W. M. Dorsey

        W. M.   Dorsey, farmer, is the youngest of eight children, four of whom are now living, born to D. and A. (Duckworth) Dorsey. The father was born about 1776, in Burke County, N. C., and came to McMinn County in 1829, where he died about 1876 upward of one hundred years old. The mother was born in 1780, also in Burke County, N. C., and died about 1856. They were both active Christian workers in the Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Dorsey's father, John Duckworth, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and was wounded at the battle of King's Mountain. Her grandfather came from Ireland to America some time before the Revolutionary war. Our subject was born in 1824, in McMinn County, Tenn., and came to Hamilton County in 1869, received an average education in the schools of McMinn County, and lived with and assisted his father on the farm until thirty-five years of age, when he married Miss Barbara L. Wilkins, daughter of A. S. and Lavina (Wallick) Wilkins, both natives of North Carolina. They came to Hamilton County about 1840, where they still reside. Eleven children were the results of our subjects marriage: John and Mary (twins), Lonvina (Mrs. Varnell), Dimmon A., Hattie, Willie N., Charles S. and four who died in infancy. Mr. Dorsey is a Democrat in politics, and cast his first presidential vote for Franklin Pierce in 1848. He began life a comparatively poor man, and what he is now worth was gotten by his own industry and good management. He owns a good farm of 160 acres on the Western & Atlantic Railroad. It is well improved and located eight miles east of Chattanooga. He is a Master Mason, joining the order in 1856, and he and wife are members of the Missionary Baptist Church.

Goodspeed's "History of East Tennessee" 1887