San Joaquin County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


 
JUDGE E. E. DOUGLASS.
 
        One of the representative citizens of Manteca, San Joaquin County, is E. 
E. Douglass, justice of the peace of Castoria township since 1918, who has been 
identified with the varied interests of town and county for a period of eleven 
years. He was born at Morristown, Vt., on March 30, 1886, the son of Albert and 
Ellen F. (Baker) Douglass, both natives of the same place. The Douglass family 
in America dates back to the Scotchman known as Black Douglass, a general in the 
Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Frank Douglass, superintendent of 
the U. S. mails at Boston, Mass., is a cousin of our subject. Douglass Castle 
still stands in northern Scotland, a monument to the early members of this 
illustrious family. The father, Albert Douglass, was a farmer by occupation and 
from 1870 to 1880 rode the range in the Middle West, after which he returned to 
Vermont, where he married Miss Ellen F. Baker, and there they reared their 
family. The father passed away in 1915, and is survived by his widow who resides 
in the old home in Vermont. During 1917 and 1918 she visited her son, our 
subject, at Manteca.
        E. E. Douglass received a good education in the schools of Morristown, 
Vt., and remained at home until he was twenty-one, when he came to California, 
arriving at Stockton in March, 1907. He found work on the Woodward ranch near 
Lathrop and five months later he returned to Stockton, where he took and passed 
the civil service examination and served as a clerk in the Stockton postoffice 
for three years. Then he resigned his position and became a salesman for 
Hodgkins & Stitt, real estate and insurance brokers at Stockton, where he 
remained until 1911, when, with a partner, he established himself at Manteca on 
Yosemite Avenue, the firm being known as Woodward & Douglass from 1911 to 1914. 
In 1911 and 1912 this company put on the Overshiner Addition to Manteca. In 1914 
the partnership was dissolved and then Mr. Douglass organized the E. E. Douglass 
Company and for the following three years was actively engaged in construction 
work, among his contracts being the Treder Building, Hotel Waldorf, Dr. Goodal's 
residence, and almost an hundred other structures in Manteca and environs. Mr. 
Douglass had the opportunity of reading law with Attorney W. H. Wall, and since 
being elected to the office of justice of the peace in 1918, his knowledge of 
law has been invaluable to him; during the same year he reopened his real estate 
office.
        The marriage of Mr. Douglass occurred in 1912 and united him with Miss 
Ada Griffin, a native Californian, born near Corona, a daughter of Mrs. J. J. 
Rawleigh of Manteca, and they are the parents of three children: Frances, 
Dorothea and Donald. In 1920, Mr. Douglass was appointed clerk of the board of 
trustees of the Manteca grammar school and in April, 1921, he was elected for a 
term of three years; he also was appointed city recorder in 1920, and still 
serves. He is president of the Masonic Temple Association of Manteca and since 
1920 has served as secretary of the Associated Charities. In politics he is a 
Republican and a member of the county central committee, also a member of the 
Lions Club of Manteca; he is also a liberal contributor to the Union Church at 
Manteca and belongs to Tyrian Lodge No. 439, F. and A. M. of Manteca.
 
History of San Joaquin County, California � Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 
1923
p    1364      
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.