Bob Farmer’s Genealogy 28 Jun 2014 - Person Sheet
NameLewis Marion Sifford 
OccupationConstable in 1870, Teamster in 1880, Poulterer in 1900, and had his own income in 1910.673,672,674,675
FatherLewis Sifford (~1777-~1855)
MotherElizabeth (Betsy) A. Ross (Ree Dunn) (~1811-~1860)
Spouses
Death31 Jan 1935, Ventura, Ventura County, California538
FatherHenry Edelman Sifford 2nd. (1825-1899)
MotherMartha Ann Beck (1832-1907)
Notes for Lewis Marion Sifford
517Ventura County Star, 14 Mar 1927: Sifford Family One of the First to Come to Ventura, by M. Sheridan
One of the well-known families of olden Ventura was that of L. M. Sifford, who came to this place 58 years ago, in 1869, from Nevada County, where Frank Sifford, who tells the story, was born. Frank Sifford was but six years of age when he arrived with his father and mother in San Buenaventura. The parents were from Missouri and had crossed the plains in the covered-wagon days. Of the family still residing here are the mother, Frank and Miss Ella Sifford, all well and favorably known here, where they have resided since their arrival. Frank Sifford is and has been for some years extensively engaged in farming on the old Dixie Thompson ranch, which lies immediately east of this city.
They drove down along the coast in their removal to this section. It was all, the entire stretch for hundreds of miles, almost houseless and entirely fenceless and covered with stock in all directions. Just here and there with miles between, was encountered occasionally the ranch house of some one of the few big landholders, and practically all there were Spanish. Americans were seldom met with, but the landowners were ever hospitable and treated strangers with favor.
They had no trouble along their way excepting near Monterey, where on one occasion their horses were driven off in the night by a band of petty bandits, but their stock was again given to them by the leaders on the payment of a small money fee. The party landed at the Ventura River one day in September, where they made camp, the wife and mother there sending the husband up into the little Spanish village to see if a loaf of bread could be procured. The boy, Frank, was taken along and rode behind his father on the horse. The first party they came across was Henry Dubbers, who had built an adobe home on West Main Street, where now stands the Daane & Orr building, near Olive Street. Olive Street itself gets its name from the fact that it was opened through the Dubbers' olive orchard.
Mr. Dubbers had a box or case for strawberries on each arm, and this fact uppermost in the mind of the boy, Frank, who, boy-like, was duly impressed with the strawberries. He had not seen any for a long time. When Dr. Dubbers gave him a box of the luscious fruit, Frank was still more impressed. He even forgets now whether or not they found the bread they came after, but supposed they did, for they had supper that evening in the camp the other side of the river and the next day they moved into Buenventura, then just a strange little straggling string, or two strings of adobe homes which reached from the river to the old Mission church, which loomed large in the distance. Between the two rows of adobes was a rather wide and dusty thoroughfare but with few wagon tracks along it, for wheeled vehicles were quite rare in those days, and the whole stretch might well be termed nothing but a much-widened bridle-path.
The Siffords finally got settled into the new location and found that their family made about a tenth in the entire community of any other race than the Spanish or Mexican. When they first went into camp on the opposite side of the river, they were visited by an American who introduced himself to the newcomers as William Riley. This same Riley, who was a very early arrival and who became well known over the county in later years as "Bill" Riley, was a teamster for the late Senator Thomas R. Bard for many years after, and while that gentleman was engaged in exploiting for oil on the Thomas Scott holdings in various sections of the county where Scott owned lands, but principally was the oil exploitation carried on in the Ojoi District, where many wells were sunk.
Senator Bard was quartered in a house built by the Pennsylvanians at a spot which became known very well in after years as "No 1", because it was there that the first oil well was sunk. This spot is just a half mile beyond the Ferguson place on the creek road to the Ojoi. Senator Bard lived there many years with an aged Negro by the name of Alf as a housekeeper. Six oil camps were established by Senator Bard, at each of which points wells were sunk. The last one sunk was "No 6", where the upper Ojai valley merges into the upper reaches of Santa Paula Canyon. The well drilling was done by A. J. Saulsbury, who was afterwards engaged in business with Senator Bard at Hueneme. "No 6" was the only producer and up to last accounts a few years ago this well was still producing, though sanding up. Deep oil wells were not known in those days as now, in the improved days of cementing off the water encountered. Oil timbers for the early-day wells were shipped already cut, around the Horn and were lightered ashore at Hueneme. The name of that point was spelled as pronounced now "Wyneme". The word meaning, in Indian, a half-way place of rest on a journey, as going through life.
