Our Arklahoma Heritage: From typhoid and tycoons to torture and tobacco- William Abraham “Bart” Dotson

Long before the Ozark hills were settled by highways and cell towers, the winding valley near Huntsville was ruled by timber, tradition, and one formidable patriarch: William Abraham “Bart” Dotson.

Born in 1780--before the United States had even elected its second president--Bart’s life would touch every chapter of a young America’s turbulent 19th century, from the frontier era to the fires of the Civil War.

Today, a single stone at Lower Wharton Creek Cemetery marks his resting place alongside his wife, Clarissa. But behind that silent monument lies a riveting story—equal parts triumph, tragedy, and tenacity.

A 3rd great-grandson of Charles Dodson of North Farnham Parish, Virginia, William "Bart" Dotson was born in Grainger County, Tennessee, into a large and politically connected family. His parents, Lambeth Dodson III and Hannah Witt, raised eleven children--including Bart, Noah, Jeff, and John.

He married Elizabeth “Nancy” Raynor around 1797, and together they had 11 children. After

her death in 1839, he married Clarissa Cook, a woman several decades his junior, with whom he fathered five more.

Bart’s early years saw him appear in Rockingham County, North Carolina land and court records, followed by stints in McMinn County, Tennessee, where he served as Justice of the Peace and civic steward.

By 1840, his journey led him westward to Arkansas, lured by the promise of wilderness and the encouragement of sons already settled there.

Once settled in Madison County, Bart flourished. He amassed over 600 acres of land--“for miles up and down the valley,” his descendants recounted--and held influence as a farmer, lender, and respected voice in his community.

He also owned enslaved laborers: Jurd, London, Bethena (“Mamatena”), Sam, Mary, and others whose names live on in family memory. Some accounts recalled joyful evenings of food, dance, and storytelling. Others reflected painful truths, like auctions, runaways, and punishments meted out beneath the Dotson apple tree.

One particularly vivid family tale recounted how Sneed, a house slave, once filled his hat with hot hominy meant for supper and--upon spotting the formidable grandmother approaching--slammed the scalding food-filled hat onto his head in panic.

The resulting burns caused his hair to fall out, much to the amusement of the kitchen quarters for years to come.

Despite romanticized recollections, Dotson descendants acknowledge the brutality of slavery, including recorded whippings and forced labor, even as enslaved women like Bethena remained with the family well after emancipation, revered and remembered as caretakers of multiple generations.

As the country fractured along sectional lines, the Dotsons--staunch Democrats opposed to secession--nonetheless supported the South.

Bart would not live to see the Civil War fully ignite, dying on January 2, 1861. But for his family, the chaos had only just begun.

Within months, family members faced overwhelming grief and betrayal. His sons John and Abe, involved in a heated dispute at a local muster day, fled to Tennessee and joined the Confederate forces. Both were killed at Vicksburg.

James L. Dotson fought at Pea Ridge but fell critically ill and was recovered by his wife and mother before the family was pinned behind Union lines. Sixteen-year-old Bloom Dotson was ambushed and killed while guarding mail between Van Buren and Fort Smith; his body was never recovered, believed to be among the “unknown dead” in the national cemetery.

Bart’s fortune, meant to stabilize his family’s future, became a flashpoint. Entrusted to his friend and executor Davy Gilliland, it was returned to Clarissa when Federal incursions made its safeguarding too risky. What followed was an ordeal rivaling any tale of Southern resistance.

Possessing records that detailed every dollar, soldiers or raiders--accounts vary--descended upon Clarissa. When she refused to disclose the location of the fortune, she and her teenage son Glasco were subjected to gruesome torture.

They were hanged, revived, then hanged again--three times--near a sorghum mill. When that failed, she was dragged by horseback through a creek.

Finally, broken but alive, she led her tormentors to silver hidden in fence corners, a cedar “piggin,” fat gourds, a dinner pot, and gold tucked beneath the hearthstone wrapped in a newspaper.

They took it all.

The Dotsons’ wealth may have vanished, but the family’s strength did not. Clarissa lived another 35 years, dying in 1897. She lies beside her husband in Wharton Creek.

Their grandson, Fontaine Dotson, made three separate trips from Rhea County, Tennessee, intent on settling near his father’s Arkansas home. On his final journey, he returned home ill, suffering from typhoid.

As he stepped from his carriage, shawl draped over his arm, he asked for a bed. Within days, both he and his wife were dead--buried on the same Saturday in a tragic end to a promise unfulfilled.

Back home, the Lower Wharton Creek Cemetery, located just nine miles from Huntsville is the end of a journey that began in Virginia and Tennessee and traveled west with determination, heartache, and hope.

Beneath its weathered stones lies a lineage forged by frontier grit, civic service, and sacrifice across generations of Dotsons.

The cemetery is hallowed not just for their graves, but for the countless family members who followed: children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who tilled the same land, braved the same storms, and carried forth the Dotson name with grit and quiet dignity.