Captain Benjamin Noyes Ellsworth, 1813-1902, appointed keeper of the Ipswich lighthouse by US President Abraham Lincoln in 1861, looks out to the sea in Ipswich, Massachusetts. The photograph was taken by Dexter most likely at the very end of the 19th or early 20th century.

George G. Dexter: 1862-1927

Ipswich commercial photographer known to have published tourist postcards around the turn of the 20th Century (cyanotypes, and halftones engraved The Dexter Studio, Ipswich, Mass.) with some of his images, including a whimsical exaggeration showing an outrageously large clam resting on a luggage cart parked outside the Ipswich Railroad station. In the 1896 edition of the Directory of The Town of Ipswich, he took out an advertisement (p. 52) proclaiming himself “Dexter The Photographer”, with the following copy:

The facts that we always guarantee perfect satisfaction, are willing to devote enough time to each sitting; to secure the best results; have one of the most throughly (sic) equipped studios in the state and are always Up-to-Date with new styles, account for our continued increase of work.

George Dexter built a Queen Ann style home in 1893 which still stands at 15 Argilla Road in Ipswich. The home is said to feature a separate outbuilding that was used by him as a photo studio.

He is further mentioned in a volume of cyanotypes taken by Dow titled Ipswich Days- Arthur Wesley Dow and his Hometown:

The photographers in Dow’s circle there included his brother, Dana; Everett Hubbard; George Dexter (a successful commercial photographer in Ipswich); and the amateur ornithologist Dr. Charles Wendell Townsend. I am grateful to Stephanie Gaskins for her thoughts on this subject.” (1.)

1. Excerpt, Trevor Fairbrother: 2007- Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover Massachusetts: citation #39 discussing Dow’s photographic circle in Ipswich.