Thoughts on the New Year, Courtesy of the Higley Family

As we approach the New Year, Your Friendly Higley Historians have been laboring away to bring Higley, AZ's recorded story to light. In addition to our new project, Crossroads of Historic Higley at the San Tan Historical Society, history continues to unfold at Make Higley Historic! courtesy of a uniquely American family.

S.W. Higley was described by his grandson Thomas Stephen Higley in a letter dated 1973 (University of Arizona Library Special Collections):

"S.W. was my grandfather, a tough, western man, post Civil War railroader, rancher, farmer, saloon owner, mercantile store owner, stagecoach shotgun guard, newspaper publisher and the owner and lover of some fine horses in territorial Arizona and later."

S.W. Higley

For a man so prominent in Arizona territorial times, who had his hands in everything as Arizona became a State in 1912; settling in Prescott while working for Santa Fe Rail; living in Phoenix at the Rosson House (even longer than the Rosson's themselves); his is a story which has really taken some work to uncover. Thankfully, the Internet can stretch to all ends of the research spectrum and as a direct descendant of Captain John Higley, his family's history is well recorded and definitely worth sharing.

In 1896, Mary Coffin Johnson, completed a publication named "The Higleys and their Ancestry: An Old Colonial Family" describing in great detail the family's first American immigrant from England, Captain John Higley, who arrived in Connecticut in the late 17th Century. As an apprentice glove maker, he fled England to escape the clutches of his abusive master and start a life in the new American Colonies. At the time, England was a place marred with oppressive politics, Puritans and pestilence (the Plague), so despite leaving his family, it wasn't that hard for John Higley to say goodbye to his home country. However, his departure was very much illegal since he broke the term of his apprenticeship to stow away on a ship heading West. Once he arrived in Connecticut, he was sold for labor to the Drake Family to cover the expense of passage across the Atlantic. In his new home, he labored hard, returned to England to pay his dues to the "offended employer" whom he left, returned again to America and married his new employer's daughter, became a military and political leader, a wealthy landowner, legislator, and even had a hand in starting the Collegiate School, later to become known as Yale.

Now the life of Captain John Higley as written in this book (all 854 pages of it), extends over 200 years of family history, including the life of his great-great-great-great-grandson S.W. Higley. It describes him just at the beginning of his life, married with one child (both had passed away by the time the book was printed), yet to reach the places where he left his mark and name in Arizona. The author mentions the intended audience as the new generations making their way in the 20th century, who will one day look to see how their ancestors' history touched on every aspect of not just being American, but the tragedy and triumphs of being human. As you can imagine, the family has grown even larger since. Leroy Higley, family historian, has accounted for over 37,000 descendants of Captain John Higley, with countless members who had lost their lives in every war America has been in, including the attack of 9-11.

Near the completion of her work recording the Higley family history, Mary Coffin Johnson writes in the book's appendix of a family reunion in 1890 with over 300 members who gathered in Simsbury, Connecticut. They visited together and shared a glimpse of how far they all had come since John Higley left his mother and sisters in England and stowed away on a 50 day journey across the Atlantic to make his home in America. Together at the old First Church they sang a song which your Friendly Higley Historians find appropriate as we think of days long past, family near and far, here and gone, and as we celebrate another new year...

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of Auld Lang Syne?

For Auld Lang Syne, my friends
For Auld Lang Syne
We'll join the hand of kindness now,
For Auld Lang Syne.

Our fathers here their dwellings reared
In social life combined,
These swelling fields their labors cleared
For Auld Lang Syne.

For Auld Lang Syne, etc.

Those ancient homes they guarded well,
And stood by freedom's shrine;
And many a fearless warrior fell
In days of Auld Lang Syne.

For Auld Lang Syne, etc.

And we were nursed amid these hills
And in these vales reclined;
But we have wandered far away
Since days of Auld Lang Syne.

For Auld Lang Syne, etc.

We've roamed across the prairie wild,
The mountain pass we have climbed,
And placed the schoolhouse in the wild
Since days of Auld Lang Syne.

For Auld Lang Syne, etc.

We've mingled in the city's strife,
We've delved within the mine;
And braved the ocean's stormy waves,
Since days of Auld Lang Syne.

For Auld Lang Syne, etc.

Our sturdy sires of yore have gone,
And kinsfolk in their prime;
The lov's and good have disappeared
Since days of Auld Lang Syne.

For Auld Lang Syne, etc.

We'll part again to distant scenes,
And leave this hallowed shrine;
But oft we'll think with grateful praise
Of days of Auld Lang Syne.

As we move further into the 21st century, rest assured that the common thread of history's lessons are still the same with family seeking a place for opportunity, justice, safety and peace for their young ones, ACROSS ALL NATIONALITIES AND CREEDS.

However, today, we thank the Higley family for demonstrating the greatest lesson of all, it is only history when we take the time to record and preserve it in the present. What we do with it remains part of the mystery which belongs solely to the future.