This story has never been told; but it is true.
Dora Eliza “Lizzie” Douglas is my 2nd Great Grandmother, and my mother’s Great Grandmother on her mother’s side. Her son Percy is my 2nd Great Uncle.
It is only by genealogical research that I stumbled blindly into the full historical, tragic drama of the Douglas family. Had people involved not shared the information they knew before they died; the full story would never have been known. It falls to those still living to expand on recorded history with these family stories.
This family history is compiled from bits of information received from Dan Newton, January 28, 2019, Ancestry.com, and other historical internet resources. Mr. Newton was responding to a question I had about a note he wrote about my 2nd Great Grandfather, Daniel Wilson, who was married to Dora. Mr. Newton wrote,
“I have only one bit of information about Daniel S. Wilson that is not on the Newton Boone tree in ancestry.com. I have a note that he was a dentist in Silverton, Oregon where he met Dora Douglas Bennett. The author of the note states he was not able to verify that Wilson was a dentist. I only knew one of the Wilson’s, Percy, son of Daniel and Dora. I met him several times in the 1940’s when I was 6 or 7 years old. He had a grocery store in Molson, Washington. I have no photos of the Wilson’s. The Okanogan, Washington has a lot of information, old newspapers, etc. The source of the information that interested you came from the letter sent to me in 1996 by Jack W. Gallarda, 1171 Ort Lane, Merlin, Oregon 97532. Mr. Gallarda was 81 years old and in ill health at that time. He died in 2000. He may have put all his work in the LDS Family History Center. He was trying to complete the family history of the Douglas clan that came to the USA about 1868. They are direct descendants of Sir John Douglas of Dalkieth.”
To learn about the history of the Douglas family is to wonder if there was not a curse placed upon the clan long before recorded memory. From the time the family first appeared hundreds of years ago in recorded history, elements of Grimm’s Fairy Tales emerge, and follow one generation to the next.
The Douglas clan was mentioned in the 1810 poem, “Lady of the Lake”, when it referred to the Black Douglas: a sinister name given a feared Scottish knight by the English. Otherwise known to his people as Sir James Douglas, or Good Sir James, the Scottish knight and feudal lord lived 1286-1330. He was one of the chief commanders in the Wars of Scottish Independence; the right-hand man of Robert the Bruce, who earned a reputation with the English as a fierce, battle-hardened knight who had a record of handing bloody defeats to larger forces.
Hundreds of years after the Black Douglas died, there were those of his progeny that settled in Durham, Sunderland, England. For many generations the Douglas family documented here, have maintained unto their dying day they were not English, but Scotch.
John Douglas born April 5, 1726, in Durham, England, is my 7th Great Grandfather.
John married Susanna Carr, born Jan 24, 1725. They were wed May 21, 1748, in Sunderland, Durham, England. John and Susanna had an unconfirmed number of children, but the one we are interested in is their eldest; a son named John Douglas, born Feb 4, 1749, in Sunderland, Durham, England.
John Douglas was married to Anne Coulson who was born in 1844 in Sunderland, Durham, England. John and Anne had many children. John passed away in 1820. The date of Anne’s death is yet, unknown. Of their children they had one named Martin who was born about 1776 in Durham, England. Martin married Elizabeth Loney July 13, 1796. The couple had at least two sons, one of which was Martin Jr. As had been the case for many decades, their children were born in Durham.
Some in the family had designs on making a buck or two, outside conventional means. Though they were already wealthy, Martin Douglas Sr.’s wife Elizabeth Lonie Douglas, wanted some money of her own, so ran a public house up a blind alley between Cauney’s Place.
Martin died in Yorkshire in October 1852. His wife Elizabeth, died in 1841. Martin and Elizabeth’s son Martin Jr. was born March 24, 1803. August 4, 1825, Martin Jr. married Elizabeth Mordey who was born March 28, 1804.
