Some fifers, as part of the fife-and-drum corps that accompanied Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet, were present at important national historical events, such as the reading of the Governor's Commission on 2 February 1788 at Sydney Cove.
He became an expert fifer and drummer at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and published his own Fifer’s and Drummer’s Guide in 1862 in cooperation with George G. Bruce.
A former member of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance, physician Max Fifer, moved to Yale, British Columbia at the time of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, and participated in the organization of a Vigilance Committee on the Fraser River in 1858 to address issues of lawlessness and a vacuum of effective governmental authority created by the sudden influx of goldseekers to the new British colony.