Dorman Stewart Smithson was born on April 22, 1892, in Alabama. Smithson was an employee of the Hardaway Contracting Company in Iredell County, North Carolina, when he was ordered to report for military service in September 1917, in support of America's mobilization for World War I. He subsequently argued for exemption from the draft, which status he formally received on October 17, 1917. He died in Rowan County, North Carolina, on May 20, 1927.