Other names of American families of the date of the arrival of the Siffords were the Gilberts, Chaffees, Simpsons, Barrys, Baretts, only about nine or ten in the town itself, and a few others scattered over the immense mustered-covered stretches of the vast Santa Clara Valley. The elder Sifford was elected as a constable of this, the then first, township of Santa Barbara County. Also he made a deputy sheriff of the then sheriff of the county, and in a foreclosure suit brought by a Santa Barbara bank against the De la Guerras, a big band of cattle was seized.
This was on the Las Posas ranch about where now is the old James Evans' place. The elder Sifford had the task of rounding up these cattle, which ranged for miles about the fenceless wilderness, in mustard so thick and high that one could easily be lost in it. Frnak, the boy, recalls how Dr. Bard was lost in the high mustard on occasion and searching parties went out in quest of the always-needed physician.
The deputy sheriff rode out to the Las Posas every day in a light wagon, the buggy of those days. It was nothing but mustard the whole day. Occasionally one could see a long way off a cloud of dust; maybe a thin spiral dust cloud meant a lone horseman taking his way through the towering mustard along the road or trail. A heavier cloud meant, perhaps a wheeled vehicle on what was called the road. The boy, Frank, went each day with his father, a picnic for a boy, for he witnessed a monstrous rodeo which lasted for months before the big band of cattle were all properly branded. There were 50 or 60 vaqueros engaged in the work. It was a wonderful sight.
The people on this day talk about barbecues, but Frank Sifford says they should have been with him on those trips in the late sixties. It was barbecue every day, for each day a steer was killed and barbecued by those vaqueros. Always it was the pick of the cattle, too, a young and fat and juicy steer. The choicest morsels of the meat was taken out and cooked, and naturally enough, with meat aplenty and each day a killing, there was much left for the wolves and coyotes and wild things. The hide alone was considered of any value. Of course, the boss of it all, the head of the Sifford tribe, saw to it that the family at home got what they wanted in prime beef and frequently the neighbors were remembered and meat was passed about as freely as air.
There was never any suffering for food in California after the Mission Fathers came and cattle became plentiful. The Indians, under care of the priests, it is printed, always had beef of the choicest and best in plenty when the poor of Boston had black bread and meat only on rare occasions.
Childhood memories are vivid in spots, and Frank Sifford recalls the old steamer Kalorama, which went ashore here in the seventies. She had only started on her trips which brought her to these ports with freight. She was unloaded by lighters and the lighters were drawn to the shore by ropes wound about what was known as a whim. The father of Bruce Leach built 50 of the first whims used at this port. An engineer from the Kalorama officiated ashore at the unloading, and the boy, Frank, learned to know him and the two became great friends in time, and on one trip the engineer brought the boy a real pocketknife, an English-made knife known as the IXL. There was no greater prize that could fall to a boy, and Frank was the envy of all the boys of his time.
Indeed, the knife was a generally high-prized article, whatever the knife or owner. The price of a steer at the San Gabriel Mission in 1833 was four butcher knives, says George Yount, a trapper of that date, who had crossed the Rockies in that year and landed at the Mission in question. Yount afterwards established the town of Yountville in Napa County, after he had tried otter hunting out of Santa Barbara to the Channel Islands in partnership with John Nidevar, the man who rescued the long Indian woman on San Nicholas Island.
The story of Frank Sifford covers a great many years. He has no complaints whatever to make and no regrets in having come to Ventura County and with having spent so many years here, except that he is getting lonesome. There are not enough of the old-timers left to make life as interesting to him as it it once was.
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The 1891 Los Angeles City Directory identified a “Sifford, Lewis M., proprietor East Side Poultry Yard, 519 Walnut. An L. M. Sifford born Jan 1837 in Missouri and living alone, stated to be a widower, and a poulterer was identified in the 1900 Census.674 A Louis M. Sifford age 76 born in Missouri, living alone was identified in the 1910 Census in Los Angeles.675 It is difficult to believe this is our Lewis Marion Sifford since Sarilda was clearly stated to be a widow during that period.
