David Higgins is an active business man and well known public official who is serving as a selectman of Meriden and as a member of the board of apportionment. He concentrates his business attention largely upon the sale of butter, eggs and milk, upon the conduct of a farm and upon the management of two livery stables which he owns.

  His home place is at Meriden and he is numbered among the native sons of Cheshire, Connecticut, where his birth occurred February 18, 1862, his parents being Michael and Esther (Bennett) Higgins. He acquired a public school education and spent the vacation periods in farm work, while after his textbooks were put aside he continued to assist in the cultivation and further improvement of the home farm until he attained his majority. He afterward spent nine months in work upon the farm of James Sanford at Terryville, Connecticut, and later worked on the State Poor Farm for a year.

  On the expiration of that period he returned to his old home in Cheshire to visit and his brother induced him to buy a milk wagon and horse and engage in selling milk in Meriden. This was in 1886. He worked hard to make the business a success and succeeded in it. He took over his brother’s milk business and worked up a good patronage. He is now extensively engaged in this line and also in the sale of butter and eggs. He is today the owner of an excellent farm property in addition to his other interests. He keeps from eighty to ninety horses and he has in all twenty employes in his livery barns, in his butter, egg and milk business and on his farm.

  On the 8th of August, 1889, Mr. Higgins was united in marriage in Yalesville, Connecticut, to Miss Emma Grouse and they have become the parents of three children. Esther May, who was educated in the high school and in the New Haven Normal School is engaged in teaching. Ruth Frances is at home. Arthur John was graduated from the high school with the class of 1917 and is attending Dartmouth College. He was very popular as a high school pupil, was chairman of the junior prom, was manager of the foot ball team and was otherwise a leader in high school activities.

  Both Mr. and Mrs. Higgins are consistent members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Politically he is a democrat, and although he has never been an office seeker, his friends have frequently urged him to become a candidate for positions of public honor and trust and he was elected to office on the democratic ticket when his ward had a normal heavy republican majority. He served as councilman from the third ward for six years and in 1913 was elected a selectman. He was also a member of the board of apportionment for ten years and his public duties have been discharged with marked capability and fidelity.

  In fraternal circles he is known as a member of Temple Lodge, No. 16, F. & A. M., of Cheshire, and as a member of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks at Meriden, serving on its house committee. He is also on the membership rolls of the Amaranth, the Colonial and the Cosmopolitan Clubs. He has a wide and favorable acquaintance through this section of the state, in which he has always resided, and his work along business lines and in public office has constituted a valuable contribution to general progress and improvement.