Douglass Cramer was born in 1836, son of Samuel and Mary Ann Douglass Cramer in Halton County, Ontario, Canada. When he was 20 his parents moved to Merrimac, Sauk County, Wisconsin. He worked at the lumbering trade until he enlisted in Company K, 3rd Wisconsin Infantry in 1861. He served for three years, but was sent home several months before his enlistment was up due to severe diarrhea. This illness may have been a contributing factor to the hepatitis that claimed his life many years later. After the war he married Amanda True, daughter of Asa N. and Rebecca True, in Sauk County, Wisconsin. They lived in Merrimac, in Osceola County, Iowa and Nobles County, Minnesota over the next ten years. Douglass was a charter member of the Stoddard Post No. 34, GAP, Nobles County, organized in 1873 for the purpose of bringing together those who served in the Civil War. Shortly after that he moved his family to Iowa where he lived until his death May 27, 1899 in West Lucas, Iowa. He is buried in Oakland cemetery in Iowa City; his grave marker reads: Douglas Cramer/ 3rd Minn Vol Inf.

Douglass and Amanda had two sons: Arthur S. and Clarence (died young)