Biglow was born on February 28, 1885 in Brooklyn, New York to Lucius Horatio Biglow II and Ada Albertine Rafferty. He was raised in Morristown, New Jersey and attended the Lawrenceville School. He later enrolled at Yale University, where he graduated in 1908 and was a member of Skull and Bones. At Yale, he was the right guard on the team's football team for three years. "Yale's captain is sturdy right tackle Bigelow. ... Bigelow is typically a Yale football product. During his prep school at Lawrenceville he failed to even make a place on the minor aggregation.