1889 History - Biography - John P. Huggins

John P. Huggins is a worthy example of the self-made men of Carroll county. He was born at Wolfeborough, May 3, 1826. He came of industrious ancestors, and was a worker from very early years, assisting his father on the farm. He attended the district school winters, and had the advantages of Wolfeborough and Tuftonborough Academy for three terms. The common school of a few months in each year for the practical business life of New England in that period did its work well. At the age of eighteen Mr. Huggins went to Boston, where he remained one year as clerk at the Bromfield House, and returning to Wolfeborough was a pupil of the academy for six months. He was then at Dartmouth Hotel, Hanover, as clerk for one year. From there he went to Lowell, Mass., where he was with Henry Emery at the Merrimac House for two years as bookkeeper. In 1852 Mr. Huggins removed to New York city, where he has since been a resident and a prominent man in many directions. He was at first employed as clerk at Lovejoy's Hotel on Park Row, but the following year he purchased the interest of the proprietors, Libby & Whitney, and continued the hotel business there for twenty years satisfactorily and successfully. He then, with his brothers, Nathaniel and Samuel J., bought the property of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, corner of Chambers street and West Broadway, and they have conducted it since that time.

Mr Huggins, however, has had other outlets for the exercise of his business acumen and financial ability, and many enterprises and undertakings have been promoted by his interest in them. He was at one time president of the Metropolitan Gas Light Company, and for many years a director; is now a director of the Consolidated Gas Light Company, also of several banks and savings institutions of New York city; of the Citizens' Gas Light Company of Rochester, N. Y., and a director of the Lake National Bank of Wolfeborough, and at one time its vice-president. He has been on the board of education of New York city for more than thirty years and is still a member. In all these manifold activities Mr. Huggins has shown a thorough adaptability and a remarkable discernment, and has proved himself a natural financier. Politically he has always been a Republican.

Bui there are other phases of Mr. Huggins's character worthy of record. The liberal and yet unostentatious manner in which he has used his wealth; the warm interest he has ever manifested in his birthplace; the patient industry that characterized his early manhood; the persevering energy which he evinced when he entered upon active business life; his kindness and affection in all his family relations, and the genial spirit of his social life have made him warm friends in the city of his adoption and the town of his nativity. One of the leading citizens of Wolfeborough says of him: "By honesty, industry. sobriety, and ability, backed by perseverance, he won his way step by step. He always manifested a great interest in adding to the comforts of the family, making large additions to the old homestead farm in the lifetime of his parents, and never counting dollars or cents in improving and caring for the welfare of his sisters. He has marked financial ability and honesty, always despising trickery and fraud; is a social, genial friend, plain and honest spoken, and an honor to his native town."

Contributed 2022 Jul 09 by Norma Hass, extracted from History of Carroll County, New Hampshire by Georgia Drew Merrill, published in 1889, pages 388-389.