My Genealogy Hound

John W. Dorman, an old settler of Fenter Township, Hot Spring County, has been a resident of the country since 1850. His father, William Dorman, was a native of Maryland, where he was engaged in farming, and took part in the Indian War. He died in January, 1850, at the age of fifty years. Both he and his wife (who was a native of North Carolina) were members of the Methodist Church. Mrs. Dorman lived until 1887, when she died on September 20, at the age of eighty-three years. They were the parents of ten children, two of whom only are living: John W. (the subject of this sketch) and Allen (a farmer of Cleveland County). John W. Dorman came to Arkansas with his parents in 1850, and the same year his father died of cholera. The mother then entered eighty acres of land, and afterward 240 more in Bradley County, and in what is now Cleveland County, which she and her sons improved, and where John remained until the breaking out of the Civil War. Then he enlisted in the First Arkansas Infantry, under Col. Fagan, and served four years and one month, taking part in the battles of Shiloh (where he was wounded and disabled for three months), Perryville, Ky., Chickamauga (where he was again wounded, being shot in the hand, and laid up for four months), Murfreesboro, and Atlanta (where he was again wounded, this time in the thigh). After this last battle he was employed as a scout until the close of the war. When the war closed he returned to his mother’s farm, which he then purchased, living upon the same until 1873, when he sold out and moved to Lincoln County, where he remained one year, then returning. In the winter of 1881 he moved to Hot Spring County and here entered 120 acres of land under the homestead act, on which he now lives. Mr. Dorman was married to Harriet Hanes, on January 9, 1867. They are the parents of six children: Emily L. (wife of James A. Horn, of Saline Township), William Henry, Mollie, Hattie, Perry (deceased) and John (deceased). Mr. and Mrs. Dorman are members of the Methodist Church. The former was justice of the peace in Cleveland County before moving to Hot Spring County. He is a successful farmer, making a specialty of potatoes and small fruit-raising, is a self-made man, and one of the influential residents of his township.