George Douglass was a businessman in Baltimore and later in New York. He was a member of the fifth generation of Douglasses descended from Col. John Douglass (1636-1678), who was born in Scotland and came to Maryland around 1654.

Like his American Douglass ancestors, George Douglass was born in Charles County, Maryland. By 1812, he had moved to Baltimore, where he was a partner in the shipping and mercantile business of his older brother Richard. When the siege of Baltimore occurred in 1814, Douglass was in the center of the action: as a volunteer soldier, he was ordered to Fort McHenry and was subjected to the heavy bombing which occurred through the night of September 13-14. He later said that on several occasions the shelling "buried him alive" in the sand, but he was never injured beyond a few bruises.

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