Mercer County PAGenWeb


William M. Douglass


WILLIAM M. DOUGLASS, a merchant at Clarksville, in Pymatuning township, was born July 23, 1856, at the old homestead at Clay Furnaces. He is a son of Benjamin Douglass, born in 1829 in New York state, settled in Jefferson township, Mercer county, and died in 1880. He married Jane Brown, a daughter of Thomas Brown, a tailor who came from Ireland and located in Jefferson township, this county. She died in 1894 at the age of sixty-one years. They were members of the Methodist Episcopal church and politically he was a Democrat. Besides William M., there were children as follows: Frank O., deceased; Jennie, wife of T. M. Buchanan, a clerk at Sharpsville; Amanda, wife of A. McNish, a coal operator of Grove City.

William M. Douglass attended school until fourteen years of age and then graduated at the Clarksville high school after a two years’ course. He was then employed as a clerk for J. G. Reimold for four years. His next step in business was to purchase his employer’s stock, which was a general merchandise store. In 1893 he formed a partnership with his brother under the firm name of Douglass Brothers, and in 1903 sold out and came to Clarksville, where he purchased the general stock of C. M. Cotton. He now has the largest mercantile house in his section of the county and carries a general stock valued at about ten thousand dollars. Aside from his main store building, he has two large warehouses. He buys and sells all kinds of produce. In his political views Mr. Douglass is a Democrat, while in church connection he is of the Presbyterian denomination.

July 4, 1883, Mr. Douglass was married at Greenfield, Pennsylvania, to Bell McNish, born in Hickory township, July 1, 1865, a daughter of Andrew McNish and wife, Isabelle (Curry) McNish. The children in the Douglass family are as follows: Maud May, wife of E. Chatterton, a merchant of Hickory township, and they have a child named Kenneth, aged three years; Maggie, wife of H. C. Bookwalter, foreman of the Pennsylvania freight house at Sharon, and they have a child named Ellis B., aged one year; William, at home.

Twentieth Century History of Mercer County, 1909, page 755


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