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Cecilia Eliza Douglas (1812 Nov. 1859?) was the youngest of three
known illegitimate children born to John (II) Douglas' (17721840) and
Martha Ann Ritchie (later? Telfer) (c. 1780s-July 1839). She married
David Cameron (18041872), first Chief Justice of Vancouver Island.
Cecilia Douglas' father, John (II) Douglas, was in partnership with
two of his brothers, Thomas and Archibald, as J. T. & A. Douglas and
Company, with cotton and sugar interests in Demerara and Berbice? or
Esquisse?. Their father, John (I) Douglas, had married Cecilia Buchanan,
whose family owned tobacco plantations in Virginia, USA.(1)
John
(II) Douglas looked after his firm's sugar plantations in Demerara,
where he cohabited with Martha Ann Telfer (n้e Ritchie) (c1780s-July
1839), Cecilia Cowan Cameron's grandmother. She was a free coloured
Creole born in Barbados, living in New Amsterdam, Berbice or Georgetown,
Demerara, later British Guiana, now Guyana. Martha Ritchie married at
some point one Richard? Telfer: her will was in the name of Mrs. M. A.
Telfer.
Cecilia Eliza Douglas, the daughter of a free coloured
Creole, had a turbulent start when the itinerant sea captain Cowan, her
partner, left for America. Despite her efforts to reunite with him, she
never found him.
Returning to British Guiana, Cecilia married
David Cameron (18041872), a Scotsman working on a plantation, on 4 June
1838. David, possibly connected to her father's trading firm, relocated
the family to Britain in 1845. Cecilia ensured her daughter, Cecilia
Cowan Cameron, received an education in Cologne at the age of 13 or 14,
showcasing her determination and foresight in securing a bright future
for her family.
Some twelve years before Cecilia they had two
sons (Alfred Young's great-uncles(2)) in Demerara; they
were Alexander (b. c1801-2) and James Douglas (b. Demerara 1803). They
grew up in Georgetown with their mother, Martha, while John Douglas
returned to Scotland and married Jessie (or Janet) Hamilton of Greenock
in 1809. However, he continued to consort with Martha Ritchie on another
trip (by 1811) to Demerara; their daughter Cecilia Eliza Douglas
(1812-Nov. 1859) (Cecilia Cowan's mother), was born in Georgetown in
1812. Douglas
took his two sons (aged about 10 and 11) back to Scotland (probably by
summer 1812), where they were educated in Lanark.
Like her
brothers before her, Cecilia Eliza Douglas grew up in Demerara with her
mother Martha Ritchie (who at some point married Richard? Telfer in
Georgetown), and her grandmother, Rebecca Ritchie. Rebecca was a free
coloured or mulatto Creole woman born in Barbados, who moved to New
Amsterdam, Demerara with her daughter Martha in the late 1790s and owned
30 slaves. When Martha Telfer died in July 1839 she left some of her
estate to her granddaughter (Alfred Young's mother(2)), Cecilia Eliza
Cowan.
Notes: 1. John (II) Douglas was the
third of eight children born to John (I) Douglas and Cecilia Buchanan,
who came from a wealthy prominent Glasgow family with a tobacco
plantation in Virginia on the Potomac River adjoining that of George
Washington's elder brother. Their children were:
William Douglas
(1769 before 1828) Cecilia (I) Douglas (c1770 25 July 1862),
inherited Orbiston Park, on the R. Calder twixt Bothwell & Hamilton.
Left ฃ40,365 in her will. John (II) Douglas (1771 or 2 1840)
Alfred Young's grandfather Neil (incorrectly Neill) Douglas (1773 or
4 1853) Colonel or Lt-General with Scottish regiments. Thomas
Dunlop Douglas (1775 Jan 1869) Left ฃ300,000 in his will.
Archibald Douglas (17761860) James Douglas (? d. before 1853?)
Colin Douglas (? d. before 1828)
2. Sir
Alfred Karney Young (1 August 1864 5 January 1942), was Chief Justice
of Fiji and Chief Judicial Commissioner for the Western Pacific.
Cecilia Eliza Cowan Cameron married Alfred's father, Assistant Paymaster
William A. G. Young, RN, (later Sir William Young) on 20 March 1858.;
Young was soon to be appointed Colonial Secretary of British Columbia,
and was later Governor of Gold Coast. He had arrived in BC as
Commissioner's secretary on the joint Anglo-American Boundary Commission
for New Caledonia, which thanks to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
shortly became British Columbia, where he became Colonial Secretary.
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