What remains of Andrew Dexter Jr. in the historical record? The answer is not much. Escaping to Canada, Dexter left the public eye and public record. Save for a single series of editorials in a newspaper, there is little to mark his reputation with the public. If he kept any personal writings or held onto his correspondence, none of it survives today. Nearly all the records that mark his existence are those of his failing business transactions.

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Historians profiling Dexter in his later period have had to take educated guesses from the correspondence of those around him, such as his children and family back in New England. We will never know Dexter’s personal thoughts on his life on the frontier or his struggle to regain his fortune and station.

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What legacy does remain? In the Boston area, his titanic building has been demolished and his infamy faded. In Montgomery, all but his name is practically unknown. Dexter Avenue, changed from its original Market Street in 1884, is as far as many know the name. Some are aware of his aspirations for the town and his gift of Goat Hill, the site of the state capitol, to the city, but that is as much as most know.

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His life after Boston was either not recorded or not preserved. In either case, the result is a life of obscurity. As a warning against rampant speculation, a tragedy of reach exceeding grasp, or an account of a failed American dream, Dexter’s story deserves at least to be known and remembered.