Edward W. Douglas
Although still a young man, Edward W. Douglas has shown marked ability along several different lines. Receiving a good education, he started in at the age of nineteen to teach school and while teaching saved his money, investing it in land. He farmed for a time and then added a garage and an automobile department.
Edward W. Douglas, the son of Asa and Mary ( Beal ) Douglas, was born November 20, 1883, in Madison township, this county. His father was a native of Madison county, Ohio, and is the son of J.W. and Mary Elizabeth Douglas, early pioneers of that county. J. W. Douglas and wife reared a family of ten children, Asa, Mrs. Kate Fitzgerald, Mrs. Jane Deal, Mrs. Kemp Hunter, Mrs. Margaret Camp, Perry, John, William, Richard and Mrs. Harley Downs. Asa Douglas came to Fayette county when a young man and later located in Benton county, Indiana, near Fowler, where he lived for a time and then returned to Fayette county and settled in Madison township, on a farm of one hundred and seventeen acres one mile from Madison Mills. Edward W. Douglas was educated in the Benton county. Indiana, and Fayette county, Ohio, schools, finishing his education at Madison Mills. At the age of nineteen he began teaching school in Jefferson township and taught for a few years. He then decided to engage in farming on his father's farm. He has also secured the agency for the Perry automobiles and has sold a number of these machines throughout the county. He has a garage fitted with machinery, where a large amount of automobile repairing is done. He divides his attention between his farming interests and his automobile business, with the result that he is building up a reputation as one of the business men of his section of the county.
Mr. Douglas was married in 1903 to Stella Ritenour, the daughter of Joseph and Jane (Vanorsdall) Ritenour, and to this union have been born four children, Freda M., Sherrill J., Russell V. and Max.
Politically, Mr. Douglas is a Democrat, but his business interests have prevented his taking a very active part in political matters, although he is interested in everything which pertains to good government. Mr. Douglas is a man of genial personality, honest convictions on matters of public welfare, and a man vitally interested in the life of his community
From History of Fayette County Ohio - Her People, Industries and Institutions by Frank M. Allen (1914, R. F. Bowen & Company, Inc.)