The history of the Dorset family began soon after the founding of La Crosse and continued until 1965, with the death of Helen Dorset.
The Hammer side of the family were the first to arrive. Joseph and Nancy Hammer and their children settled in La Crosse in 1856. In 1858 Nannie Hammer married Wilson Colwell. Nannie Colwell, their only daughter, was born in 1859. Wilson Colwell had settled in La Crosse in 1857. He was captain of the La Crosse Light Guards when the Civil War broke out, and immediately marched them off to Camp Randall, where they became Company B, 2nd Wisconsin of the Iron Brigade. Wilson Colwell was killed in the Battle of South Mountain in 1862.
The Reverend C. P. Dorset arrived in La Crosse in 1863; he was the new pastor of the Episcopal congregation. He succeeded in building the first Christ Church in 1864. In 1867 Rev. Dorset married Nannie Colwell in La Crosse; they then moved to Chicago where their first child, Marian, was born in 1869. Reverend Dorset served several churches in Chicago in the next five years. Helen Dorset was born in Willamette, Illinois in 1873. Bernard Dorset was born in 1877, in Nashville, Tennessee while his father was rector of the Episcopal Church in Pulaski. He then served as rector of churches in Rome, Georgia and Anniston, Alabama.
The Dorset family returned to La Crosse in 1879, never to leave again. However there were many visits to family and friends, trips abroad, and attendance at schools and universities that generated much correspondence between family members. In 1891, Rev. Dorset accepted a teaching post at St. John’s Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin. In 1896 he went to Texas where he taught a short time before opening his own school, the Texas Military Institute. He was president of the school until 1902. Besides teaching he did quite a bit of missionary work in Texas, before returning to Wisconsin in 1902, where he continued this work. He died in 1904.
Nannie Dorset remained in La Crosse for the most part, receiving letters from her children in their various endeavors. Nannie Colwell made two trips to Europe in 1878 and 1885, and a trip to China and Europe in 1900. She also made many visits to Colwell relatives in Pennsylvania and enjoyed traveling to Washington, D.C., whenever possible. She died in 1952.
Marian Dorset studied Physical Culture in Cleveland and Chicago before returning to teach that subject in La Crosse. She died in 1951.
Helen went to college at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. She worked for the Red Cross during WW I and spent a summer in Europe in 1926. Her death was in 1965.
Bernard attended the University of Wisconsin as an undergraduate and the University of Pennsylvania as a medical student. He lived in Denver for many years before returning to La Crosse, where he died in 1944.
