Frederick Douglass's Children:

Charles Remond Douglass

 

In 1843 [Charles] Remond and the abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass toured and lectured against slavery throughout New York State, accompanied by the Hutchinsons, a family of abolitionist singers. On this tour, part of the famous One Hundred Conventions tour, British and American audiences began to take note of Douglass. That same year, Remond and Douglass quarreled openly with John A. Collins, their white Garrisonian colleague, and both were reprimanded. Douglass's admiration for Remond was so profound that in 1844 he named his third son Charles Remond Douglass (Greenidge-Copprue 1).

 

Charles was born October 21, 1844, in Lynn, Massachusetts.  Four years later his family moved to Rochester, New York, and he was educated in the public school system.  He helped deliver his father’s abolitionist newspaper, North Star.  In 1859, he served John Brown as a mail messenger when Brown lived for three weeks at the Douglass family home.

 

Douglass became the first African-American man to enlist for military service in New York during the American Civil War when he volunteered for the 54th  Massachusetts Infantry Regiment .[The official records listed him as 19-years-old; five feet, eight inches tall; with black complexion, black ryes, and black hair.]  His oldest brother Lewis Henry Douglass (1840–1908), also served in the 54th, ultimately becoming a sergeant major in that regiment. Due to illness [lung problems] in November of 1863, Charles was not able to deploy with the troops, remaining at the training camp in Readville, Massachusetts. Illness prevented Charles from participating with his brother Lewis in the assault on Fort Wagner on Morris Island, near Charleston Harbor.  Charles went on to join another black military regiment, the 5th Massachusetts Calvary, in which he rose to the rank of first sergeant. The following year of 1864 [September 15], Charles was discharged from service [at the request of his father] due to poor health (Who 1).

 

Charles planned to go to Tennessee to invest in cotton lands.  Instead, he tended the family farm and lived in his parents’ house [in Rochester] for two years, finding it difficult to secure an income-producing job.  He married Mary Elizabeth Murphy, called Libbie, in 1866.  Although this marriage was troubled by Libbie’s accusations of infidelity and Charles’s counter-accusations of jealousy, the couple had six children: Charles Frederick, Joseph Henry, Annie Elizabeth, Julia Ada, Mary Louise, and Edward (Emerson 1)

 

Moving to Washington, D.C., Charles served as one of the first black clerks in the Freedmen’s Bureau from 1867 to 1869 and in the Treasury Department from 1869 to 1875.  When his father purchased the New National Era in 1870, Charles became one of the journal’s correspondents, while his older brothers … were in charge of editorials and business management… (Emerson 1).  For several years Charles lived in the Hillsdale/Barry Farm area of Anacostia. 

 

With more than $50,000 set aside by General Oliver Otis Howard, head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, in a trust to develop “normal collegiate institutions or universities” these funds were used to purchase 375 acres from the descendents of James D. Barry in 1867. Sitting just beneath the Government Hospital for the Insane, which saw its first patient in 1855, the sale of lots would help relieve “the immediate necessities of a class of poor colored people in the District of Columbia.” Within two years, more than 260 families had made Barry Farm their home, the Douglass boys included. 

 

Writing in his autobiography General Howard recalled, “Some of those who bought one acre or two-acre lots were fairly well off. I found it better to have a few among the purchasers who were reasonably educated, and of well-known good character and repute, to lead in the school and church work, and so I encouraged such to settle alongside the more destitute.”

 

Charles and Lewis would move across town while Frederick, Jr. would spend the rest of his life on nearby Nichols Avenue, today Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue. In the early years of the 1870s, when in Washington to run The New National Era and serve on the Legislative Council, records indicate Frederick was living in the Anacostia area with one or all of his sons (Muller 1, 2).

 

As early as the mid-1800s, black baseball in Washington, DC, according to a local newspaper, was a mania of sorts.  Throughout the city, a sight of balls and bats wielded by black kids was not unusual.  Some teenagers and young men formed teams and played wherever they could scratch out a ball field.  Gradually, such teams as the Mutuals and the Alerts began playing some serious games.  Charles Remond Douglass … played on both those teams (Bruns 1).

