Abstract
In February of 1896 forty-seven year old Bettie Douglas Lewis of Tallahassee, Florida, wrote a letter to aging William Marvin, former governor of the state of Florida. Mrs. Lewis’ mother was “Lizzie” Brown, oldest of former Governor Thomas Brown’s four daughters. Bettie’s father was Judge Samuel James Douglas, once Florida’s territorial judge of the middle district, located in Tallahassee, and later an associate justice of the Florida supreme court. Douglas died in 1873, and twenty-three years later, Bettie (Mrs. George Lewis) sought to preserve his history. Aside from her mother, Lizzie, there were few people then living who knew the early life of her father better than William Marvin, who had served as southern Florida’s United States district court judge at Key West from 1840 to 1845 and later as circuit court judge. In the early days he regularly sat with Douglas on the territorial court of appeals that met each January in Tallahassee. A life-long friendship developed between these two men.
Recommended Citation
Groene, Bertram H.
(1970)
"Justice Samuel Douglas As Governor Marvin Remembered Him,"
Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 49:
No.
3, Article 7.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol49/iss3/7
