Gregory Dexter

Gregory Dexter (1610 – c. 1700) was a renowned printer of important and controversial books and pamphlets in London. In New England, he assumed various roles including serving as a consultant to printers, a Baptist minister, an owner of a limestone quarry, and a political figure elected as president of the combined towns of Providence and Warwick in colonial Rhode Island. He is best known as the printer of Roger Williams's book A Key into the Language of America in 1643, the first English translation of a Native American language.

Gregory Dexter was born in the year 1610 in Old, Northamptonshire, England.

In 1632, Gregory Dexter joined Elizabeth Allde in London after beginning his eight-year printing apprenticeship with her. It was around this time that Allde published Histriomastix, a play by Puritan William Prynne. The play resulted in Prynne's imprisonment in the Tower of London. While still an apprentice in 1637, Dexter was arrested for printing a pamphlet titled "Instructions to Church Wardens" by Prynne. In 1639, Dexter became a master printer and was granted admission to the Worshipful Company of Stationers at Stationers Hall. He partnered with Richard Oulton, the son of Elizabeth Allde, who had taken over his mother's business.

Gregory Dexter was incarcerated by the House of Commons in 1641 at Gatehouse Prison, where he was ordered to stay "during the Pleasure of this House" for releasing a pamphlet called "The Protestation Protested," which was authored by Puritan Henry Burton. In October 1642, while Gregory was serving in the military, his wife, Abigail Dexter (née Fullerton), was apprehended by the House of Lords for printing prohibited literature and for refusing to disclose the names of the authors. She was jailed at King’s Bench until "the Pleasure of this House be further known."

Following their imprisonments, the Dexters continued to publish works by notable authors such as John Milton, John Goodwin, Lawrence Sanders, and Andrew Perne. In 1643, they published A Key into the Language of America, a translation of the Narragansett dialect of Algonquin by Roger Williams. In 1644, they anonymously (but identified by the Dexters' damaged type) released several works by Roger Williams on religious liberty and soul freedom including Mr. Cotton's Letter Lately Printed and Queries of Highest Consideration. Williams's book The Bloudy Tenent is sometimes attributed to the Dexters, but a typeface analysis points to the printers Thomas Paine and Matthew Simmons.

In 1644, the Stationers' Company conducted a raid on the Dexters' shop, which resulted in the confiscation of their printing equipment and presses, leaving them unable to continue their printing business in London.

The Dexters moved to New England, where they joined Roger Williams at Providence. There, Gregory Dexter was granted a slender five-acre plot of land that extended from present-day North Main Street to Hope Street, along Olney Street.

Following his relocation to Providence, Gregory Dexter provided consultation services to some of the earliest printers who emerged in the American colonies. He aided Matthew Daye in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and subsequently assisted Samuel Green after he acquired Daye's printing shop in 1648. Dexter made annual visits to support Green and requested only a copy of the almanac in exchange for his services.