Henry Lee Higginson

Henry Lee Higginson (November 18, 1834 - November 14, 1919) was the founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a broker, and a patron of Harvard University. Higginson was born in New York City on November 18, 1834, the second child of George Higginson and Mary Cabot Lee. He was a distant cousin of Thomas Wentworth Higginson. When he was four his family moved to Boston. George jointly founded a brokerage as a junior partner, was extremely patriotic, and never owned a house or a horse of his own until within a few years of his death. Henry’s mother died of tuberculosis, from which she suffered for some time, when Henry was 15. Henry graduated from Boston Latin School in 1851, only after withdrawing twice due to eye fatigue problems. He began studies at Harvard College, but withdrew after 4 months when he again experienced eye fatigue and he was sent to Europe. Upon returning to Boston in March 1855, Henry's father secured a position for him in the office of Messrs. Samuel and Edward Austin, India merchants, a small shipping counting house on India Wharf where he worked as the sole company clerk and bookkeeper. Henry Lee Higginson entered the Union Army in May 1861, as second lieutenant of Company D in Colonel George H. Gordon's 2nd Massachusetts Regiment, and fought at the First Battle of Bull Run. He was commissioned major in the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry in March 1862. In the Battle of Aldie (1863) Higginson was knocked from his saddle and received three saber cuts and two pistol wounds. While recovering in Boston he married Ida Agassiz, daughter of Harvard professor Louis Agassiz, on December 5, 1863. Though he retired from the military as a colonel, he was commonly addressed as "Major" for the rest of his life to avoid confusion with his older cousin Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who was called Colonel Higginson.