James Douglass
Information comes from a newspaper article and research done by Diane French
James Douglass was killed on the steamboat Moselle, 25 April 1838 on the Ohio River near Cincinnati. He was born in Pennsylvania about 1810 and lived in Fort Madison, Lee County, Iowa. The following is known about him. James was married twice. First, unknown; second to Mary Ann Prindiville Olds (widow) on 10 May 1837 in Ft Madison. Mary Ann Prindiville (b-1815 in Ohio; d-1865 Ft Madison)
Child of James Douglass and First Wife
1. Frank Douglass b-about 1835 Ft Madison,
(then Des Moines County) Iowa
Children of James Douglass and Mary Ann Prindiville
1. Mary James Douglass b-10 May 1838 in Ft
Madison Iowa; m-John Van Valkenburg 3 July 1861
Children of Mary James Douglas and John Van Valkenburg
1. Edward Van Valkenburg b-1866 in Ft Madison;
m-Berthia J Ferrell 30 Oct 1890
2. Clement Lincoln Van Valkenburg b-1873 in Ft Madison
3. Joel Walker Van Valkenburg b-1878 in Ft Madison
I live in a house in Fort Madison Iowa, and was going through the abstract of our house (when we closed on our house we actually got the abstract starting with the addition of the lots to the city of Fort Madison, Iowa, in 1892) Part of the first page is ripped (these are original pages) and part of it said the owner was killed in an explosion of a boat on the Ohio river in 1838.
The property was owned by James Douglass originally. The first page of the abstract is the record of the property being added to the US land records in 1841, though this top sheet is dated 1892. It lists Mary Douglass (James 2nd wife) as being a widow at that time (some of the paper is taped together, one line illegible) but she had added the property to the rolls in 1840. It also lists that she had "intermarried" with another man (Lewis Bedamon 18 Oct 1842) but subsequently divorced him in 1846, taking back her former name and retaining full control of the properties. (We live in southeast Iowa on the Mississippi river, this was quite a parcel of land to own! Perhaps this is why James was on the Moselle, did he work on the river?) When Mary Douglass died in 1865, the daughter (James') Mary Van Valkenburg (also a widow) inherited the property. The second page of the document is the notary's notes on the identity and rights of the heiress. So it would be interesting to research how James acquired the property, since he died in 1838, leaving at that time a wife and daughter, having been a widower himself already with a son (Frank) from the first marriage.
The third page of the abstract covers the sale of the property from Mary Van Valkenburg to a Henry Jaeger in 1893. The next entry shows it being transferred to a son of Henry (Joseph) in 1902, then to a daughter (Mary Sheppard) in 1908. The land our house is on was sold to a John Klesner in 1917, the year our house was built.