San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JUDGE EUGENE 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 the town and county for a period of eleven years. He was born at Morristown, Vermont, 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, Massachusetts, 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, Vermont, 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
post office 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 a hundred other
structures in Manteca and environs. Mr.
Douglass had the opportunity of reading law with Anthony 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.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1364. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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