Martin and Elizabeth had at least seven children, one of which, John Douglas, was born June 26, 1830. Now briefly about John Stobart Douglas who came to USA and got us all involved in this. John was my 3rd great grandfather on my mother’s maternal side. He was a rope manufacturer, making rope for coal barges, which a number of the family operated. He was very well off financially. The children all went to private schools and the family lived in a very nice neighborhood. Even so, John’s business was located on the docks, and this is where his children grew up. It seemed as if without effort, two of his sons were groomed for the life of a hard case.
John Douglas was married to Susannah Addison Stobart in Edinburgh, Scotland. Susannah was also born about 1830 in Durham, England. The couple were married June 24, 1854, in Edinburgh Parrish, Scotland. Susannah had been married before and had a few children. The well-to-do couple had at least seven children themselves; one girl, they named Dora Eliza Douglas, my 2nd great grandmother.
John and Susannah’s children are as follows –
John Stobart Douglas born April 10, 1855, in Sunderland, Durham, England
Dora Eliza born December 1856 in Sunderland
Martin William born July 1859 in Sunderland
Percy born January 30, 1861, in Sunderland
Frederick born about 1864 in Sunderland.
Wesley born about 1866 in Sunderland
Charles born about 1868 in Sunderland
The census of 1861 shows the family had a nurse and a cook. John Douglas is documented as a rope manufacturer employing 10 men, 15 women and 10 boys. It was there on the docks in England, two of John and Susanna’s very young sons, Percy and John convinced a ship’s captain they could work equal to a man and ran away to America.
The fact is, the reason the family left England was that two sons, John Stobart Douglas, 14 and Percy, 8, as soon as they were big enough, ran away from home to the USA, in about 1869. They had relatives in Missouri and California. The one in California was named Scott who ran a supply store at Scott’s Corner on the old highway 33 about 6 miles south of Patterson, California.
So, to satisfy the family in about 1869 John Douglas sold his thriving rope business and their home and came to Missouri. You see, only recently one of John and Susanna’s sons named Martin William, had died at only 3 years old, and the couple did not want to lose any more sons. Dora arrived with her parents and some of her siblings aboard the ship, Calabria, in New York, on February 23, 1870. Dora was fourteen when she arrived in New York; her mother Susannah, 40, her father John, 39. Her brothers were Frederick, 5; Wesley, 4; and Charles, 2.
“Regarding your great grandmother,” Mr. Gallarda wrote, “Dora was 14 when they left Sunderland, England. They had all the things that well-off people had, and America became a problem. If you wanted anything, you had to do it yourself.” It seems the adjustment to life in the USA was anything but pleasant for the teenage girl.
By July 27, 1870, the family was reunited in Wayne County, Missouri. Following the boys did not help much, as John and Percy ran away again; this time going to Seattle, where they joined up with the coast guard who was going to Alaska to make a survey. “These were two tough kids who were raised on coal barges. In those days, age did not matter much if you were able.” Mr. Gallarda said. Keep in mind that at the time, in 1870, Percy was only 9 and his brother John, 15.
As soon as the boys ran away, their father John Stobart Douglas, lit out of Missouri and took his family to Seattle to get his two children out of the coast guard. A little way out of Spokane, the Indians kidnapped Susannah Addison Douglas, who was very beautiful. It took the army and money to get her back. (I have not found any source to prove this claim)
Eventually John tracked his boys down, but they were not the same little boys that ran away. After reaching Seattle and getting the boys back, John headed south with his family to California, coming down what is now highway 213 to Silverton, Oregon, then on down to Jackson County where they stayed for a while.
While there he bought some land in a new subdivision at Lake Creek, then on to Alameda and the area close to Scott’s Corner. A daughter John and Susannah named Ada M. Douglas was born December 22, 1872, to the couple while they lived in Alameda.
