Eugene Higgins (1860 – 1948) was the rich heir to a carpet-making business, known as a bon vivant, sportsman, and philanthropist. A bachelor, when he died in 1948, his estate went to establish the Higgins Trust, at that time, the eleventh largest of its kind in the USA.[1]
Eugene Higgins was born on January 14, 1860, in New York City. His parents were Elias Smith Higgins (1815–1889), a carpet manufacturer who made a fortune with "labor-saving devices," and Emma Louise Baldwin (1827–1890). In 1882, he graduated from Columbia University, where he was a classmate of future Columbia president Nicholas Murray Butler.[1][2][3]
Higgins never worked for a living, though he did maintain a private office at 50 Union Square East. In 1908, his steam yacht the Varuna wrecked off the Madeira Islands; he received a medal for saving the lives of several guests aboard.
A sportsman, Higgins won the 1890 American fencing championship and was a proficient golfer, hunter, fisherman, and yachtsman.[1] He maintained a townhouse on Fifth Avenue in New York City and a country house in Morristown, New Jersey.[1]
In 1910, he ran into trouble with customers officials.[1] In 1932, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Higgins was "not entitled to deduct for Federal income purposes the expenses of managing his securities in 1932 and 1933."[4]
Higgins died at age 88 on July 29, 1948, in Torquay, United Kingdom. He bequeathed $10,000 each to his brother-in-law Henry Mortimer Brooks (for his nephew, Reginald Brooks) and two nieces, "merely as a token of affection... knowing that they are all well and amply provided for."[1][2]
In 1949, The United States Trust Company issued more than $18 million of "outstanding tax-exempt bonds" owned by Higgins' estate.[5] In 1952, his personal secretary asked for $150,000 in recognition of his extra duties as chess and yachting expert.[6] In 1953, the Higgins Estate was valued at more than $40 million ($457 million in 2023 dollars).[7]
In 1948, the trust donated $40 million to Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton.[2] In 1949, the trust gave another $600,000 to each of these universities for advanced scientific studies.[8] In 1951, the trust donated another $1 million, shared equally, to Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton universities.[9][10]
