Clarence E. Douglass

Oklahoma

Clarence Douglass was editor of the Muskogee Phoenix, the only English Newspaper published in Indian territory. He was also a lawyer and poet. The 1903 news account from which we learned that Douglass was a lawyer/poet tells us that: "At Ardmore . . . he was forced to kill a man and his trial was a cause celebre. Fourteen of the best lawyers of the Indian territory and of Texas were employed to help prosecute him. He had three separate trials before a jury was unnanimous in its finding that he be set at liberity." [source: The Democrat and Standard, Sept. 22, 1903, p. 3] [The Muskogee Phoenix was founded in 1888, prior to Oklahoma statehood.]