Mr. Gallarda wrote, “John Douglas was rich when he came to the USA, but he didn’t stay that way. He bought a rope manufacturing factory in San Francisco. Soon after he paid for the factory, it burned and there was no insurance. He then bought a rock quarry in Los Gatos which turned out to be worth nothing. I looked at it in 1935 and it still was not worth anything.” (it appears Mr. Gallarda has been tracing his ancestors for a long time, at least since 1935-Dan).
“The last item that I know he purchased was a herd of sheep on a ranch between Merced and Mariposa. They were stolen later; some were driven off a cliff and the rest eaten by wild animals.” During this era cattlemen routinely herded sheep off cliffs and shot them so varmints would eat them.
Despite Mr. Gallarda’s vivid illustration of the failures of John Douglas, articles of the era and history remembers him as a well-respected, man of means. Perhaps these two descriptions are not necessarily divergent. We are, after all, all of us human, with all of the weaknesses that simple fact denotes.
Records indicate John invested in agricultural properties around Bakersfield and in fact quickly prospered. He was recognized as a reputable man. But his son Percy hung out in dimly lit saloons where he drank and gambled to excess, and enjoyed a good brawl now and again, earning him an entirely different reputation.
Once, when one Bakersfield newspaper editor labeled Percy as a troublemaker, his father John threatened the journalist with bodily harm and told him he would burn down his building. The newspaper man did not back away from his claims, and John never followed through with his threats.
Dora Liza Douglas was just past 18 when on June 17, 1875, John and Susannah’s daughter married Jefferson B. Bennett, born about 1849 in Missouri. “The marriage took place in Hills Ferry, a boat crossing on the San Joaquin River where the river makes a turn near Newman at the very south westerly end of Stanislaus County. He and his father ran a bar and supply store near Hills Ferry. Lillian Bernice was born in October 11,1878. Jefferson Bennett died three years later; shot in the bar and supply business he ran with his father. Dora was pregnant when Jefferson was shot and killed. She gave birth in October 1878 to Lillian Bernice. It is unknown if Bennett ever met his daughter.
About a year later, Dora moved north with her infant daughter and some other relatives. It is a family story that Dora met Daniel Wilson Sr. in Silverton as the family was moving south from Seattle to California, some years prior. At the time Daniel was working as a frontier dentist, though when he arrived from Canada, he claimed his chief occupation was that of millwright.
Of all the people I have researched, Daniel S. Wilson Sr. is the most difficult to locate or track. His father was born in Canada, as he, in July 1843. He entered the USA in 1863. In 1870 he worked as a groom in a stable in San Mateo, California.
With this information I found a note posted by Dan Newton that said Dora met Daniel Wilson in Silverton. I emailed Mr. Newton regarding the claim. In turn, he shared with me the note Mr. Gallarda had written, and this family history became possible.
Mr. Gallarda said the young widow, “Dora Douglas Bennett then married Daniel S. Wilson in Sprague, Spokane County September 2, 1879.” Here I found an inconsistency, when documents indicated Dora and Daniel were married in Stevens, Washington September 2, 1879.
At any rate, Dora and Daniel traveled back east to Illinois after they were wed, where Dora had a daughter named E.D. Wilson later that year. After the birth of their baby daughter, the couple came back to Washington. In 1881 Dora and Daniel had Josephine Wilson-Spruel-Rotz in Washington.
Some people say Dora’s father John Douglas passed in about 1881; but Mr. Gallarda says it was closer to 1900. His death, like so many in his family, is shrouded in mysterious circumstances. There are no documents to cite his death. Mr. Gallarda claims he was buried at sea.
The final fate John Douglas met has been recorded by genealogists as Los Angeles, and Durham, England, where he was born. The truth is, no one really knows when, why or how John Douglas died, or where his body ended up.
Hundreds of miles away, Percy John Wilson was born to Dora and Daniel June 29, 1882 in Sprague, Lincoln, Washington. Rosy Wilson was born to the couple about 1884 in Washington.
In retrospect it was very fortunate for Dora and her children that she had married Daniel Wilson and moved away from Bakersfield. Her brother Percy Douglas had grown up. The influence of the saltier side of life had left its mark on the young man, and he had gained a reputation around Bakersfield saloons and its lawmen, as a bad character.