 

By September 1869 Charles Douglass was serving as President of the city’s Mutual Base Ball Club, negotiating with opposing teams what field to play on, the rules which would govern the still-evolving game, and how to share the gate proceeds (Muller 1).

 

In the fall of 1870 the Washington Mutuals Base Ball Club, of which Charles Douglass was a member, toured “through the western part of the state of New York” and promptly defeated the Arctic Club of Lockport, the Rapids Club of Niagara Falls, the Mutuals of Buffalo, and a “picked nine” at Rochester, – the city in which Charles was born and raised by his father, Frederick, and mother, Anna Murray.

 

This box score from The New York Clipper shows Charles (his last name misspelled) playing right field and batting eighth in a game the Mutuals won 23-19. Charles, the youngest son of Frederick Douglass, accounted for one run and made four outs (Muller 1).

 

The first black American seated as a member of the United States Senate was Hiram Rhodes Revels representing Mississippi. Revels filled the seat vacated by Jefferson Davis, who left to serve as the President of the Confederate States of America

 

Up in the Senate Gallery that day, taking all of this in, was Charles R. Douglass. In a February 26th [1870] letter, to his “Father,” Frederick Douglass, Charles wrote,

 

Yesterday was one of the greatest days to me, in the history of this country.  …

 

Many voices in the Galleries were heard by me to say, ‘If it would only have been Fred Douglass,’ and my heart beat rapidly when I looked into that crowded Gallery, and upon the crowded floor, to notice the deep and great interest manifested all around, it looked solemn and the thought flashed from my mind that that honor, for the first time conferred upon a colored man, should have been conferred upon you and I am satisfied that many Senators would much more willingly see you come there than to see that Reverend gentlemen who has just taken his seat.

 

But the door is open, and I expect yet to see you pass in, not though, as a tool as I think this man is, to fill out an unexpired term of one year, earning from a state too that has a large majority – of colored votes; but from your native state to fill the chair for the long and fullest term of either Vickers or Hamilton – who only yesterday, made long wails and harangues against negro citizenship” (Muller 1).

 

Charles also served as secretary and treasurer for the District of Columbia schools after he was appointed a trustee to their school district in 1872.While working in the district he actively employed the first African-American teachers in the county’s schools and assured they received equal pay.  He served as a clerk to the Santo Domingo Commission in 1873 (Who 2).  “The Santo Domingo Commission investigated the possibility of annexing the Dominican Republic to the United States.  Grant saw the country as a potential home for southern blacks in the United States, to allow them to escape increasing oppression” (Emerson 3).

 

 

In 1875 Charles was a clerk in the United States Consulate in  Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, where he remained until 1879 when he returned to the United States after his  first wife’s death.   .  At this time Charles’s brothers and father divided Charles’s surviving children among their households in order to care for them.  Charles Frederick and Joseph Henry went to live with Frederick Douglass, Jr.; Julia Ada went to live with Frederick Douglass, Sr.; and Mary Louise went to live with Lewis Douglass (Emerson 2).

 

Joseph Henry would become famous.  Born in the Anacostia area July 3, 1869, the only child of Charles and Mary Elizabeth Douglass to live to adulthood, following “in the path of his famous grandfather and father, Joseph took up the violin at a young age, receiving classical training at the New England Conservatory for five years and later the Boston Conservatory. According to a history of black American music, Joseph would become the “first black violinist to make transcontinental tours and was the direct inspiration for several young violinists who later became professionals.” In his role as director of the department of music at Howard University and headmaster at music schools in New York, Joseph helped cultivate the budding talent of those who came behind him. According to his obituary in the Post from December 8, 1935, “His appearances at the White House were regularly scheduled during administrations of Presidents McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft, after which he undertook concert work.” If only his grandfather had been there to see it” (Muller 2).

 

In 1880 Charles helped organize the Capital City Guards' Battalion, in which he served as a captain and major. The organization later became the First Separate Battalion, National Guard of the District of Columbia. Douglass would hold several commands in the District of Columbia National Guard, along with several high posts in the Grand Army of the Republic.

