Andrew Dexter Jr., Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Andrew Dexter Jr.

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Date of Birth: 28-Mar-1779

Place of Birth: Brookfield, Massachusetts, United States

Date of Death: 02-Nov-1837

Profession: lawyer, businessperson

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Aries


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About Andrew Dexter Jr.

  • Andrew Dexter Jr.
  • (March 28, 1779 – November 2, 1837), was an American lawyer, financier, and speculator.
  • He is known for committing one of the first major financial frauds in the United States, and for being the founder of Montgomery, Alabama. A graduate of Brown University, Dexter was admitted to the bar and briefly practiced law before turning to business and financial speculation.
  • In the mid-1800s, he conceived the idea of a large office building with public meeting space, and began construction of the Exchange Coffee House in Boston.
  • Dexter resorted to printing massive quantities of worthless bank notes to pay for construction and operation of the building; when his fraud was uncovered, he lost control of the venture and fled the country to escape his creditors.
  • He later returned from Canada, and lived in New York while he worked to repair his finances and settle his debts. Following the death of his father, Dexter inherited a claim in the Yazoo lands.
  • At the 1817 Yazoo lands auction, he purchased several hundred acres along the Alabama River, and settled a town he called New Philadelphia.
  • When Alabama joined the Union in 1819, Dexter's town was renamed Montgomery.
  • He lived there and continued trying to achieve success in business and land speculation, but his circumstances continued to rise and fall with turns in the economy.
  • He died in Mobile, Alabama in 1837, and was again near poverty as the result of setbacks caused by the Panic of 1837.
  • Dexter was buried in Mobile's Oakwood Cemetery, but the exact location of his gravesite is not known.

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