Waldo Higginson diaries

Waldo Higginson (1814-1894) was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 1, 1814, the son of Stephen Higginson (1770-1834) and Louise Storrow Higginson. He graduated from Harvard College with an AB in 1833 and an AM in 1856. In 1834-1835 he studied law in the office of Judge Jackson of Boston but in the summer of 1835 he gave up that profession and entered the office of Colonel Loammi Baldwin of Charlestown, as a student in civil engineering. From 1837-1845 he worked on a variety of engineering works including work on the Western & Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia with the U. S. Topographical Engineers, as an assistant engineer on the Eastern Railroad Company between Ipswich and Newburyport, Massachusetts, and as a civil engineer out of a Boston office. In 1845 he became agent and engineer for the Boston and Lowell Railroad Company which he filled until 1853 when he resigned after suffering paralysis. In 1856 he became president of the New England Railroad Mutual Insurance Company and later president of the Arkwright Insurance Company. He was an Overseer of Harvard University from 1869 to 1873 and he was the secretary of the Harvard Class of 1833. One of his brothers was Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. His wife was Mary Davies Sohier and they had no children. He died in Boston, May 5, 1894. [Source: Memorials of the Class of 1833 of Harvard College; Cambridge: 1883].