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Abel Douglas, dc1807

 

Abel Douglass (also Douglas, Duglas) was born on Isle au Haut, Maine, and traveled to San Francisco California on the California Packet with his father and siblings in 1849. The Douglass family first settled in Antioch, then moved to Petaluma CA. They built the first house in Petaluma on what is now Washington Street. The house had been built in Maine and shipped around the horn and up the Petaluma Slough. It was put together with pegs. They also built the American Hotel, the first hotel in Petaluma, and are presumed to have helped build many of the other first buildings in town. In the early 1860s Abel, and brother Albert, went to San Francisco to seek their fortunes. They met James Dawson and Abel travelled to Victoria to join him in the fledgling Whaling business. Albert settled in Seattle and established a sailboat rental business in Lake Union.

Dawson and Douglass Whaling established the best record for whaling catches in the next ten years with Douglass serving as the Captain. Douglass became known as a "Down East Scotsman" because of the family Scottish heritage, his origin on the east coast, and his family avocation of mariners. Douglass was associated with several schooners in his time, the Kate, May Belle, Arietes, Industry, and Annie C. Moore. The May Belle was named after his favorite niece in Petaluma.

Captain Douglass maintained a longterm common-law relationship with Maria Mahoi (Mary Mahoy, Mahoya), with whom he fathered eight children. They had a house on Salt Spring Island. Many of their descendants still live on the island or in British Columbia. Some of their sons helped Abel with sealing and other maritime business in the 1890s.

Captain Douglass was the Ship's Captain of the Pacific Coast part of the Canadian Geological Survey. Later Douglass served on sealing ships. One of his ships, the May Belle, was seized by the United States in the international sealing conflict between Canada and the United States. The seized ships rotted away in Alaska while the outcome of the sealing conflict was being resolved in international court. Before the conflict was resolved Captain Abel Douglass died in King County, Washington in about 1907.

Resolution for the Canadians came in 1911, but Captain Douglass's family were not paid for many years later because of the complications of Abel's American citizenship.