Apphia Higgins

Biography

Apphia Higgins grew up in the large household of Elisha Higgins and Jane Collins at Eastham, on Cape Cod in present-day Massachusetts. The Thomas Rogers Society's family account places her birth on November 22, 1709, between those of her siblings Alice and Jonathan. In October 1730 she married Simeon Doane, beginning a marriage that lasted more than half a century.

Their home was in Eastham, near Simeon's brother Solomon. The Doane genealogy identifies seven children: Ruth, Abigail, John, Benjamin, Ephraim, Isaiah and Phoebe. Its account draws the first two daughters' births from town records and the other children's identities from Simeon's will. Apphia also appears in her own father's 1749 will as Aphiah Doane, one of several married daughters whose surnames link the Higgins and Doane households.

Apphia was still living when Simeon made his will on April 24, 1784. He named her alongside their children and appointed John and Ephraim executors. By then the daughters appeared under their married surnames: Ruth Smith, Abigail Eldredge and Phoebe Smith. The document places Apphia at the center of an extended Eastham family more than fifty years after her wedding.