Christopher Higgins (1835-1887)

Christopher married Margaret Ann (Mary Ann) Mason on July 24, 1857,[1] just nine days after Margaret’s sister Susannah married John Fowler, who was Christopher’s sister Julia Higgins’s widower.  Christopher and Mary Ann’s first baby, Q Isabella, only lived for one year before internment in the Blackburn Cemetery.[2]  A few months later, their second daughter Martha Jane was born in Brooklyn.  Christopher and Mary Ann moved to Nevada sometime between 1860 and 1867 where their third child, Sarah Higgins was born in Nevada.  Isaac and George Mason, Mary Ann’s younger brothers, moved with them to Nevada.[3]   They eventually had six daughters and one son whom they raised in Truckee Meadows[4] and Glendale, Nevada just south of Reno.[5]   Christopher farmed his whole life and passed away in 1887. Mary Ann died in 1895; both were buried in Reno, Nevada.[6]

Daughter, Martha Jane married Michael Kiely, an Irish immigrant.[7]  Martha and Michael had ten children, of which five daughters and three sons lived to adulthood.[8]  They raised their family in Glendale, Nevada where Michael farmed. Martha passed away in 1940 at the age of eighty in Alameda, California.[9]

Daughter, Sarah Higgins never married.  She lived in the San Francisco area in her forties working as a sales clerk in a dry goods store and living in Hotel Gloster on Mason Street. [10] She passed away at the Keitzke Ranch in 1919 at the age of fifty-three.  She was buried in the Mountain View Cemetery, Reno, Nevada.[11]

Fourteen-year-old daughter, Mary Hattie lived at home in 1880.  No later records have been located to indicate the course of her life.  Son, James Higgins, age twenty-two, married Minnie Emma Berry on July 2, 1892.[12]  They had one daughter, Nevada Lyle or Neva.  James Higgins and Minnie divorced.  Neva lived with her mother and stepfather, Orin Hatch, taking the last name of Hatch for herself.  James married for the second time to Agnes Duncan.[13]  James and Agnes had three children, Lester, Evelyn and Melvin raising their family in Washoe, Nevada.[14]

Twenty-one year old daughter, Emma married Albert Kietzke, a German immigrant.  Together they had 10 children.[15]  Most likely Emma’s sister Sarah died in Emma’s home since her place of death was the Kietzke Ranch.

Bessie Higgins’s life course is currently unknown.  A Bessie Higgins married an Albert Stiner in 1901.[16]  By 1910 Albert was widowed with two young sons ages six and seven.  If this Bessie Higgins was the daughter of Christopher and Mary Ann, she died before 1910.

The family of Christopher Higgins and Margaret Ann Mason are:

1.     Q Isabel Higgins (1858 – 1859)

2.     Martha Jane Higgins (1859 – 1940)

3.     Sarah C Higgins (1865 – 1919)

4.     Mary Hattie Higgins (1866 - )

5.     James M Higgins (1869 - )

6.     Emma D Higgins (1874 - )

7.     Bessie Higgins (1879 - )

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[1] Museum, Schuyler County, 309

[2] National Archives and Records Administration, “U.S Federal Census Mortality Schedule, 1850 – 1885”,

[3] Museum, Schuyler County, 309

[4] 1870 Federal Census Truckee Meadows, Washoe, Nevada “C Higgins” ancestry.com (accessed Jan 15, 2013)

[5] 1880 Federal Census Glendale, Washoe, Nevada “Christopher Higgins” ancestry.com (accessed Jan 15, 2013)

[6] Ancestry.com “Frager Family Tree” ancestry.com (accessed June 8, 2013)

[7] BYU Idaho “Western States Marriage Index for Martha J Higgins” http://abish.byui.edu/specialCollections/westernStates/westernStatesRecordDetail.cfm?recordID=265075 (accessed June 12)

[8] 1900 Federal Census Glendale, Washoe, Nevada “Martha J Kiely”, ancestry.com (accessed June 8, 2013)

[9] California, Death Index, 1940-1997 “Martha Jane Keily”, ancestry.com (accessed June 11, 2013)

[10] 1910 Federal Census San Francisco, San Francisco, CA “Sara Higgins” ancestry.com (accessed June 11, 2013)

[11] Ross-Burke Funeral Records, Reno, Nevada, 1904-1919 “ Sarah C Higgins” ancestry.com (accessed June 11, 2013)

[12] BYU Idaho “Western States Marriage Index for James Higgins” http://abish.byui.edu/specialCollections/westernStates/westernStatesRecordDetail.cfm?recordID=264506 (accessed June 11, 2013)

[13] Ancestry.com “Reece Family Tree” trees.ancestry.com (accessed June 9, 2013)

[14] 1920 Federal Census Reno, Washoe, Nevada “James Higgins” ancestry.com (accessed June 9, 2013)

[15] 1910 Federal Census Reno, Washoe, Nevada “Emma D Higgins” ancestry.com (accessed June 9, 2013)

[16] BYU Idaho “Western States Marriage Index for Bessie Higgins” http://abish.byui.edu/specialCollections/westernStates/westernStatesRecordDetail.cfm?recordID=264506 (accessed June 11, 2013)