Cumberland County, Maine - William Henry Clifford
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Biography
William Henry Clifford
Biographical Review
Cumberland County, Maine
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1896
Page 269-270


William Henry Clifford, counsellor-at-law, was born in Newfield, York County,
Me., the town in which his father, Nathan Clifford, began his professional life.
Nathan Clifford was born in Rumney, N.H., and established his residence in
Newfield in 1820. He there married Hannah Ayer, daughter of Captain James Ayer,
a prominent citizen and merchant in that part of the State. Henry Ayer came from
the north of England and settled in Haverhill, Mass. Elisha, one of his descend
ants, removed to Saco, Me., and thence to Newfield, of which town he was one of
the early settlers. James Ayer was the son of Elisha. Nathan Clifford removed to
Portland, Me., in 1849; but all his children were native in the town of
Newfield. The ancestor of the Cliffords of New England was George, who came from
Arnold, Nottingham County, England, in 1664, and landed in Boston, where for a
time he resided. He finally set settled in Hampton, N.H. He was a lineal
descendant from the ancient and still-existing Clifford family, conspicuous in
English his history and distinguished actors in many of its great events for
centuries past. In this country try the Cliffords spring from a New Hampshire
shire parentage. The late governor, John Henry Clifford, and Judge Nathan
Clifford were descended from the same ancestor a few generations back. A correct
genealogy of the Cliffords of New England is to be found in Joseph Dow's
"History of Hampton," 1894, vol. 2, p. 638.

William Henry Clifford, the third son of Nathan Clifford, was fitted for college
at the Portland Academy and Professor Wood's school at Yarmouth, Me. He entered
Dartmouth College, from which he was graduated in 1858. He studied law in
Portland, in the office of Shepley & Dana, and completed his course in the
office of Benjamin R. Curtis at Boston. Upon admission to the bar he opened a
law office in Portland, where he has practised his profession ever since. For
eight or ten years he was Commissioner of the United States Circuit Court for
the District of Maine; and a very large proportion of the commitments for
violation of the Federal Statutes were, for a series of years, made in his
court. Later he acquired an extensive practice in the Federal courts of this and
neighboring circuits and in the Supreme Court at Washington. He is the author of
Clifford's Reports, a compilation of Justice Clifford's decisions on the New
England Circuit (four volumes). Mr. Clifford has from an early period in his
life taken an active part in the political contests in Maine on the Democratic
side, and has shared in the fortunes of his party in this State. He has achieved
a high position as a Democratic leader, the result of having participated in the
labor of every political campaign in Maine since the close of the Civil War and
of other services to his party outside of the State. He has been twice nominated
as Democratic candidate for Congress in the First District of Maine, once
against John H. Burleigh and the second time as the opponent of Thomas B. Reed,
and won credit and respect both by his abilities and power as a political
speaker and by the vigor and energy of his campaigns. Mr. Clifford has served on
the National Democratic Committee as the Maine member, has been called upon to
preside at the State conventions of his party, on which occasions his opening
speeches have been printed by the State Committee for circulation as campaign
documents. He is the author of numerous speeches and addresses of a literary and
other character. Mr. Clifford still continues the practice of his profession as
the senior member of Clifford, Verrill & Clifford, the two junior partners being
Mr. Elgin C. Verrill and Nathan Clifford, Mr. Clifford's oldest son.

Mr. Clifford was bred in the school of Democracy, and stills holds the faith, as
to strict Constitutional construction, tariff, and sound money, of that great
party that once swayed the destinies of our country and has left its impress for
all time upon its institutions and policy.

In 1866 Mr. Clifford married Ellen G., daughter of the Hon. J. B. Brown, of
Portland; and their children are three sons and a daughter.