As a distinguished educator of Nez Perces County, as well as a landowner, the subject of this review is to be noted as one of the successful and leading men of the reservation portion of the County and one whose life is above reproach and whose standing is excellent among his fellows.
Douglas Y. Dowd was born in Vinton County, Ohio, on July 24. 1852, being the son of John and Olive (Fuller) Dowd. The father was born in Ohio, in 1818, and died in 1895. His grandfather was one of the earliest pioneers to the territory of Ohio, having gone there in the eighteenth century. The mother of our subject was born in Ohio, and died in 1856. Douglas V. was reared on the farm, educated in the district schools and the Ohio University at Athens, the first university established west of the Allegheny Mountains, the date of its inception being 1804.
At seventeen Mr. Dowd began his career as an educator, and from the inception he manifested those qualities and the worth that have made him so successful in life’s pathway, being especially endowed by nature with the qualifications that are requisite for the first class educator. In 1878 Mr. Dowd went to Kansas, settling in Wabaunsee County, where he operated a Republican newspaper for five years, it being a journal of distinct merit. He taught school for a number of years. It was in 1895 that Mr. Dowd determined to try the west and accordingly selected Nez Perces County as the point. He taught for several years and in 1897 took up the ranch which has become his homestead. It lies about two miles southwest from Steele and the final proof was made in August, 1902.
At the present writing Mr. Dowd is teaching in the Fletcher schools and, as is his characteristic methods, he is doing the best of work, being a conscientious instructor, and realizing that he is molding the minds of the ones who will soon take the responsibilities of our great government into their hands, either to carry it on to greater perfection or make sad failure where their ancestors have done gloriously.
In 1884, while in Kansas, Mr. Dowd married Miss Clara M., daughter of S. A. and Cornelia J. (Applegate) Gould, natives of New York, and the father a farmer and merchant. Mrs. Dowd was born in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1860. Mr. Dowd has the following brothers and sisters: Francis M., in Ohio; Homer N., at Thompsonville, Michigan; John W., in Toledo, Ohio: Milton B. , in Victor, Montana; Ralph P., in Illinois; Mary Goff, in Zaleski, Ohio; Charlotte Timms, in Dundas, Ohio. Two children have been born to bless the happy marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Dowd. Augustus G. and Lillian C. both at home.
Mr. Dowd is a Mason and a member of the I. O. O. F. order, and also belongs to the Phi Delta Theta, a college fraternity. He is a Republican and active in the realm of politics and in 1902 was a delegate to Boise at the Republican state convention.
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Source: An Illustrated History of Northern Idaho, Embracing Nez Perce, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone Counties, Western Historical Publishing Company, 1903