Ohio History Journal

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SPEECH OF RICHARD DOUGLAS, ESQ

SPEECH OF RICHARD DOUGLAS, ESQ., OF

CHILLICOTHE.

DELIVERED BEFORE THE WHIG CONVENTION, HELD IN COLUMBUS,

FEBRUARY 22 AND 23, 1836.

Richard Douglas, who describes himself in the letter here-

with, as "in birth a Yankee, in habit a Sailor, in adoption a

Buckeye, in profession an Old Court-

Circuitizer, in  occasional  circum-

stance, a Blovian, in principal a Whig,

etc." was born in New London, Con-

necticut, September 10th, 1785. From

early youth, like many other New

London boys, he followed the sea and

travelled much to the Greenland seas

as a whaler and to other parts. He

ultimately studied law, partly in the

"Crow's-nest," and in 1808, having re-

ceived  from  his father, Captain

Richard Douglas of the Continental

Army, a warrant for land in the

Western Reserve, he came West, lo-

cated the warrant in what is now

Huron County, and started to join his brother, a physician, who

had located in Nashville. But while stopping in Chillicothe he

learned that his brother had fallen a victim to an epidemic of

cholera; and being attracted by the possibilities of the new town

in the Scioto Valley, he remained in Chillicothe. He was soon

after admitted to the bar and successfully pursued the practice

of law until his death in February, 1852.

He served under Colonel McArthur in the Detroit Cam-

paign in 1812; he served in the Legislature of Ohio and was

once nominated for Congress, but withdrew his candidacy in

favor of General McArthur. He became prominent as a lawyer

and as a public speaker throughout Southern Ohio. He had

from his youth cultivated a good taste for books, history, poetry

and the classics and had a most retentive mind; so that one

biography says of him that if any one would repeat any line of

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