George Douglass (1726-1799), from a prosperous Chester County farm family, moved to Morlatton by 1762 with his wife, Mary Piersol Douglass (1731-1798), after working as a saddler and innkeeper in Reading. He became a prominent member of the community, was appointed Justice of the Peace for Amity and vicinity in 1764, became captain of an Amity region militia company of the "Flying Camp" division under George Washington's command on July 2, 1776, and served on the vestry of nearby St. Gabriel's Church from 1763 to 1768; he was buried in its churchyard in 1799. In 1762 he acquired the White Horse Inn and leased it to innkeepers while operating a successful country store. The Douglass, or Amity, store played a key role in the region's economy for many years, as Douglass and his son, George Douglass II (1767-1833), sold imported and locally hand-crafted goods and traded in commodities including agricultural produce and bar iron transported to Philadelphia by wagon or boat. Store ledgers record cash and barter transactions with local residents, including Michael Fulp, descendants of Mouns Jones, Boone family members, and ironmasters from the Potts, Rutter, and Bird families. After George Douglass II acquired most of the land and buildings in the village and a post office was established in the Douglass-Amity store in 1829, the community became known as Douglassville, and the store ceased operation after 1834. The house was built in several stages, beginning with a 1765 five-bay Georgian mansion of sandstone with a center hallway and four corner rooms on each floor, followed by a probable two-story addition built between 1790 and 1800 for store operations and a probable one-story early-19th-century addition that included a smokehouse over a barrel-vaulted root cellar. The house and its additions remained in the family estate until 1944, later housed Wilmer Miller's barber shop, a corner grocery, and a butcher shop in the first half of the 20th century, and were acquired in 1988 by the Historic Preservation Trust of Berks County for stabilization and long-term restoration.