William Douglas is the son of Burrell Douglas and Mary Ann Strickland. He was born circa 1851 in Hamilton County, FL. He first shows up on the 1860 Wayne County, GA census (has him born in Florida) in the household of his father Burrell Douglas with his mother Mary and siblings, James, Nancy, Henry, Jane and Seaborn.

  Then in 1870 he is on the Ware County, GA census in the house of his father Burrell and his siblings Henry, Jane, Seaborn, Mary Ann, Burrell Jr. and Nancy Carter and her son William. He would marry Mary Carter Lee, daughter of Raiford Carter and Mary Cox. Raiford Lee would be killed in the Civil War and Mary Cox Carter would marry George Lee. William and Rhoda would only have one child named Mary "Mollie" Douglas, which would be listed on her grandfather, Burrell Douglas's estate as the daughter of William Douglas, who was deceased.

  William would not be married long before he was tragically killed while riding a steam engine train. On June 29, 1874, at the age of 23, William was riding a steam engine train to a saw mill which was owned by J. McDonough. This steam engine overheated and blew up and killed William, the engineer and the engineer's fireman that were on board. The newspaper article said they found William Douglas 50 yards from the rear of the train in a sitting position bruised and badly scalded. Evidently he was dead when they got to him from the injuries he received in the accident. They found the fireman 50 yards away from the train and they found the engineer 250 yards from the train. The accident according to the article happened at a town called Tebeauville, Georgia. This was one of the names given to this town before it later became known as Waycross, Georgia.

  It is believed that William Douglas is buried in an unmarked grave in the Mt. Plesent Cemetery in Ware County, GA, along with some of the other family members, just outside the city limits of Waycross, GA