Many men now prominent in affairs tell with what kindly sympathy and affection Mr. Higinbotham aided them in youth. Among these, one who early entered the credit department of Marshall Field & Co. says: “I never knew a man so sympathetic with boys; he never tired of helping young men to get a start in life, and no one could show more tact, perseverance and energy in their service.”
A friend tells a story of one of the walking-trips which were Mr. Higinbotham’s favorite athletic diversion; for three times—in 1862, 1886 and 1897—he tramped over the mountains of West Virginia, a distance of one hundred and sixty-five miles, either alone or in company; this besides many shorter mountain tramps. The story illustrates not only his love of boys, but his determination to overcome all obstacles.
“Two young employes at Field’s planned to take a walking-trip, and asked for the necessary vacation. Mr. Higinbotham was enthusiastic, and said that if they wouldn’t mind his company he would make it possible for them to take quite a long tramp through the mountains of West Virginia. They were delighted—no one could have been a more agreeable companion. This was the second or third tramp he had made through this region, whose wild scenic beauty he had learned to love while he was stationed at Clarksburg, West Virginia, during the Civil War, when he was obliged to explore the region on horseback.
“He took the phrase ‘walking-trip’ very seriously, and would not accept any invitation to ride an inch. At one place, for example, where we had to cross an unfordable stream, he refused to ferry over, and ordered a local carpenter to make a pair of stilts on which he stumbled and splashed, and fell down and got up, and tumbled again, finally arriving, drenched but triumphant, on the opposite bank.”
An incident of another walking-trip began at the grave of General Pettigrew, who had been fatally wounded while in command of the rear guard of Lee’s army on its retreat from Gettysburg. It was in 1897, in North Carolina, that Mr. Higinbotham found a moss-green grave-stone, which told how General Pettigrew had died at the house of a man named Boyd, near Martinsburg, West Virginia. As it was in Martinsburg that Mr. Higinbotham, while a young Union officer, had been stationed during 1864, and as he had there “received many courtesies from the people of the South both during and after the war,” he was much interested. But it was not until 1918 that he could learn anything about the General’s family. A few letters then passed between him and Miss Mary Johnstone Pettigrew of Tryon, North Carolina, in one of which he says:
“You mention the mysterious way in which peoples’ lives cross or touch, and inform me that the General’s great-great-grandmother was Rachel Higinbotham. You will, I am sure, feel that truth is stranger than fiction when I tell you that my wife’s name was also Rachel Higinbotham.”
And he tells of a quite recent trip on the James River, during which he had met, at Hampton, a cousin of Robert E. Lee who had known the Boyd family, in whose house General Pettigrew died.
He always emphasized the necessity of human sympathy and service, and we have plenty of testimony showing the quick response of his big heart to appeals public and private. A poet once wrote to him, after he had held out his hand at a crisis:
“Who cares for the burden, the night and the rain,
And the long steep lonesome road,