My Genealogy Hound

SAM J. GIFFORD, who is the proprietor of the oldest insurance agency of Dunkirk and Chautauqua county, and who dispatched the first train ever run over the Lake Shore road by telegraphic orders, was born at Ashtabula, Ohio, May 14, 1834, and is a son of Samuel and Rose (Fraser) Gilford. Samuel Gilford was born in 1797 at Banbridge, near Belfast, Ireland, where he learned the trade of cutter in the tailoring business. He came to the United States in 1831 and settled at Ashtabula, where he conducted a large shop, and at one time employed twenty-two journeymen tailors. He was a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, had been a freemason for sixty-two years, and died at Ashtabula, November 11, 1877. He married Rose Fraser, a native of Belfast, Ireland, who was an Episcopalian, and died February 16, 1874, aged seventy -four years.

Sam. J. Gifford was reared at Ashtabula until he was eighteen years of age, received his education in the public schools and then was engaged for a short time in grinding bark in a tannery. On October 1, 1848, he became the first devil in the office of the Ashtabula Weekly Telegraph, which was established on the above named day. He learned telegraphy on the old Speed line while in that printing office, which he left on June 1, 1852, to become a telegraph operator in the New York and Erie railroad. He was first stationed at Dunkirk, but worked all along the line, and on June 1, 1854, he was appointed as night train-dispatcher and operator of the Erie road at Dunkirk, which he left in February, 1855, to accept the position of cashier and operator in the freight department of the Buffalo and Erie (now Lake Shore and Michigan Southern) railroad. He was the first operator on this road, on which he dispatched the first train ever run over it by telegraphic orders. On February 26, 1869, he resigned and acted as agent of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York until 1872, when he became a member of the Skinner & Gifford Manufacturing Company, which erected a large iron works at Dunkirk for building engines, boilers and railroad fixtures. In 1875 and 1876 this firm built the Texas and New Orleans railroad (now Southern Pacific), after which they failed in business and sold their iron works. From 1876 to 1879 Mr. Gilford assisted in running these iron-works, and then became a partner with his brother-in-law, J. H. Van Buren, in the insurance business. Their partnership lasted until 1882, when he again became cashier on the L. S. & M. S. R. R., and served as such until April 1, 1885. He then formed a second insurance partnership with his brother-in-law which existed until 1888. In that year he purchased the insurance business of the late Otis Stillman, which was the first insurance business established (1850) in the county.

Sam. J. Gifford represents some of the most economical and reliable life and fire insurance companies of the world. His agency represents the Aetna, Phoenix, and Orient companies, of Hartford, Conn.; the German-American, Continental, Fidelity, and United States companies, of New York city; the California, and Firemen’s Fund companies, of San Francisco; the Liverpool, London and Globe, and Lancashire companies of England; the American Central company, of St. Louis, and the Mutual Life Insurance company, of New York city, which has assets of over one hundred and fifty millions.

In politics Mr. Gifford is a straight Republican. He is a member and vestryman of St. John’s Protestant Episcopal church, of whose Sunday-school he was superintendent for several years. He has been a member of the Masonic fraternity since 1861, and holds active membership in Irondequoit Lodge, No. 301, Chapter and Commandery No. 40, and Ismalia Temple.