Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/309

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DORSEY


DOSKER


chapel on her plantation in which she taught a class of negroes ever\' Svinday. On the outbreak of the civil war she entered a Confederate hospital as nurse, and gave freely of her fortune to aid the southern cause. Her husband died in 1875 and she removed to her estate at Beauvoir, La., where she devoted her time to literary work. Upon the removal of JetTerson Davis and his famil}* to " The Pavillion," a portion of her estate, she gave valu- able assistance to Mr. Davis in the preparation of the ••Rise and Fall of the Confederate Govern- ment in America." She beqiieathed her entire estate at Beauvoir to Mr. Davis, making his youngest daughter the residuary legatee. -Her published works include : Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen, ex-Governor of Louisiana (1866) ; Lucia Dare (1867); Agnes Graham (1869) ; ^4/o?/e; or, a Southern Villeycjiatura (1871); and Panola ; a Tale of Louisiana (1877). She died in New Orleans, La., July 4, 1879.

DORSEY, Stephen Wallace, senator, was born at Benson, Vt., Feb. 28, 1843. He received limited school training and at an early age re- moved to Oberlin. Ohio, where he worked as a machinist and was subsequently employed by the Sandusky tool company. He was one of the first to join the U.S. volunteer army and served at Shiloh, Perry ville. Stone's River, Chattanooga and Missionary Ridge. He was transferred to the army of the Potomac in 1864 and he took part in battles of the Wilderness and Cold Harbor. On being mustered out at the close of the war he returned to the Sandusky tool company, of which he was subsequently elected president, and also president of the Arkansas Central railroad. He removed to Arkansas, wliere he became actively interested in i^olitics. He was chairman of the Republican state committee and Avas offered the nomination as representative to congress from the 1st district, which he declined. He was elected almost unanimously to the United States senate by a combination of the Republicans and Demo- crats, and served 1873-79. He became interested in railroad and stock raising ventures in New Mexico and acquired great wealth. In 1880 he was made secretary of the Republican national committee and directed the campaign of Garfield and Arthur. He was given a princely banquet in New York city by his political friends in Feb- ruary, 1881. Soon afterward he was accused of complicity in the Star route scandal, made public that year, and the grand jury of Washington, D.C. , indicted him, but his sudden disappearance made his arrest impossible for several months. When he finallj^ appeared in court and was put upon trial the jury disagreed and on a second trial gave a verdict of " not guilty as indicted." He came out of the contest broken in fortune and in health.


DORSHEIMER, William, representative, was born in Lyons, N.Y., Feb. 5, 1832; son of Philip Dorsheimer, a native of Germany. He was pre- pared for college at Phillips Ardover academy, and entered Harvard with the class of 1853, but was obliged to leave at the close of his sophomore year on account of ill health. He was admitted to the bar in 1854 and practised in Buffalo, N.Y. At the outbreak of the civil war he was appointed major on the statf of Gen. John C. Fremont and served during the three months' Missouri cam- paign. He was United States district attornej^ for the northern district of New York, 1867-71 ; lieutenant-governor of New York, 1874-79 ; com- missioner of the New Y'ork state survey, 1875 ; a lawj-er in New York city, 1879-85; one of the commissioners for laying out the Niagara Falls park reservation, 1883, and president of the board ; a Democratic representative from New York in the 4Sth congress, 1883-85, and U.S. district at- torney for the southern district of New York, 1885-86. He resigned in March, 1886, and became active editor of the New York Star, which he had purchased in 1885, and the first issue of the paper as a daily was published Sept. 15, 1885. He was one of the founders of the Buffalo fine arts acad- emy and of the Buffalo historical society. Harvard conferred upon him the honorary degree of A.M. in 1859. He published a series of ai-ticles en- titled Fremont's Hundred Days in Missouri in the Atlantic Monthly in 1861 ; and wrote a biography of Grover Cleveland, published for the campaign of 1884. He died in Savannah, Ga., March 26, 1888.

DOSKER, Henry Elias, educator, was born in Buuschoten, Netherlands, Feb. 5. 1855; son of the Rev. Nicholas H. and Wilhelmina Gesina (De Ronde) Dosker ; and grandson of Hermanus N. and Gertrude (Staude) Dosker, and of Barent and Johanna (Gudde) De Ronde. He was educated in the schools of Holland, and was graduated from the Gymnasium at Zwolle in 1873, when his father accepted a call to Grand Rapids, Mich. He was graduated from Hope college in 1876 and from McCormick theological seminai-j', Chicago, in 1879. He was pastor at Ebenezer, Mich., 1879-82; at Grand Haven, Mich., 1882-86; lecturer in his- torical theology in the Western theological semi- nary- of the Reformed Church in America, 1884-88, and pa.stor of the Third church, Holland, Mich., 1889-94. In 1894 he was elected professor of his- torical theology in the Western theological semi- nary. In 1894 he became one of three editors of De Hope, a Dutch paper edited at Holland, Mich., and in 1895 became associate editor of the lieformed, and Presbyterian Beriew. Rutgers college conferred upon him the degree of D.D. in 1894. Besides numerous conti'ibutions to periodical literature he is the author of a Biography of Dr. A. C. van llaalte, the leader of the Pilgrim Fathers of the West