Named after a friend of his father and anti-slavery speaker,
Charles Lenox Remond, Charles Remond Douglass was born on October 21, 1844, in
Lynn, Massachusetts. Douglass attended public school in
Rochester, New York, after his family moved to the city in late 1847. As a child he worked delivering copies of his father's newspaper
North Star. In his lifetime he worked as a soldier, journalist, government clerk, real estate developer, and secretary and treasurer for the District of Columbia school district. In 1866 he married Mary Elizabeth Murphy. The couple had six children: Charles Frederick,
Joseph Henry, Annie Elizabeth, Julia Ada, Mary Louise, and Edward Douglass. Of these six, Joseph Henry was the only one to live to adulthood, becoming a famous violinist. Douglass and his wife were married until her death in 1879. On December 30, 1880, Douglass married his second wife, Laura Haley. The couple had one son together, Haley George Douglass, in Canandaigua, New York, who became a school teacher at
Dunbar High School in
Washington, D.C., and mayor of
Highland Beach, Maryland, from 1922 through his death in 1954.
Career From 1867 to 1869, Douglass served as one of the first African-American clerks in the
Freedmen’s Bureau when he and his family moved to
Washington, D.C. This was followed up with his work in the
Treasury Department from 1869 to 1875. He served as a clerk to the Santo Domingo Commission in 1871, then returned to the
Caribbean when United States President
Ulysses S. Grant appointed him consul to
Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo. In 1875 Douglass became a clerk in the
U.S. consulate in
Santo Domingo, where he remained until 1879 when he returned to the United States after his wife's death. He then moved to
Corona, New York, and entered the
West India commissions business. In 1882 Douglass began working as an examiner for the
Pension Bureau in Washington, D.C. He was buried at
Columbian Harmony Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on November 26. He was survived by his wife Laura and two sons,
Joseph Henry Douglass and Haley George Douglass. ==See also==