 

Charles “settled in Corona, New York, and entered the West India commission business.  He married Laura Haley of Canandaigua, New York, on 30 December 1880, and the couple had one son, Haley George.  Two years later he took a job in Washington, D.C., working as an examiner in the Pension Bureau” (Emerson 3).  In 1892 Charles developed a summer resort in Maryland known as Highland Beach, a twenty-six acre tract with fourteen hundred feet of beach frontage” (Emerson 3).   

 

When the 26 2/3-acre waterfront community was incorporated in 1922, it was the first African-American municipality in Maryland. Its 500 feet of waterfront on the Chesapeake is shared by all the enclave's residents.  Earlier, Charles Douglass, his wife Laura and son Haley George attempted to visit the summertime community of nearby Bay Ridge. They were turned away at the entrance to the resort hotel's restaurant because they were black.

 

Immediately afterward, while crossing a channel bridge over Black Walnut Creek, Charles Douglass encountered a black farmer, Daniel Brashears, who offered to sell Douglass some of his farmland to create a summer resort for blacks. The original offer of 40 acres could not be completed, but Douglass was able to buy 26 2/3-acres for the community he envisioned. The remaining acreage eventually became a second African-American resort community known as Venice Beach.

 

Leaving room for the community beach area and his own housing, Charles Douglass subdivided the remaining land into about 73 lots, most were approximately 50 feet by 100 feet. He sold them to other African-Americans. He selected a corner lot overlooking the beach for his father.

 

Frederick Douglass visited the resort and designed his dream house, a simple Victorian two story cottage. It was built by Charles Douglass  … The elder Douglass planned a small, sheltered balcony tower on the second level, just big enough for a solitary rocking chair. He had said, "I as a free man, could look across the Bay to where I was born a slave." He was born in February 1818 on the Eastern Shore in Talbot County.

 

He never got to live in his summer home. He died of a heart attack Feb. 20, 1895, shortly after his 77th birthday, and just weeks before the house's completion.

 

A succession of Douglass family descendants lived in the house until 1986 (Winters 1).

 

The resentment that the Douglass children harbored for Frederick’s second wife, Helen Pitts Douglass, boiled forth when Helen attempted to convince Congress to pass an act that would incorporate the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association, an organization that she had, soon after her husband’s death, founded.  Helen had wanted the Cedar Hill property preserved.  The children had wanted it sold.  Part of the bill authorized Frederick Douglass’s remains, interred in Rochester, to be reburied at Cedar Hill.  Charles protested.  In an article in the New York Times on October 1, 1898, he made his feeling clear.

“This bill is a direct insult and affront to every member of our family. In order to make the whole conception of a memorial to Frederick Douglass more attractive, it is proposed that the body be brought back here. Section 9 of the bill provides that the body of my father may be removed from Mount Hope Cemetery, where it now rests, taken away from the side of my mother, who was his companion and helpmeet for well-nigh half a century. And, further, the section states that Mrs. Helen Douglass shall be interred next to his grave, and that the body of no other person, except as directed by her, shall be buried at Cedar Hill.

“My mother was colored; she was one of our people; she lived with father throughout the years of his active life.  Three years after her death my father married Helen Pitts, a white woman, merely as a companion for his old days.  Now, think of taking the body of my father from the side of the wife of his youth and his manhood.  Indeed, my father had often expressed the wish that he be buried at beautiful Mount Hope Cemetery, at Rochester, for it is there that much of his great anti-slavery work was accomplished, and it is there that we, his children, were reared.

“In reality, I do not believe that the body can be moved. The plot in which it rests is our property. Yet, with the passage of a Congressional act authorizing this, there might be trouble. As for Mrs. Helen Douglass, I would have no objection to permitting her burial in the same family lot with my father, and I do not believe that there would have been opposition on the part of others of our family, although I do not now care to say as to that.”

Helen Pitts Douglass was able to get the bill passed through Congress to establish the memorial association; Frederick Douglass’ remains were not moved to Cedar Hill (Helen 1).

“Along with his brother Lewis, Charles at times accompanied his father on his speaking engagements.  He also served for many years as president of the Bethel Literary and Historical Association, a cultural and literary institution for blacks in Washington.  Sponsoring weekly lectures during the winter season, the association engaged local black speakers, including Frederick Douglass.  Charles himself also delivered several addresses to the association” (Emerson 4). 

