Before 1956
A book of Keene's history published by the Keene History Committee in 1968 records that the Douglas Toy Co. was started in 1945 by Fred D. Laurent, an ex-Marine and Keene native, and that the company name used his middle name. Its products were stuffed animals made of shearling lambskin and fabrics. [1]
The same book records that in 1956 the firm was bought by St. Clair M. Smith, and that the name then became Douglas Co. Inc. [1]
The widely repeated “founded 1956” is best read as the start of the current family's ownership. The Douglas toy business dates to 1945, under a different owner and a slightly different name. [1]
The brand name most likely comes from Fred D. Laurent's middle name. The 1968 history says the company used his middle name, but it does not print the middle name itself, so “Douglas” is a reasonable reading rather than a confirmed one. [1]
The Clarke family arrives
Bill and Penny Clarke answered a Wall Street Journal advertisement reading “Come help us run a toy company,” flew to Keene from Pittsburgh, and bought half the company — and a house in West Keene — on the same trip, joining Mary and Sinclair Smith. [2]
Did the Clarkes buy in 1956 or 1957?
What would settle this: The Keene Sentinel says 1956; New Hampshire Public Radio says 1957. Both are reputable. A deed at the Cheshire County registry, or a New Hampshire incorporation filing, would settle it. Until then this library will not pick one.
Full ownership is said to have passed from the Smith and Clarke partnership to the Clarkes during the 1970s. This appears in a collector guide with no source given. [3]
Making toys in Keene
Around 1967 the company had roughly 100 toy models. Its best sellers were the plastic and vinyl-faced dolls “Boy Blue” and “Bonnie,” and among the stuffed animals, the raccoon and the squirrel. [1]
By the late 1970s more than 80 people worked there, in cutting, stitching and stuffing teams. [4]
Historic Keene manufacturing took place at the Colony Mill. [2]
The move overseas
During the 1980s production shifted to Asia, as competitors moving offshore forced the change. [4]
In August 2000 the Douglas website still stated: “Douglas Company is one of the last companies to manufacture plush in the United States. Most of our large pieces are made right here in Keene, NH.” [5]
Recent years
In May 2017 the company announced a recall of about 25,000 plush toys — Oliver the Bear, Chewie the English Bulldog and Charlotte the Fox — because plastic eyes could detach. They had been sold between July 2014 and April 2017. [6]
2021 was the company's 65th anniversary year, in which it donated more than $94,000 to child hunger causes in the Monadnock region. [7]
In February 2025 a Keene Planning Board application proposed a roughly 98,323 square foot office and warehouse building on Black Brook Road to relocate Douglas from Krif Road, in two phases. [8]
In April 2025 construction of that new Keene warehouse was paused within a day of a China tariff announcement. [3]
The decades nobody has written down
It is worth being blunt about how thin the record is. These stretches have essentially no dated events from any documentary source:
- 1945 to 1956, the Laurent years: one paragraph in one 1968 book. No product names, no catalogues, no tags.
- 1957 to 1967: nothing beyond the 1968 snapshot of about 100 models.
- 1968 to 1979: no dated events found at all. Everything claimed about this decade comes from collectors.
- The 1990s: almost nothing in the press.
What happened at Douglas between 1968 and 1979?
What would settle this: Microfilm of the Keene Sentinel for those years, and the local history collection at Keene Public Library, are the most promising places to look.