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Censuses
1860 Census, California, Nevada County, Rough & Ready Township, Page 8, Household 64
Sifford, Henry 36 M blacksmith Mo
Sifford, Martha Ann 31 F Ky
Sifford, Sarilda Ann 10 F Mo
Sifford, Elonzo 9 M Mo
Sifford, George W. 8 M Mo
Sifford, Mary J. 6 F Mo
Sifford, Thomas F. 4 M Mo
Sifford, W. H. 1 M Mo
Sifford, Monroe 31 M herding stock Mo
Sifford, L. M. 25 M Land Lord Mo
1870 Census, California, Santa Barbara County, Township Number 1, Post Office San Buenaventure , Page 41, Household 428
Sifford, Lewis M. 35 M W Constable Mo
Sifford, Surilda 20 F W keeps house Mo
Sifford, Frank J. 5 M W at home Ca
Jessee Lee 2 M W at home Ca
1880 Census, California, Ventura County, San Buen Ventura, District 103, Page 5, Household 84
Sifford, L. M. W M 45 head teamster
Sifford, S. A. W F 30 wife keeping house
Sifford, F. J. W M 16 son going to school
Sifford, Jesse W M 13 son going to school
Sifford, Ella M. W F 6 dau
One of the well-known families of olden Ventura was that of L. M. Sifford, who came to this place 58 years ago, in 1869, from Nevada County, where Frank Sifford, who tells the story, was born. Frank Sifford was but six years of age when he arrived with his father and mother in San Buenaventura. The parents were from Missouri and had crossed the plains in the covered-wagon days. Of the family still residing here are the mother, Frank and Miss Ella Sifford, all well and favorably known here, where they have resided since their arrival. Frank Sifford is and has been for some years extensively engaged in farming on the old Dixie Thompson ranch, which lies immediately east of this city.
They drove down along the coast in their removal to this section. It was all, the entire stretch for hundreds of miles, almost houseless and entirely fenceless and covered with stock in all directions. Just here and there with miles between, was encountered occasionally the ranch house of some one of the few big landholders, and practically all there were Spanish. Americans were seldom met with, but the landowners were ever hospitable and treated strangers with favor.
They had no trouble along their way excepting near Monterey, where on one occasion their horses were driven off in the night by a band of petty bandits, but their stock was again given to them by the leaders on the payment of a small money fee. The party landed at the Ventura River one day in September, where they made camp, the wife and mother there sending the husband up into the little Spanish village to see if a loaf of bread could be procured. The boy, Frank, was taken along and rode behind his father on the horse. The first party they came across was Henry Dubbers, who had built an adobe home on West Main Street, where now stands the Daane & Orr building, near Olive Street. Olive Street itself gets its name from the fact that it was opened through the Dubbers' olive orchard.
Mr. Dubbers had a box or case for strawberries on each arm, and this fact uppermost in the mind of the boy, Frank, who, boy-like, was duly impressed with the strawberries. He had not seen any for a long time. When Dr. Dubbers gave him a box of the luscious fruit, Frank was still more impressed. He even forgets now whether or not they found the bread they came after, but supposed they did, for they had supper that evening in the camp the other side of the river and the next day they moved into Buenventura, then just a strange little straggling string, or two strings of adobe homes which reached from the river to the old Mission church, which loomed large in the distance. Between the two rows of adobes was a rather wide and dusty thoroughfare but with few wagon tracks along it, for wheeled vehicles were quite rare in those days, and the whole stretch might well be termed nothing but a much-widened bridle-path.
The Siffords finally got settled into the new location and found that their family made about a tenth in the entire community of any other race than the Spanish or Mexican. When they first went into camp on the opposite side of the river, they were visited by an American who introduced himself to the newcomers as William Riley. This same Riley, who was a very early arrival and who became well known over the county in later years as "Bill" Riley, was a teamster for the late Senator Thomas R. Bard for many years after, and while that gentleman was engaged in exploiting for oil on the Thomas Scott holdings in various sections of the county where Scott owned lands, but principally was the oil exploitation carried on in the Ojoi District, where many wells were sunk.
Senator Bard was quartered in a house built by the Pennsylvanians at a spot which became known very well in after years as "No 1", because it was there that the first oil well was sunk. This spot is just a half mile beyond the Ferguson place on the creek road to the Ojoi. Senator Bard lived there many years with an aged Negro by the name of Alf as a housekeeper. Six oil camps were established by Senator Bard, at each of which points wells were sunk. The last one sunk was "No 6", where the upper Ojai valley merges into the upper reaches of Santa Paula Canyon. The well drilling was done by A. J. Saulsbury, who was afterwards engaged in business with Senator Bard at Hueneme. "No 6" was the only producer and up to last accounts a few years ago this well was still producing, though sanding up. Deep oil wells were not known in those days as now, in the improved days of cementing off the water encountered. Oil timbers for the early-day wells were shipped already cut, around the Horn and were lightered ashore at Hueneme. The name of that point was spelled as pronounced now "Wyneme". The word meaning, in Indian, a half-way place of rest on a journey, as going through life.
Other names of American families of the date of the arrival of the Siffords were the Gilberts, Chaffees, Simpsons, Barrys, Baretts, only about nine or ten in the town itself, and a few others scattered over the immense mustered-covered stretches of the vast Santa Clara Valley. The elder Sifford was elected as a constable of this, the then first, township of Santa Barbara County. Also he made a deputy sheriff of the then sheriff of the county, and in a foreclosure suit brought by a Santa Barbara bank against the De la Guerras, a big band of cattle was seized.
