Jasper William Dollison (1849–1927)

Jasper William (J. W.) Dollison was an Agricultural Wheel leader, newspaperman, and politician who represented Clay County in the Arkansas General Assembly in 1889. He later ran for the U.S. Congress in 1892 as a People’s Party candidate and was appointed to a term as mayor of Rector (Clay County) in 1908.

J. W. Dollison was born on December 20, 1849, in Cambridge City, Ohio, to William E. Dollison, who was a farmer and stock raiser, and Susanna Laird Dollison. Dollison was raised in Clay County, Indiana. He married Anna Williams there in 1872; the couple would have five children. Dollison attended Greencastle University (which later became DePauw University), then worked as a school teacher in Indiana, Missouri, and Iowa.

In 1881, Dollison moved to Newport (Jackson County), where he was a lumber mill superintendent. In 1885, he began his career in the newspaper business, first briefly serving as editor of the Paragould Press and then purchasing the Rector Advocate, which Dollison then renamed the Clay County Advocate. Later, the enterprise would move to Greenway (Clay County), where Dollison would unsuccessfully campaign to make the town the new Eastern District county seat. Dollison also briefly leased the Cross County Chronicle that same year. He became influential in political and civic matters, being elected to two terms on the Arkansas Democratic Executive Committee and serving as the president of the Cotton Belt Lumber Association.

As editor of the Advocate and the Chronicle, Dollison expressed concern with railroad lobbyist influence within the Democratic Party. He became a fervent adherent of the Knights of Labor, to the extent that the Advocate came to be considered an official organ of the organization in 1887. Dollison’s connections with labor and the Agricultural Wheel became a point of contention in the Democratic Party. In early 1888, Dollison resigned from the Democratic Executive Committee and followed his friend and congressional candidate Lewis P. Featherstone into the Union Labor Party. Dollison was initially slated to be the Wheel coalition’s candidate for state land commissioner but opted to run for state representative. Dollison and Union Labor sheriff candidate B. B. Biffle were elected despite Democrats otherwise winning Clay County. Dollison divested himself of the Advocate before being sworn into the legislature.

As a member of the 1889 Arkansas General Assembly, Rep. Dollison decried the large-scale fraud in the previous election and introduced a petition on behalf of the previous Union Labor candidate for governor, Charles M. Norwood, requesting an investigation of the irregularities. Dollison served on the Internal Improvements Committee and introduced a bill to create a levee district in Clay and Greene counties. Dollison declined to run for reelection, instead serving as secretary of the Wheel and as campaign manager for Congressman Featherstone’s reelection. Dollison stirred controversy in 1890 by accepting an appointment from Powell Clayton as a deputy U.S. revenue collector. Dollison’s role on Featherstone’s campaign and his continued involvement with the Agricultural Wheel and later the People’s Party generated charges that those third-party movements were pawns of Clayton’s Republican Party of Arkansas. Following Featherstone’s defeat, the pair helped establish the People’s Party in Arkansas and served on the party’s platform committee. In 1892, Dollison would run unsuccessfully for Congress on the People’s Party ticket. He would then serve on the People’s Party National Executive Committee.

Following his defeat, Dollison focused on civic engagement. He was an active member of the Arkansas Board of Trade and the Commercial League. In 1893, Dollison served as the business agent for the Arkansas Alliance. He became heavily involved in the Knights of Pythias and served a term as the fraternal order’s grand chancellor in 1905. Dollison continued editing and publishing populist newspapers such as the Alliance Voice, the Clay County Progress, the Paragould Democrat, the Paragould Press, and the Walnut Ridge Telephone. As a civic leader in Clay County, Dollison served as the president of the Rector Co-Operative Telephone Company, was chairman of the Eastern Clay County School Directors, and was appointed mayor of Rector in 1908.

Late in his life, Dollison delivered sermons for Church of Christ congregations in Rector, Greenway, and Jonesboro (Craighead County), as well as in Leachville and Campbell, Missouri. Dollison was a regular contributor to the Church of Christ publication The Living Message, which credited him as being a major inspiration for many influential Arkansas Church of Christ preachers.

Dollison died on April 12, 1927, at the home of his daughter in Stanford (Greene County) following an eighteen-month illness. His coffin was carried home on the Cotton Belt rail line to Rector, where he is buried.

For additional information:
“Arkansas Legislature.” Arkansas Gazette, February 3, 1889, p. 3.

“Arkansas Politics.” Arkansas Gazette, July 3, 1892, p. 3.

“Hard Work.” Arkansas Gazette, May 2, 1888, p. 3.

“Honor to Whom Honor Is Due.” The Living Message (Morrilton, Arkansas), June 18, 1925, p. 1.

“Independence. What is it? Where is it? Why is it?” Forrest City Times, April 14, 1888, p. 1.

“J. W. Dollison Chancellor.” Arkansas Democrat, May 19, 1905, p. 2.

“Rev. J. W. Dollison, Aged 75, Goes to His Reward.” Paragould Daily Press, April 12, 1927, p. 1.

“Third Partyites.” Arkansas Gazette, June 22, 1892, p. 1.

Ryan Carter
Clay County Genealogical and Historical Society