The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Dexter clan stuck together
PUBLISHED: September 25, 2008
It was Feb. 7, 1799, and William Dexter was getting married in Markfield, England, his hometown. His bride, Sarah Simpson, was also in her old stomping ground, which was Leicester County, England.
Advertisement
What does that have to do with Milan? Plenty. This young couple had seven children, and four of them went to Milan, where a street was named after them.
Because there were so many children, this will be easier with a "cheat sheet." Here they are, with date of birth or date of christening, and the four who went to Milan will be marked with an asterisk.
•Ann, 1803
•Mary, 1807
•Thomas, 1811*
•Joseph, 1813*
•William, 1814*
•Sara, 1815
•John, 1820*
It may seem odd, but William and Sarah hopped on a ship to cross the Atlantic with all four of their sons on board, and leaving their three daughters behind in England. Actually, I don't know how many of those daughters were still living when the Dexter clan stepped on board their vessel across the sea.
The Dexters left behind a castle with a moat, drawbridge and underground tunnels. They had used the castle simply as a farmhouse. Apparently, the opportunities for farming were not that great in England, even with a castle, so they took a chance in 1830, and boarded a trans-Atlantic ship.
The Dexters weren't crossing the ocean to live in the great unknown. An old family friend, William Wardle, was already living on 20 acres in a town called Clyde in Wayne County, N.Y. Soon the Dexter newcomers were making friends in Clyde with some other recent arrivals from the old country, including the Fuller family who came to the United States from England.
The people living in the area around Clyde were friendly and welcoming to the Dexters upon their arrival in 1830. Most of the Dexters lived with Wardle, although the oldest boy, Thomas, found a farming job nearby featuring a different place to live.
Sarah Dexter died in 1831. I don't know what caused her death, but she left her husband and four sons to fend for themselves. Soon William's health failed. Living with Wardle was not a good situation because Wardle was a bachelor and couldn't handle the nursing responsibilities. So William, at the age of 56, had to relocate to the Fuller home.
The year 1832 was a good year in the Dexter family because the oldest of the four boys, Thomas, was married to Melissa Fuller. But it was also a sad time for them because the four Dexter sons had to bury their father, right after losing their mother.
Thomas was already 21 years old, and old enough to marry, but the next oldest brother, Joseph, was 19. William was 18, and John was only 12.
The neighbors pitched in to help raise the younger Dexter sons. Joseph went to live with Ananias Wells, the local township supervisor. William went to live with a man by the name of Annin. John moved in with Deacon Blakeman. Thomas did some work at the Fuller home working for his in-laws, threshing on the farm with a flail, chopping wood, and selling the wood to the canal boats.
The canal boats must have seemed attractive to everyone. In 1932, the Fuller family sold the farm, and a whole group of people from the Clyde area moved to Milan, all at once. Joseph Dexter stayed behind for some reason. This explains why the late Warren Hale wrote in his history column that three Dexter brothers came to Milan. In fact, four brothers came here, but Joseph was a late bloomer.
Thomas bought 30 acres of Milan-area farmland. His in-law, William Fuller, bought 30 acres east of it. Other members of the Fuller family bought land close by. They traveled with horses and wagons, or on foot, as a group from Detroit through Ypsilanti. In October 1833, they arrived in the Milan area and stayed with a family called Dillon.
The entire Dexter and Fuller crew involved 24 people, 19 of them males. About four or five families were represented, but they formed "one big family" as they say. They were all ages. The women cooked for everyone at once. Groceries were inexpensive, but it was a lot of work to fix that much food on a daily basis. Some of the men hunted deer, with great success.
In 1842, William Dexter broke down and married one of the Fuller daughters. He picked Annis Fuller for his wife. I am not sure if his fourth brother, Joseph, had showed up in Milan to see the wedding, but I know Joseph was in town by 1848 because he was married that year in Washtenaw County. He was 35 and his new wife, Melvina Alicenda Brooks, was 16 years old, a native of New York.
By 1850, Joseph Dexter was officially in Milan because the census taker met him at the door in York Township. He was living next door to the other three brothers.
Joseph's son, Josiah Fuller Dexter, was born in Milan in 1852. He worked as a blacksmith in Milan and raised a family with his wife, Rhonda Throop Dexter, shown in today's photo. Josiah was known as "Si" to his friends.
How did I learn so much about the Dexter family? Connie Dotson donated a vintage photo of her relative, a member of the Dexter family. This is appreciated by the Milan Area Historical Society. I soon learned that Ron Morey is a Dexter enthusiast, and has a large treasure trove of information on the subject, including the mysterious Joseph.
Then I picked up e-mails from other Dexter family members, including Tim Dunlap of Columbus, Ga., and his cousin, Marilyn Dexter, of Springfield, Mo. In addition to names, dates, and places, I have received all kinds of photos. One of the "crew" that came to Milan with the Dexters wrote an interesting memoir about life in Milan at that time, which was preserved over the years, and I now have a copy.
Martha Churchill is a member of the Milan Area Historical Society. She can be reached at 439-4055 or MilanHistory@yahoo.com.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
Staff Blog, "Inside The Newsroom"
TOP JOBS
