Northumberland-Schuylkill County PA Archives Biographies.....Higgins, George J. 1865 - 

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Author: Biographical Publishing Co.



GEORGE J. HIGGINS, local agent of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad and also

agent of the United States Express Company, whose portrait is shown on the

opposite page, is among the well-known citizens of Shamokin, Northumberland

County, Pa. He enjoys the distinction of being a self-made man in every sense of

the word, having worked his way up from messenger boy to his present responsible

and lucrative position of freight and passenger agent at the above station. At

the age of fifteen years he was an expert sound operator and was appointed

operator at the Reading station at Shenandoah. He was a faithful and untiring

worker and his promotion fell to him step by step. At the age of eighteen he was

again promoted, to the post of assistant weigh-master at the Frackville scales,

at which place he spent two and one-half years in weighing coal and then

accepted the chief clerkship at the Reading depot in Shenandoah. In 1888 he was

promoted to the position of station agent at Allenwood, on the Reading system,

and two months later was transferred to a similar position at Locust Gap, where

he remained until June 1, 1891, when his services were rewarded by another

promotion and he was sent to Shamokin as station agent for the Reading.



  Our subject was born in Tamaqua, Schuylkill County, Pa., July 27, 1865, and is

a son of John F. and Margaret (Franey) Higgins, well-known residents of

Shenandoah, and grandson of William Higgins, a native of Ireland, who came to

America when a young man, some eighty years ago, and located in Schuylkill

County, being one of Tamaqua's pioneer settlers, the entire region at the time

being a vast, untouched wilderness. John F. Higgins, the father of our subject,

was born in Tamaqua in 1837. He was a molder by trade; later in life he

discontinued working at his trade and engaged in the shoe business. He died at

Shenandoah in 1893, at the age of fifty-six years. He endorsed the principles of

Democracy and took a very active interest in local politics; he was tax

collector of Shenandoah in 1891 and 1892. The following children were born to

Mr. and Mrs. Higgins besides George J., the subject of this sketch: Alice, wife

of Edward Ratchford, of Shenandoah, Pa.; William J., an undertaker of Mount

Carmel, Pa.; John F., Jr., who is state senator of the Thirtieth Senatorial

District, and lives at Shenandoah; Melissa M.; James C.; Nellie E.; Kate M.;

Charles C.; Julia A. Most of the family live in Shenandoah, Pa.



  On October 21, 1891, our subject was united in marriage with Julia M. Tobin,

the accomplished daughter of John and Margaret A. (Turner) Tobin, well known

residents of Shenandoah. They, with their two children, Margaret E. and John F.,

now reside at No. 1 South Shamokin street, Shamokin.



  Mr. Higgins is a thorough railroad man, possesses progressive ideas, is

popular with the masses, and makes an all-round ideal agent and citizen. He is

an active member of Sunbury Lodge, B. P. O. E., of which he is exalted ruler;

and is also a member of the Cresco Social Club of Shamokin, of which he is a

trustee.







Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

  

  Book of Biographies of the Seventeenth Congressional District

  Published by 

  Biographical Publishing Company of Chicago, Ill. and Buffalo, NY (1899)









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