CAPT. CHAS. SANDERS DOUGLASS, A.B., A.M. – Prominent among the educators of Tennessee is Capt. Chas. Sanders Douglass, who for twenty-five years has been superintendent of the city schools of Gallatin and in various other relations has been a prominent and influential factor in the educational affairs of this state for over forty years. This long identification alone is ample evidence of his efficiency in educational work and of his character and standing as a man. The Douglass family trace their lineage to the bold, sturdy Scotch-Irish stock. Firm and dauntless, loyal, conservative and honorable, are the characteristics that marked this race in the mother country, traits that were not lost by emigration and residence in this land of freedom and adventure. Back in the colonial period three brothers emigrated from their native Scotland to the United States, one locating in middle Tennessee, another in Virginia, while the third settled in North Carolina. Stephen A. Douglass, the American statesman and politician, was descended from this connection. From the North Carolina ancestor was descended James Douglass, born in North Carolina in 1762, who was the grandfather of Capt. C. S. Douglass of this review. In young manhood he came to Tennessee, where he married in 17–. He passed away in this state in 1851 at the venerable age of eighty-nine years. His son, Col. Young Douglass, was born in Sumner County, Tennessee, in 1805 and followed farming up to his marriage in 1834 to Benetta Rawlings, after which he took up merchandising. Later he returned to agricultural pursuits and was quite successful in that line of endeavor until his death in 1865. He was captain of one of the first military companies organized in Sumner County and it was from this connection that he received his familiar appellation of Colonel Douglass. Benetta (Rawlings) Douglass was born in Sumner County, Tennessee, in 1813, a daughter of Dr. Benjamin Rawlings, who was a pioneer physician in middle Tennessee. She passed away in 1849, the mother of six children, the third of whom is Capt. C. S. Douglass of this review. After her death Colonel Douglass married Mrs. D. Killebrew, nee Green.
Capt. Chas. S. Douglass was born in Sumner County in 1839. His preliminary education was received in the country schools of this county and his collegiate training was received at Central University, Danville, Kentucky, from which institution he was graduated in 1860 as a Bachelor of Arts. The degree of Master of Arts was conferred on him by the same institution in 1884. After completing his literary education he took up the study of law, but soon discontinued it, however, for at the opening of the war between the states at about that time his fealty to the South was promptly evinced. He was one of the organizers of Company H of the Thirtieth Tennessee Infantry, and in the beginning was at once commissioned adjutant, with the title of first-lieutenant. At the battle of Fort Donelson in February, 1862, he was captured and taken to Camp Chase, from whence he was later transferred to Johnson’s Island, being held as a prisoner seven months. On his release he returned to the Confederate service as captain of Company H of the Thirtieth Tennessee Regiment, Army of Tennessee, and having lost most of his company was afterward appointed an adjutant general, in which capacity he served during the remainder of the war. Besides the action at Fort Donelson, he participated at Jackson and Raymond, Mississippi; at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge in Tennessee; at Resaca, Georgia, and in all the other engagements of the Western army under Hood and Johnston. At the battle of Jonesboro he was wounded in the left arm and had a horse shot from under him. Throughout the whole of his service he exhibited the highest of soldierly qualities. At the close of the war he returned to Sumner County, where on July 23, 1865, he wedded Susan Graham, who was born in Sumner County in 1846 and is a daughter of Dr. Alexander Graham. The two children of their union are: Ada, who became the wife of Dr. C. W. Meguiar, now president of the Kentucky examining board of dentistry, and Charles Clair Douglass, who resides in California.
In 1871 Captain Douglass, together with Prof. C. W. Callender, organized the Sumner High School in Hendersonville, Tennessee, but two years later Prof. Callender was elected superintendent of public instruction in Sumner County and for seven years thereafter Captain Douglass continued alone as principal of the school. During that time he also filled the unexpired term of another instructor in a male seminary at Gallatin. In 1880 he was elected superintendent of public instruction in Sumner County, and in 1884 and 1885 he was also principal of the normal school at Gallatin. He was yet serving as county superintendent when he was elected superintendent of the city schools of Gallatin in 1888, a position that he has now held continuously for twenty-five years. Further mention of his position in public esteem in Gallatin is barely necessary in this connection, for this long service alone speaks more eloquently than words in this respect. He is a member of the Tennessee State Teachers Association, has served as its vice-president and as a member of its executive committee, and in 1883 was president of that body. He has served nineteen years as a member of the state board of education, was president of the board one term, and was a member of the committee that adopted the first uniform text books for the state; he also was the first president of the Teachers and Officers Association of Tennessee. He was for twenty years conductor of State Institutes.
In political sentiment he is a staunch Democrat, and in 1878 was a candidate for the state legislature but was defeated by eighteen votes. As a Confederate veteran he became a charter member of Donaldson Bivouac, of Gallatin; was its president one term, and has been its secretary seventeen years. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, south, at Gallatin, and he is now serving his second year as president of the County Sunday Schools. As a citizen, soldier and educator he has lived up to high ideals and his life and services have been those of one of the most worthy of Tennesseans.