Percy only had minor problems with the law until April 1886, when trouble that had been brewing for a couple weeks finally boiled over. Fellow Bakersfield resident tough Natubo Quieras and Percy had been trading threats for some time when on the night of April, at 10 o’clock, a woman ran up to Percy and asked him to protect her from a man that was chasing her. It was Quieras.
When Percy’s nemesis approached and tried to strike the woman, he knocked him down with a hard punch. A knock-down fistfight ensued, but before it could be broken up by bystanders, Quieras vowed revenge.
It was no surprise when a few days later Quieras approached Percy with a revolver in his hand. Percy was engaged talking to someone on the street. In one version of events, Percy beat Quieras to the draw and both men fired several shots without hitting each other. In another more believable version Douglas and his acquaintance only dodged bullets fired by Quieras who was a terrible shot.
Lawmen later arrested Quieras that day, but conflicting witness reports caused a magistrate to dismiss all charges. Perhaps emboldened by his release, Quieras went around boasting he would kill Percy Douglas on sight.
As fate would have it, however, on April 26 it was Percy that saw Quieras first, stepping from the doorway of a saloon and firing two shots. The first shot did the job. It struck Quieras in the forehead, killing him instantly. And it was a good thing, because the second shot missed completely. One witness said the dead man had time to try and draw his gun, but he got it hooked on a tear in his shirt.
Jurors were deadlocked in the trial for Percy Douglas. There were 11 members for acquittal and one for conviction. In a second trial the jury convicted Percy of manslaughter, and the judge sentenced him to two years at San Quentin.
Percy was 25 years old when he entered prison that August 26, 1886. He was five feet, eleven inches tall and had a light complexion. He had blue eyes and brown hair. He claimed he was a laborer, and for some reason claimed he had been born in Missouri.
Percy was released April 21, 1888, and began drifting along the rails of California. He held odd jobs, but also made a considerable amount of trouble.
By 1889, while Percy was securing a bad reputation for himself everywhere he went, his mother Susannah was living in Merced, in the San Joaquin Valley.
About a year after Percy Douglas had been released from prison, in the early hours of April 20, 1889, a brakeman was trying to eject Percy and his traveling companion Robert Maxwell from a train approaching Madera, when Percy pulled a handgun and shot the brakeman in the neck, wounding him severely.
Authorities caught Maxwell first, but he was released since Percy had been the shooter. A dragnet closed in on Percy, September 10. He was lodged in the Fresno County jail despite claiming he was “William Sheldon”. His true identity was soon confirmed. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and the intent to commit murder.
Percy’s widowed mother Susanna was 60 years old at the time, and still considerably wealthy. She provided her son a strong defense team in attorneys Patrick Reddy of San Francisco and John Ahern of Kern County. Even so, the case worked its way into the Fresno County Superior Court, where a trial began January 13, 1890.
The trial was as contentious as Percy’s life. At one point in the proceedings Reddy and a witness named Welsh began exchanging punches, prompting the Percy to dash across the courtroom to knock Welsh unconscious with one fist to the jaw. The excitement didn’t do any good for the perception the jury got of his character. On January 16th, Percy was found guilty and the judge sentenced him to eight years in Folsom Prison.
Percy entered Folsom Prison February 2, 1891 as his family began legal maneuvering. Attempts at appeal got nothing for his mother Susannah’s best effort to get her son released.
Later that year in Conconully, Okanoken, Washington, Daniel S. Wilson Jr. was born July 29, 1891, to Dora and Daniel Wilson.
It was evident on November 7, 1893, the mama bear in Susannah Douglas was a force of nature when it came to the defense of her children. Her wealth, connections, and legal team managed to sway the governor of California to cut her son Percy’s sentence for assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to murder, to four years. Three months later on February 2, 1894, Percy walked free from Folsom.