This was on the Las Posas ranch about where now is the old James Evans' place. The elder Sifford had the task of rounding up these cattle, which ranged for miles about the fenceless wilderness, in mustard so thick and high that one could easily be lost in it. Frnak, the boy, recalls how Dr. Bard was lost in the high mustard on occasion and searching parties went out in quest of the always-needed physician.
The deputy sheriff rode out to the Las Posas every day in a light wagon, the buggy of those days. It was nothing but mustard the whole day. Occasionally one could see a long way off a cloud of dust; maybe a thin spiral dust cloud meant a lone horseman taking his way through the towering mustard along the road or trail. A heavier cloud meant, perhaps a wheeled vehicle on what was called the road. The boy, Frank, went each day with his father, a picnic for a boy, for he witnessed a monstrous rodeo which lasted for months before the big band of cattle were all properly branded. There were 50 or 60 vaqueros engaged in the work. It was a wonderful sight.
The people on this day talk about barbecues, but Frank Sifford says they should have been with him on those trips in the late sixties. It was barbecue every day, for each day a steer was killed and barbecued by those vaqueros. Always it was the pick of the cattle, too, a young and fat and juicy steer. The choicest morsels of the meat was taken out and cooked, and naturally enough, with meat aplenty and each day a killing, there was much left for the wolves and coyotes and wild things. The hide alone was considered of any value. Of course, the boss of it all, the head of the Sifford tribe, saw to it that the family at home got what they wanted in prime beef and frequently the neighbors were remembered and meat was passed about as freely as air.
There was never any suffering for food in California after the Mission Fathers came and cattle became plentiful. The Indians, under care of the priests, it is printed, always had beef of the choicest and best in plenty when the poor of Boston had black bread and meat only on rare occasions.
Childhood memories are vivid in spots, and Frank Sifford recalls the old steamer Kalorama, which went ashore here in the seventies. She had only started on her trips which brought her to these ports with freight. She was unloaded by lighters and the lighters were drawn to the shore by ropes wound about what was known as a whim. The father of Bruce Leach built 50 of the first whims used at this port. An engineer from the Kalorama officiated ashore at the unloading, and the boy, Frank, learned to know him and the two became great friends in time, and on one trip the engineer brought the boy a real pocketknife, an English-made knife known as the IXL. There was no greater prize that could fall to a boy, and Frank was the envy of all the boys of his time.
Indeed, the knife was a generally high-prized article, whatever the knife or owner. The price of a steer at the San Gabriel Mission in 1833 was four butcher knives, says George Yount, a trapper of that date, who had crossed the Rockies in that year and landed at the Mission in question. Yount afterwards established the town of Yountville in Napa County, after he had tried otter hunting out of Santa Barbara to the Channel Islands in partnership with John Nidevar, the man who rescued the long Indian woman on San Nicholas Island.
The story of Frank Sifford covers a great many years. He has no complaints whatever to make and no regrets in having come to Ventura County and with having spent so many years here, except that he is getting lonesome. There are not enough of the old-timers left to make life as interesting to him as it it once was.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 1891 Los Angeles City Directory identified a “Sifford, Lewis M., proprietor East Side Poultry Yard, 519 Walnut. An L. M. Sifford born Jan 1837 in Missouri and living alone, stated to be a widower, and a poulterer was identified in the 1900 Census.674 A Louis M. Sifford age 76 born in Missouri, living alone was identified in the 1910 Census in Los Angeles.675 It is difficult to believe this is our Lewis Marion Sifford since Sarilda was clearly stated to be a widow during that period.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Censuses
1860 Census, California, Nevada County, Rough & Ready Township, Page 8, Household 64
Sifford, Henry 36 M blacksmith Mo
Sifford, Martha Ann 31 F Ky
Sifford, Sarilda Ann 10 F Mo
Sifford, Elonzo 9 M Mo
Sifford, George W. 8 M Mo
Sifford, Mary J. 6 F Mo
Sifford, Thomas F. 4 M Mo
Sifford, W. H. 1 M Mo
Sifford, Monroe 31 M herding stock Mo
Sifford, L. M. 25 M Land Lord Mo
1870 Census, California, Santa Barbara County, Township Number 1, Post Office San Buenaventure , Page 41, Household 428
Sifford, Lewis M. 35 M W Constable Mo
Sifford, Surilda 20 F W keeps house Mo
Sifford, Frank J. 5 M W at home Ca
Jessee Lee 2 M W at home Ca
1880 Census, California, Ventura County, San Buen Ventura, District 103, Page 5, Household 84
Sifford, L. M. W M 45 head teamster
Sifford, S. A. W F 30 wife keeping house
Sifford, F. J. W M 16 son going to school
Sifford, Jesse W M 13 son going to school
Sifford, Ella M. W F 6 dau