Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/641

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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guished adherent, but suffered a partial eclipse when the ninth earl, James, rebelled against King James II. The earls of Angus however partly restored the ancestral prom- inence of the house, which has always con- tinued to be one of the most important in Scotland. William Douglas, the first of the family who appears on record, was so called, doubtless, from the wild pastoral dale with its river of the name which he possessed. He is found witnessing charters by the king and bishop of Glasgow between 1175 and 1213. He was either the brother or brother-in-law of Sir Freskin of Murray, and had six sons, of whom Archibald or Erken- bald was the heir, and Brice, a monk of Kelso, rose to be prior of Lesmahago (a dependency of Kelso on the outskirts of Douglasdale), and in 1203 was preferred to the bishopric of Murray. He owed this pro- motion, no doubt, to the influence of his kinsmen, the Murrays, and it contributed not a little to the rising fortunes of his house. He was followed beyond the Spey by four brothers, of whom one became sher- iff of Elgin ; another became a canon of Murray; and a third, who had been a monk of Kelso, seems to have became archbishop of Murray. A fourth brother, who had been a parson of Douglas, appears to have be- come Dean of Murray.

The armorial bearings of one branch of the Douglas family are thus heraldically de- scribed : "Arms — .Argent a man's heart gules ensigned with an imperial crown pro- per ; on a chief azure three stars of the first," which translated means upon a field of silver a man's heart red, beneath an imperial crown in its proper colors ; upon a dividing line upon a blue ground three stars of silver. The original arms of the Douglas family were simply three silver stars on a blue field. The origin of this is unknown. The origin and significance of the crowned heart is better known ; it was assumed by the family as a memorial of the fate of the Good Sir James of Douglas, who perished in Spain in 1330, while on a jour- ney to the Holy Land, with the heart of his sovereign. Robert Bruce. The dying king had bequeathed his heart to the Good Sir James, who had been his greatest captain, with the request that he would carry it to Jerusalem and there bury it before the High Altar. It had been stated that Sir James died on his way to the Holy Land and that

he had the heart with him at that time en- cased in a silver box, but Hume the his- torian of the family distinctly states that the errand had been accomplished and that the knight was on his return to Scotland. "He carried with him to Jerusalem the king's heart, embalmed and put in a box of gold which he solemnly buried before the High Altar there, and this is the reason that the Douglas bear the crowned heart in their arms ever since." The name, formerly Douglas, is now spelled in many branches with an additional "s," as Douglass. The family and the name, assuming that all the Douglases belong to the Scotch family, is well known in America, and distinct fam- ilies have attained prominence in Virginia, in New England and in Pennsylvania.

Henry Thompson Douglas received his preliminary education in private schools in New Kent county, and at \Villiamsl:)urg, Virginia. After leaving school he entered on field work as a civil engineer, continuing till 1861, when he entered the Confederate States army in the Engineer Corps. In 1883 he became connected with the Balti- more and Ohio Railroad as chief engineer and continued as such until 1896. He was engineer commissioner of the city of Balti- more, making a topographical survey of that city. In 1898 he was commissioned briga- dier-general of the LTnited States army, go- ing to Cuba with the Seventh Army Corps, commanded by Major General Fitzhugh Lee. In 1900 he came to New York City and entered the service of the New York Rapid Transit Railroad as engineer, which position he has held ever since.

General Douglas has seen much military service. Pie entered the service of the Con- federate army as lieutenant of engineers in 1S61 on the staff of General John Bankhead Alagruder, commanding the Army of the Peninsula. He was chief engineer of A. P. Hill's division of the Army of Northern \'irginia during the seven days battles ? round Richmond, and was promoted cap- tain and major of engineers. He was ap- pointed by General Robert E. Lee a member of a board of engineers, with Lieutenant- Colonels Collins and William Proctor Smith of the Corps of Engineers, his rank being that of a major, assigned to locate the "intermediate" line for the defence of Richmond, \'irginia. When the plans were completed and approved by General Lee,