Providence 375 Essay Series

Ebenezer Knight Dexter
A Pioneer in Caring for the City's Poor

by Paul R, Campbell,
Paul R. Campbell is Archivist for the City of Providence and has authored or co-authored eight books on Rhode Island history.

What does an elderly high rise on Weybosset Hill, a field in West Broadway, a street in the West End and a massive stone wall on the East Side have in common? I'll give you a hint. The poor and those in need in Providence have, for almost two centuries, benefited from his generosity. The answer: Ebenezer Knight Dexter.

A successful, if eccentric, nineteenth century businessman, Dexter was an ancestor of one of Providence's original settlers, Gregory Dexter, who befriended Roger Williams while he was in England in 1643 and returned with him to Providence a year later. Born in Providence in 1773, Ebenezer Knight Dexter was a member of Providence's aristocracy counting among his close circle of friends and relatives the powerful Browns, the Fenners, and David Howell (U.S. Senator and judge). So Dexter had great connections. He also had good timing. He started in the mercantile trade just as Providence began a major maritime expansion following the American Revolution. He also bought and sold real estate. His land holdings eventually included the 40-acre Neck Farm on the town's East Side and a 10-acre tract in the West End.

In 1810 Dexter was appointed U.S. Marshal for Rhode Island handling the sale of ships seized in Providence harbor. Despite his apparent success, the dark shadow of personal tragedy followed him throughout his life. His only child died in 1801 just five months after her birth, and the death of Dexter's wife in 1819 only added to his melancholy. Dexter never recovered from his wife's passing and on August 10, 1824 he succumbed after a long illness at the age of 53.

Although having amassed considerable personal wealth, Dexter harbored a deep compassion for the poor. During his lifetime he served on the town committee for poor relief, but the extent of his beneficence to the less fortunate became evident following his passing. Expressing his "ardent desire to ameliorate the condition of the poor and contribute to their comfort and relief," Dexter's will bequeathed his entire 40-acre Neck Farm on the city's East Side to the town provided that an almshouse be constructed there within five years. In 1828, the Dexter Asylum for the poor opened its doors across the street from the Friends (now Moses Brown) School.

Undoubtedly, the most unusual feature of the asylum was the massive stone wall that encircled the property. Much of the wall which runs along Hope, Angel, Lloyd and Arlington streets still exists today. Dexter, for some reason lost to history, provided very specific instructions in his will for the wall's construction, requiring the town to build "a good, permanent stone wall of at least 3 feet thick at the bottom and at least 8 feet high and to be placed on a foundation of small stones as thick as the bottom wall and sunk 2 feet into the ground." Was it built to keep people in, or the public out? Regardless of the reason, the wall was a marvel of local construction. When finished, the wall spanned more than a mile in length--6,220 feet to be exact. Over 1 million cubic feet of stone was delivered to the site by oxcart and it took 8 years to finish.

The Dexter Asylum operated as the city's poor farm from 1828 until its closure in the 1950s. The unemployed poor, among them "malnourished immigrants" (mostly Irish) were usually "indentured" for a period of 6 months and required to work in the vegetable farm or at the asylum's dairy. There were strict rules of daily conduct. Not showing up promptly at the "ringing of the bell" for lunch or for being "quarrelsome or otherwise unruly" resulted in being "removed from the table and being deprived of the next meal." Begging landed you 3 days in the asylum's jail and approximately one-quarter of the population were incarcerated in "maniac cells." Visitors were allowed once every three weeks.

For a time the asylum was self-sufficient, and for several years it even produced a profit, but rapid expansion of Providence's population along with changing views regarding poor relief doomed the asylum's future. Efforts to close Dexter Asylum started in the 1920s, especially with the growing affluence of the neighborhoods just outside the asylum walls. In 1926 an effort to break the provisions of Dexter's will by converting the property into house lots lost a judicial challenge in the State Supreme Court. Nevertheless, the asylum's days were clearly numbered. The inmate population, once numbering nearly 200, began a steady decline. Vegetable farming was abandoned in the late 1920s and the dairy farm was abandoned about twenty years later.

In 1956, Brown University President Barnaby Keeney proposed that the university acquire the property for an athletic complex. After lengthy deliberations in Superior Court, the court directed the asylum closed and sold and the proceeds directed towards poor relief. Providence Mayor Walter Reynolds considered the option of turning the city-owned site into 150 house lots but decided to consent to an auction directed by the court. Not surprisingly, Brown won with a bid of $1,000,777. Keeney, when he heard that Brown was the highest bidder, ordered the bell on University Hall to be rung--then he went fishing. When Brown took possession of the property it was said that there were 8 residents still living within the asylum's main building. After demolition, work began on Aldrich Field (1959) and Meehan Auditorium (1961). The Smith Center (1982) was followed by the construction of a new athletic and sports center. Proceeds from the sale of the property now make up the funding base for the Dexter Donation which provides annual grants to assist the city's poor or those who serve their needs.

Ebenezer Knight Dexter's 10-acre tract on Providence's West Side was first used as a military training field. In 1907 the Cranston Street Armory was constructed on a portion of the site. In 1894 a group of local dignitaries gathered at the training field (now a park) to dedicate an 8 foot high bronze statue of Ebenezer Knight Dexter. The lofty speeches given that day are long forgotten, but an inscription along the granite base of Dexter's statue eloquently sums up his legacy--"leaving nothing but a headstone to mark our passage through life does not make the world better. They live best who serve humanity most." The Dexter Asylum submitted its final report to the city in 1957. Two years later, the Providence Housing Authority--in many ways heirs to the asylum's basic mission--named their first elderly high-rise on Broad Street in his honor paying tribute to a man who displayed heroic compassion for his less fortunate neighbors.