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William Allen Dorland

The gentleman of whom the biographer writes in this connection is a native and life-long resident of Fayette county and easily ranks among the enterprising business men and honored citizens of West Union, which city for a number of years has been his home. Daniel W. Dorland, the subject's father, was born at Ashland, Ohio, in 1828. He married, in his native state, Rachel D. Shaffer, whose birth occurred in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, in 1831, and in the fall of 1851 this couple moved by team from Ashland, Ohio, to Fayette county, Iowa, there being but one house in West Union at the time of their arrival. They were among the earliest settlers of the county and spent the remainder of their days within its borders, the father dying May 15, 1904, after seeing the country developed from a wilderness into one of the finest and most progressive sections of the Hawkeye state.

D. W. Dorland and wife reared a family of ten children, whose names are as follows: George W., of Salt Lake, Utah; Anna, now Mrs. Robert Hansen, of Spencer, Iowa; William, subject of this review; Clara Alice, who married Ernest Barr, and died at Oelwein, this county; H. Lincoln, who died in 1898; James Franklin, of Basin, Montana; Edward Allison, whose home is in Minnesota; Elizabeth May, a teacher in the public schools of Great Falls, Montana; Eva, wife of Ed Cole, of Clay county, Iowa, and Della, who married Rufus Turner, and lives at Spencer, in the latter state.

William Allen Dorland was born in West Union, Iowa, December 25, 1856, and received his education in the public schools and Ainsworth Academy. On attaining his majority he engaged in teaching, but after two years in the school room discontinued the profession and turned his attention to agricultural pursuit, which he followed with varying success in his native county for a period of nineteen years. In 1897 he left the farm to engage in the real estate business and after conducting an office alone during the seven years ensuing, formed, in 1905, a partnership with H. T. Weed, the firm thus constituted lasting until 1909, building up a large and lucrative business the meanwhile in real estate, loans and insurance. The above partnership being dissolved in 1909, Mr. Dorland has been alone since that year and is now one of the leading real estate dealers in Fayette county, his patronage in the loan and insurance business also being extensive, far-reaching and steadily growing in volume and importance.

Mr. Dorland is an enterprising, wide-awake man of progressive ideas and stand in the front rank of those whose business is similar to his own. He keeps in touch with the times on all matters of public interest and wields a strong influence for his party. AT one time he was an aspirant for the office of sheriff, but failed to secure the nomination although strongly supported in the convention. He is a Master Mason, belonging to West Union Lodge No. 69, and is also identified with the Modern Woodmen of America, being a charter member of Clermont Camp No. 3015.

On December 5, 1878, Mr. Dorland and Eva L. Skinner were united in the holy bonds of wedlock, the wife being a native of McHenry county, Illinois, and a daughter of Harvey and Anna Skinner. Mr. and Mrs. Dorland are the parents of children as follows: Blanche, for a number of years a popular teacher in the public schools, is now the wife of Luther Herrick, of Anaconda, Montana; Max Allen, born in 1880, was graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at St. Louis, Missouri, since which time he has been practicing his profession at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; Doris Atlanta, the youngest of the family, whose birth occurred in 1891, was graduated from the West Union high school in 1909 and is a young lady of intelligence and culture, with a bright and promising future.