Ebenezer Knight Dexter (April 26, 1773 – August 10, 1824) was an American merchant, real estate developer, and United States Marshal for Rhode Island who became one of the most significant benefactors of Providence. His bequest to the town, known as the Dexter Donation, funded the Dexter Asylum for the poor and created the Dexter Training Ground, and it is still administered by the city.
Early life, family, and career Dexter was born in Providence, the seventh child of Knight Dexter and the sixth by his second wife, Phebe (Harris) Dexter, daughter of Joseph Harris. His father, a colonel of the Providence County militia, kept a popular and profitable public house on North Main Street north of Constitution Hill. Dexter was a sixth-generation descendant of Gregory Dexter (1610–1700), the London printer who published Roger Williams's A Key into the Language of America.
Dexter attended local schools and later went into business for himself as a merchant and real estate developer. An 1806 advertisement offered "a few pipes of real Holland Gin" and groceries at retail from his store, and he later served on bank boards. The historian William R. Staples wrote that Dexter was able to "retire with a fortune when most men begin to think of accumulating one."
Dexter was appointed U.S. marshal for Rhode Island in 1810 and held the post for more than fourteen years, until his death. As marshal he oversaw the 1810 and 1820 censuses in Rhode Island. He enforced federal bans on trade with Britain and France and presided over the sale of ships seized in Providence harbor. During the War of 1812 he compiled a census of British subjects living in Rhode Island and administered the Alien Enemies Act in the state. Residences
Two of Dexter's homes survive. About 1800 a country house was built for him on his farm on Providence Neck, as the East Side was then known. He had sold the house by 1811 but kept most of the land, which he called his "Neck Farm" and later left to the town as the site of the Dexter Asylum. The house, which later owners named "Bellevue" and then "Rose Farm," still stands at 300 Angell Street.
His town residence, at 187 Benefit Street, was built about 1817–1820. It has been owned by the Rhode Island School of Design since 1964.
Marriage, death and burial On January 1, 1801, Dexter married Waitstill Howell (1776–1819), the eldest daughter of David Howell and Mary (Brown) Howell. Their only child, Mary, lived only a few months. Waitstill's death in 1819 left Dexter without direct heirs.
Dexter died on August 10, 1824, after a long illness. His funeral procession set out the next day from his house on Benefit Street, and he was buried in the North Burial Ground.
In 1867 the Providence City Council appropriated $3,000 for a cemetery monument. A committee bought a lot 40 feet square in the North Burial Ground and erected a 25-foot granite monument to Dexter and his ancestors, inscribed with their names. The remains of Dexter, his wife and his daughter were moved to the new lot, along with those of his father's family and his grandparents, which were brought from the West Burying Ground.
Dexter Donation
Dexter signed his will about two and a half months before his death. In it he said he was moved by "a strong attachment to my native town and an ardent desire to ameliorate the condition of the poor and contribute to their comfort and relief." The will gave the town: a large tract in the West End for use as a militia training field; his forty-acre "Neck Farm" on the East Side, for the use of the poor; the rest of his estate, real and personal, as a permanent fund for the poor.
On November 22, 1824, the Providence town meeting accepted the bequest. It directed that the property be known forever as the "Dexter Donation" and be kept separate from the town's other funds. In all, the town received more than 52 acres of land. The bequest was valued at about $60,000 when it was made. The Commissioners of the Dexter Donation, chaired by the Mayor of Providence, still manage the land and funds.
The Neck Farm became the site of the Dexter Asylum, a poorhouse designed by John Holden Greene, which took its first residents in 1828 and was completed in 1830. In 1957 a court allowed the city to sell the property despite the will's terms. Brown University bought it for $1,000,777, and the proceeds went into a trust fund for poor relief. The asylum was demolished in 1958 and the site became Brown's athletic complex.
The West End parcel became the Dexter Training Ground, where the Cranston Street Armory was built in 1907–1908.
Statue
On June 13, 1893, Providence businessman Henry C. Clark offered the city a bronze statue of Dexter, asking in return that the city provide a pedestal. The city solicitor advised that a statue would not breach the will's restrictions on the field's use, and the City Council accepted the gift. The statue was cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company and modeled by sculptor Hippolyte L. Hubert. The eight-foot bronze shows Dexter in Revolutionary-era dress, holding a walking stick and a partly opened scroll. It stands on a nine-foot granite pedestal.
The statue was dedicated on June 29, 1894. Former Chief Justice Thomas Durfee gave the dedication speech and some six hundred schoolchildren sang at the ceremony.
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