Representative William Lincoln Higgins

William Lincoln Higgins (March 8, 1867 – November 19, 1951) was an American physician and Republican politician who served as a United States Representative from Connecticut from 1933 to 1937. Over the course of a long public career, he held multiple offices in Connecticut state and local government, including four years as Secretary of the State of Connecticut and several terms in the Connecticut General Assembly, while maintaining his professional identity as a practicing physician.

Higgins was born in Chesterfield, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, on March 8, 1867. He was educated in the public schools of Chesterfield and Northampton, Massachusetts, and later attended Deerfield Academy, a preparatory school in Deerfield, Massachusetts. His early education in New England’s public and academy systems provided the foundation for both his medical training and his later engagement in public affairs.

Pursuing a career in medicine, Higgins enrolled in the medical department of the University of the City of New York (now New York University Grossman School of Medicine), from which he graduated in 1890. That same year he commenced the practice of medicine in Willington, Connecticut, marking the beginning of his long association with the state. In 1891 he moved his medical practice to South Coventry, Connecticut, where he became a well-known local physician. His standing in the community as a doctor helped to establish the local reputation that would support his entry into public life.

Higgins’s political career began at the local and state levels. He was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives for the first time in 1905 and served in that body from 1905 to 1907. He later returned to the House for additional terms in 1917, from 1919 to 1921, and from 1925 to 1927, reflecting the continued confidence of his constituents. He also served in the Connecticut State Senate from 1909 to 1911. In local government, Higgins was first selectman of Coventry, Connecticut, from 1917 to 1932, a role that placed him at the center of municipal administration for fifteen years. At the county level, he served as county commissioner of Tolland County, Connecticut, from 1921 to 1932, further broadening his responsibilities in regional governance.

At the statewide level, Higgins held the office of Secretary of the State of Connecticut from 1929 to 1933, serving four years in that constitutional position. During this period he also became active in national party politics. A committed Republican, he was chosen as a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1928, 1932, and 1936, participating in the selection of the party’s presidential nominees during a time of significant political and economic change in the United States.

Higgins was elected as a Republican to the Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Congresses, serving as a United States Representative from Connecticut from March 4, 1933, to January 3, 1937. His two terms in the House of Representatives coincided with the early years of the New Deal and a period of far-reaching federal legislative activity in response to the Great Depression. As a member of the House, William Lincoln Higgins contributed to the legislative process during these two terms in office, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his Connecticut constituents. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1936 to the Seventy-fifth Congress, which brought his congressional service to a close.

After leaving Congress, Higgins returned to his earlier profession and resumed the practice of medicine in Coventry, Connecticut. He continued to be identified both as a physician and as a veteran public servant, reflecting the dual nature of his long career. William Lincoln Higgins died in Norwich, Connecticut, on November 19, 1951, at the age of eighty-four. His remains were cremated, and his ashes were interred in Chesterfield Center Cemetery in his native Chesterfield, Massachusetts, bringing his life full circle to the community where he had been born.