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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