[1] Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the son of William B. Higgins and Mary Anne Williams, Higgins moved to Brooklyn with his parents and was educated there.
He went to San Francisco, California in 1852 and in 1856 he founded the Morning Call newspaper, which he sold in 1858 when he moved to the Colony of Vancouver Island.
He organized and was first president of the Victoria fire department and was a member of the Board of Education from 1866 to 1869.
He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for the electoral district of Esquimalt in 1886.
He later wrote two books of fictionalized reminisces: The mystic spring and other tales of western life (Toronto, 1904) and The passing of a race and more tales of western life (Toronto, 1905).