Background
Dorsey, Stephen W. was born on February 28, 1842 in Benson, Vermont, United States. Son of John W. and Marie H. Dorsey.
politician United States senator
Dorsey, Stephen W. was born on February 28, 1842 in Benson, Vermont, United States. Son of John W. and Marie H. Dorsey.
He attended the public schools.
During the Civil War served in the Union Army. After the war he returned to Ohio and settled in Sandusky where he was employed by the Sandusky Tool Company and subsequently became its president He was elected president of the Arkansas Railway Company and moved to Arkansas and settled in Helena.
He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1873, to March 3, 1879.
He did not run for reelection. He was a chairman of the Committee on District of Columbia (Forty-fifth Congress).
In 1880, when the Republicans nominated James G. Garfield for president and Chester A. Arthur for vice president, Dorsey became the Secretary of the Republican National Committee. Though he was eventually found not guilty, the cost of his defense and the damage to his reputation all but destroyed Dorsey’s political and financial ambitions.
After Dorsey, no other Republican served as senior Senator from Arkansas until Tim Hutchinson in 1999, upon David Pryor"s retirement.
Number other Republican served in the class 3 Senate seat from Arkansas that Dorsey held until John Boozman in 2011. He engaged in cattle raising and mining in New Mexico and Colorado and subsequently moved to Los Angeles, California, where he resided until his death on March 20, 1916. He was interred in Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.
Clayton, the seat of Union County, New Mexico is named for a son of Senator Dorsey.
Dorsey was defended by noted criminal law attorney Robert G. Ingersoll.
In 1876, he was made a member of the Republican National Committee.
Married Laura, daughter