Dexter Edgar Converse
Dexter Edgar Converse was a textile entrepreneur who was co-founder and namesake of Converse University. Converse was native of Vermont who had moved to Spartanburg prior to the American Civil War and had become a successful pioneer in the cotton mill industry, and served as the head of the Converse University's first board of directors and was among the school's founders and substantial donors.Early life
Dexter Edgar Converse was born in Swanton, Vermont to Louisa Twichell and Olin Converse, a wool manufacturer. Olin Converse was a descendant of Edward Convers, an early Puritan settler in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who landed in Salem, Massachusetts in 1629 as part of the John Winthrop Fleet. After his father's death in 1832, Dexter was raised by an uncle in Quebec who was also a woolen manufacturer. When he was twenty-one, Converse went to work at a mill in Cohoes, New York with another uncle, Winslow Twichell, and while there married a cousin, Helen Twichell.In 1854 the Converses moved to Lincolnton, North Carolina to run a mill there, but moved to Bivingsville and in 1880, he co-founded the Clifton Manufacturing Co. and acquired shares in the Pacolet, Whitney and Spartan Mills.Philanthropy and death
In 1891 the Converses left Glendale and moved to Spartanburg, where in 1889 the Converses co-founded the women's college which became Converse University. The campus had a Twichell Auditorium, which was named for his in-laws. Converse died in 1899, and "he was buried in front of Main Hall, as he had requested. Later Helen Converse had her husband's body re-interred in nearby Oakwood Cemetery. Founder's Monument was placed just inside the main entrance to the college." His house, the Bivings-Converse House remains in Glendale, South Carolina and is listed the National Register of Historic Places.