sixteen years old, when he
came with his mother to the west, arriving at Chicago, Illinois, on the 2d of
July, 1838. After a brief period passed in that city he removed to Vermilion
county, Illinois, where the following winter he was engaged in teaching school
He afterward worked on a farm through the summer months and in the winter
seasons continued teaching until 1843, when he took up the study of medicine. In
the winter of 1843-44 he came to Lake county, Indiana, and in May of the latter
year established his home at Crown Point, where he began studying medicine with
Dr. W. C. Farrington, who directed his reading for about two years.

    In the year 1850 he went to California, crossing the plains to Sacramento,
and spent a year in the mountains. On the expiration of that period he returned
to Frankfort, Illinois, and in February, 1859, he established his home at Crown
Point, Indiana. There he continued in practice until 1861, when he was appointed
surgeon of the Twelfth Illinois Cavalry, but was employed mainly as a brigade
surgeon and in general hospitals in Chicago and Washington, where he remained
for three years and four months, rendering active and efficient aid to the
wounded soldiers. He made a most creditable record as an army surgeon, his aid
being of great value to those who needed professional services.

    In 1865 Dr. Higgins returned to Crown Point and located where he now lives.
He was in active and continuous practice until 1900, and he had a large
patronage, his efforts being very effective in alleviating human suffering. He
kept in touch with modern progress in the line of his profession and through
broad study maintained a foremost position among the representatives of his
calling. He was examiner for different life insurance companies, and in the
early days of his practice he rode for long distances across the country, even
traveling from twenty-five to forty miles to attend a patient, his practice
extending into Porter county, Indiana, and into Illinois.

    In 1847 Dr. Higgins was united in marriage to Miss Diantha Tremper, who was
born in Lewiston county, New York, and died in 1898. They had one daughter,
Eunice A., who is now the widow of Julius W. Youche. Dr. Higgins was a Mason for
many years and in early life was a Whig, casting his ballot for William Henry
Harrison, although he had not then attained the age of twenty-one years. He
continued to affiliate with the Whig party until the organization of the
Republican party, after which time he was one of its stalwart advocates. He was
at the time of his death the only surviving member of his father's family of ten
children, one of whom died when forty-four years of age, three between the age
of sixty and seventy, two between seventy and eighty and two between the ages of
eighty and ninety. In his practice he was connected with the Indiana Medical
Society., and was at one time a delegate to the American Medical Association. He
long maintained a creditable position as a leading representative of the medical
fraternity of northwestern Indiana, and his prominence in his profession was
well deserved and his succcess was justly merited. He was very widely known
throughout this portion of the state because of his active connection with the
profession, which is of the greatest possible value to humanity, and was ever
accounted one of its foremost members on account of his skill and also because
of his fidelity to the ethics of the profession.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
Genealogy and Biography
OF
LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA,
WITH A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY 
1834—1904

A Record of the Achievements of Its People in the Making of a Commonwealth and
the Founding of a Nation.

REV. T. H. BALL
OF CROWN POINT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO   NEW YORK
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1904


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