 

Late in life Charles became a member of the District of Columbia’s branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  He served as the model for the monument statue to his father, which stands in Rochester, N.Y.

 

Charles Douglass died in Washington, D.C., on November 23, 1920, (age 76) after a short illness attributed to Bright's disease. He was buried at Columbian Harmony Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on November 26. He was survived by his second wife, Laura, and his two sons, Joseph Douglass and Haley George, who would become the mayor of Highland Beach.

 

 

Works cited:

 

Bruns, Roger A.  Negro Leagues Baseball  Geogle.  Web.  <https://books.google.com/books?id=RqIEUDvjPGMC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=Charles+Remond+Douglass&source=bl&ots=6BfYNI8t2r&sig=EsomDwx9UDWv5IxkSbY9Z12jEqs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiksbb4lprbAhVqCDQIHQpUAzw4KBDoAQgwMAI#v=onepage&q=Charles%20Remond%20Douglass&f=false>.

 

Emerson, Mark G. “Douglass, Charles Remond.”  Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass. Oxford University Press. Web. < <https://books.google.com/books?id=cCMbE4KKlX4C&pg=PA407&lpg=PA407&dq=Charles+Remond+Douglass&source=bl&ots=xXjNE-ZjwL&sig=AbZv0PRxeffVefkVVhS2ixAYp30&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihqcW5i5XbAhUM4GMKHZmHBZY4FBDoAQg1MAM#v=onepage&q=Charles%20Remond%20Douglass&f=false>.

 

Greenidge-Copprue, Delano.  “Charles Lenox Remond.”  Underground Railroad: Oxford African American Studies Center.  Oxford University Press.  Web.  <http://aasc.oupexplore.com/undergroundrailroad/#!/people/charles-lenox-remond>.

 

“Helen Pitts Douglass.”  Thought.Co.  Web.  <https://www.thoughtco.com/helen-pitts-douglass-biography-3530214>.

 

Muller, John. “Charles Douglass Calls Wearin-In … Pass In.” May 22, 2012.  < https://thelionofanacostia.wordpress.com/tag/charles-douglass/page/1/>.

 

Muller, John. “Charles Douglass in 1870 Washington Mutuals Base Ball Club Box Score.” Frederick … Anacostia. Web. < https://thelionofanacostia.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/charles-douglass-in-1870-washington-mutuals-base-ball-club-box-score/>.

 

Muller, John. “Frederick Douglass & His Sons Lived in Greater Anacostia Area in the Early 1870s; before Frederick Douglass Purchased Cedar Hill in the Fall of 1877.”

July 25, 2012. Web. < https://thelionofanacostia.wordpress.com/tag/charles-douglass/page/1/>.

 

Muller, John. “Frederick Douglass; Honorary Member of the Mutual Base Ball Club (September 1870).” Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia. Web.  <https://thelionofanacostia.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/letterhead-of-the-new-national-era-frederick-douglass-editor-douglass-brothers-publishers-lewis-frederick-jr/>.

 

Muller, John. “Joseph Douglass, Grandson of Frederick Douglass, the World’s First Famous Black American Violinist.” August 3, 2012. Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia. Web. < https://thelionofanacostia.wordpress.com/tag/frederick-douglass/page/3/>.

 

Muller, John. “Kenneth Bailey Morris, Grandson of Dr. Frederick Douglass, Recalls Childhood Memories of Highland Beach.” April 5, 2018. Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia. Web <https://thelionofanacostia.wordpress.com/tag/charles-douglass/>.

 

“Who Was Charles Remond Douglass?”Build Nation. February 8, 2017. Web. <https://buildnationblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/08/who-was-charles-remond-douglass/>.

 

Winters, Wendi.  “Home of the Week: Frederick Douglass Designed Dream Summer Residence in Highland Beach.”  Capital Gazette.  February 26, 2016.  Web.  <http://www.capitalgazette.com/lifestyle/home_garden/ph-ac-cc-how-higihland-beach-frederick-douglass-0227-20160227-story.html>.