It wasn’t long until the Bakersfield bad boy was again committing minor offenses and generally becoming a nuisance for local law enforcement. He commonly threatened to kill several law men, including police officer Edwin L. Willow, who had assisted another office arresting Percy on one occasion. The threats weren’t seen as hollow, and Willow began to carry a 12 ga. shotgun.
The nature of officer Willow’s true rank is a matter of contention. He has been called a deputy constable, but also as the chief of police.
On January 29, 1897 Percy was drunk when he went to see a lady friend named Jessie Woods, where she lived in a boarding house in Bakersfield. Woods was not home, but her roommate Annie Hicks was. Percy wanted her to let him in, but she would not let him. When Percy got insistent, Hicks asked a neighbor, W.H. Murphy to come over and sit with her. Percy was critical of the arrangement and as he left he warned Hicks that he would be back.
Hicks had no doubt Percy would return, so she went to Deputy Willow, pleading for protection. The law man waited in the rooming house for some time, but Percy did not appear. As tensions eased, Hicks asked the deputy to go get her some candy, which he did.
Sure enough, Percy returned to the rooming house and again made Annie Hicks feel uncomfortable. To get him out of her apartment, Hicks agreed to go with Percy for a drink at the local saloon. As soon as Percy got involved talking to friends, Hicks slipped away out the back door and returned to her apartment.
Meanwhile, Deputy Willow consulted with Deputy George Tibbet about Percy Douglas. As a result, Willow, Tibbets and several other deputies went to the boarding house where they found Hicks, who told them she was still afraid. She also warned them he had threatened “to do business with Willow.”
With little doubt Percy would return, the law men decided to post Deputy Willow as a guard in the room. First, the law man had a meal and went to his hotel room to get his shotgun and dog.
Percy’s lady friend Jessie Woods was still not home when later that night Percy returned. He hammered his fist against the door, as inside Annie Hicks could take no more anxiety. She screamed, “My God! Here comes Percy!”
With shotgun in hand, Officer Willow opened the door and told Percy not to enter. In answer, Percy stuck his foot in the door before stepping back to reach for his revolver. “Don’t’ draw your gun on me!” Willow ordered, before squeezing the trigger on his shotgun, blasting Percy in the chest, killing him instantly. Hicks was, of course, hysterical, and Willow escorted her to a nearby saloon for a drink and comforting.
As odd as this end to a shooting by a police officer might sound, events quickly became stranger. A coroner’s jury found Percy Douglas had died from gunshot wounds inflicted by a party or parties unknown. Later that night Deputy Willow was arrested, though he was not jailed. The sheriff allowed him to spend the rest of the night with a fellow deputy.
The following morning Officer Willow plead not guilty and was released on $7,500 bond. A hearing was held February 13, 1897 in which Annie Hicks, her neighbor Murphy and others testified on Willow’s behalf. The prosecution asked the deputy, “You don’t suppose Percy Douglas wanted to shoot you?” Willow answered, “I certainly did.” The result of the hearing was all charges against Willow were dropped.
Susannah nor her family could do anything for Percy at that point but to lay him to rest. He was buried in the family plot in Bakersfield Union Cemetery. It was not recorded if lawmen from Bakersfield gathered afterward to have a drink and celebrate, but they must have all felt considerably safer.
A little less than two years later, on December 16, 1898, Susannah Stobart-Wake-Douglas passed away in Santa Monica at 69 years old. Her body was taken back to Bakersfield where she was laid to rest in the same cemetery of her wayward son.
She and John’s son John S. Douglas of Bakersfield, paid for and had her buried in a plot he purchased at the death of his brother Percy, who died in a gunfight a year before.
Meanwhile, far to the north, Dora and Daniel Wilson Sr. lived a life greatly unaffected by the events taking place in California. When the couple was first married, they lived near Spokane, Washington, but by 1900, they had moved to Forks, Washington which became the cradle of my mother’s family on her mother’s side.