Newspaper article:Douglas surname WR19170322p3 - March 22 1917
- Article title
- Mrs. Douglas Who Was Buried Here Saturday Was a Wooster Woman of Many Attainments
- Newspaper title
- Wooster Daily Republican
- Date of publication
- 1917/03/22
- Page number
- 3
- Organization
Full text
MRS. DOUGLAS WHO WAS BURIED HERE SATURDAY WAS A WOOSTER WOMAN OF MANY ATTAINMENTS
She Was Prominent in Affairs That Took Place Here in the Past, and Was a Woman of Much Note.
The funeral services of Mrs. Benjamin Douglas who died on Mar. 14th, at Versailles, Ky., at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Dale Douglas Lowery, were held at the old Douglas home on N. Buckeye St. at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday.
Mrs. Douglas, who, before her marriage, was Nercissa L. Newkirk, was the youngest daughter of Henry Newkirk and Jane Hart and was born in Clinton township. Wayne Co., Ohio, on Feb. 15, 1839. Henry Newkirk was the son of Isaac Newkirk, one of the citizens of Washington Co., Pa., who joined the volunteer army, organized in the eastern states for the rescue of the settlers in Northern Ohio who were besieged by the war-like Indians from the villages and settlements near Sandusky.
The Delawares, Wyandots and Shawanese Indians had pillaged and murdered savagely for a lengthy period of barbarous crueltie(unreadable)pedition was equipped and (unreadable) by the ill-starred Col. Wm. Crawford--the leader himself falling a victim to the cruelties of the savage tribes. Isaac Newkirk, a member of the immense Newkirk family relationship, was marked, as are the entire family membership by special sympathetic and humanitarian instincts and served during the crusade against the aboriginal savages.
Col. Crawford, a friend and associate of General Geo. Washington, was slain by the enemy and the expedition only partially successful--General Anthony Wayne, more daring, more audacious, led the later campaigns characterized by a certain ruthlessness worthy of the later day Von Hindenburg methods, but worthily inspired by the sufferings of many innocent and helpless victims.
Isaac Newkirk had on their marches and encampments, discovered what is widely known as the Newkirk's Spring. With it he was so delighted and the beautiful surrounding prairie and wooded uplands that after the treaty of peace in 1795 under General Wayne, was signed, he by treaty with the Government secured possession of the spring and the surrounding section of land. To this place he sent his sons, Henry and Reuben abundantly supplied in financial resources and at the foot of the spring they built, in 1814, and later operated, the first linen and woolen mill ever founded west of the Allegheny Mountains. They brought to the new country the material equipment of their homes and in addition the very fine piety and humanitarian instincts which distinguished the memorious family branches. Henry Newkirk for many years was able to superintend the operations of his business, but a attack of pneumonia ended his activities. The mother's death soon followed and the peaceful and happy home life was abruptly ended.
Isaac and Prixton Newkirk, the sons of the family, took possession of the family ancestral acres--and the young sister, the little Nercissa fourteen years old, very demure, very studious and sweet tempered, but possessing the same serenity and kindly gleams of humor that lighted all her days, was sent to Professor Diffendorf's select academy at Hayesville, O., where she studied for many years. The studious, gentle young girl with the beautiful smiling gray eyes won the hearts of her school mates.
The brothers, Isaac and Paxton, succumbed to pneumonia in early manhood and the education of the young sister was continued at Mrs. Hanna's school for women, located at Washington, Pa., where the elder sister, Emily Jane, a graduate, was teaching. After a period of study there, she was sent to the Urbana Female Seminary at Urbana, O., and graduated from this school in June, 1859.
She taught in the public schools for a few months with marked success.
On June 20, 1861, she was married to Benjamin Douglas, a classmate at the Diffendorf academy and a graduate of the Cleveland Law college and a member of one of Wayne County's pioneer families and regarded as one of the most promising aspirants for legal and political honors among the members of the Wayne County Bar. Mr. Douglas died on July 20, 1909.
Mr. Douglas, although a traveler in many sections of the country, had returned to the home of his boyhood after every departure. Engaged with a brother, Robert Douglas of the firm of Douglas and Streight, of Indianapolis, for some time; in the Postmaster General's office in Washington where his fluent pen gained him entrance to the columns of the leading newspapers, he returned to Wayne county with added interest and a friendly acquaintance with the county population rendered him the only available candidate for the work of compiling the records of the county into a documentary form, "The History of Wayne County," and "The Lawyers of Wayne County."
- Mrs. Douglas was prominent among social club and public activities in the earlier life of Wooster.
- During the Civil War of 1860-'65, she was the head of the Woman's Relief Movement in Wayne county.
- During the notable Centennial of Wayne County in 1896, she was chairman of the Women's movement.
- She was one of the earliest members of the Thursday club, the oldest woman's club of Wooster, and one of the first organized women's clubs in the United States.
- She was an ardent Presbyterian and a teacher in the Sunday school in her earlier years.
But in her home, as advisor and counsellor to her husband and daughters, and in her conception of the home as an unassailable fortress of constancy, in her belief in the marriage tie, not as an earthly relation but a divine sacrament, in the divine loyalty of her affection for all the members of her family, her traits of wisdom and goodness were most visible.
She is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Mabel Douglas Esary, of Seattle, Wash., and Mrs. Dale Douglas Lowrey, of Versailles, Ky.