Background
Stephen Higginson was born on November 28, 1743 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Stephen and Elizabeth (Cabot) Higginson of Salem, Massachussets, and a direct descendant of Francis and John Higginson.
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Stephen Higginson was born on November 28, 1743 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Stephen and Elizabeth (Cabot) Higginson of Salem, Massachussets, and a direct descendant of Francis and John Higginson.
Higginson attended the Salem schools.
Higginson entered the business office of Deacon Smith of Boston. He then became a supercargo navigator, and part owner of vessels, sailing to various European ports. When in London in 1775 he was called before a committee of Parliament and questioned regarding New England commerce and resources. He continued his voyages until the beginning of the Revolution when he became a privateer. At this pursuit he is said to have made $70, 000.
In 1778 he moved to Boston and formed a partnership with Jonathan Jackson. He was a member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1782 and in October of that year was elected a member of the Continental Congress. By that time the body had dwindled to a mere handful of members in attendance but Higginson took his seat and the votes show that he served on a number of committees and was active in performing his duties.
In 1786 he was proposed as one of the delegates from Massachusetts to the convention at Annapolis but the state finally took no part in that meeting, and Higginson appears to have been an officer in the forces sent to suppress Shays's Rebellion instead. In February and March 1789 he published a series of letters, signed "Laco, " in the Massachusetts Centinel, bitterly attacking the character of John Hancock. Although these were at one time condemned as rather unfair, they have since been thought to contain a truer estimate of the man than earlier historians recognized. In 1791 Higginson was appointed a member of a committee of twenty-one to report on a more efficient method of handling the affairs of the town of Boston. The measures suggested by the committee were not carried into effect until 1822.
In the last decade of the eighteenth century, Higginson was recognized as one of the leading merchants, reputed to be worth a half-million dollars--a large sum for those days.
He acted for a while as agent for the federal navy, and for a short time, in 1798, when there was no secretary of the navy, he practically performed the duties of that post. In his later years he met with heavy losses, amounting to about two-thirds of his fortune.
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Higginson was a Federalist. In a letter to General Knox, he outlined the method of adopting a federal constitution which was finally applied to the United States Constitution, but he himself had no part either in drawing up the document or in its adoption.
In 1764 Higginson married his second cousin, Susan Cleveland of Connecticut.
His first wife died in 1788 and in 1789 he married Elizabeth Perkins, the daughter of an English merchant living in Boston. She also died and he then married her sister, Sarah Perkins, in September 1792.