California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


JOHN B. CLIFFORD (M.D). The character and achievement of Doctor Clifford give him secure 
vantage-place as one of the representative physicians and surgeons of the state that has been 
his home since his youth, and he has been actively engaged in the practice of his profession for 
nearly a quarter of a century. Since 1904 he has been engaged in practice in the City of Santa 
Barbara, where he controls a substantial and representative professional business, in which his 
able coadjutor is his wife, who was his classmate in graduation in the medical college. The 
doctor has been a close and ambitious student along scientific lines, especially those 
pertaining to his profession.
 
Of staunch English lineage, Doctor Clifford was born in far distant New Zealand, the date of his 
nativity having been May 14, 1865. He is a son of Dr. Jesse and Mary M. (Bruce) Clifford, who 
preceded him to California, his father having been a successful practitioner of medicine in 
New Zealand and having become one of the successful and honored physicians and surgeons in 
the City of San Francisco after he had established his home in California. He whose name 
introduces this review acquired his early education in the excellent schools of his native land 
and as a youth he there became identified with the drug business, with which he continued his 
association until 1882, when he joined his parents in California. At San Francisco he continued 
his active connection with the drug business until he had formulated his plans for preparing 
himself for the profession that had been signally honored by the services of his father. He 
entered the California Medical College, and in this institution he was graduated as a member 
of the class of 1894, his wife, whose maiden name was Agnes McCraith, having been a 
member of the same class and both having received their degrees of Doctor of Medicine.
 
After his graduation in the medical college Doctor Clifford was engaged in active general 
practice at San Francisco for ten years, and he then, in 1904, removed to Santa Barbara, 
where he has since continued his successful professional endeavor and where his ability and 
popularity have gained him a large and representative clientage. He is a member of the State 
Eclectic Medical Society of California, and also of the San Francisco County Society of 
Physicians and Surgeons.
 
Dr. John B. Clifford is influentially affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, in which he is past 
chancellor and in which he is now serving as chief surgeon of the Uniform Rank body, besides 
being a member of the adjunct organization, the Dramatic Order of the Knights of Khorassan.
 
Doctor Clifford was married in 1888, at San Francisco, to Dora A. Schoen, who passed away 
January 1, 1913. They had one daughter, Lavinia A. Doctor Clifford subsequently married Dr. 
Agnes McCraith.  He is a republican in politics.