Some of the family, especially those settling in Mayo, in the kingdom of Connaught, assumed the surname Mac Jordan (descendant of Jordan), after an ancestor—Jordan Teutonicus, or Jordan De Courcy, a brother of John De Courcy, Earl of Ulster. These Dexters were commonly known as Dexter-Mac Jordans, and sometimes as Mac Jordan-Dexters. Much of the history of the Dexters must be sought under the names Jordan and Mac Jordan.
The pioneer Dexters in Ireland soon fell in with the people and though, at first, conflicts ensued between them and the old native clans, their descendants eventually became “as Irish as the Irish themselves.” The fact that they were of the same religious faith greatly assisted, of course, in bringing this about.
Richard Dexter, son of Stephen Dexter, wedded, in 1272, Lady Penelope O’Connor, a daughter of the ruler of the Irish kingdom of Connaught. The Dexter-Mac Jordans became lords of Athleathan, in Mayo, Connaught, and built one of their strongest castles there. Stephen Dexter, son of one of the lords of Athleathan, was a Dominican monk, and wrote the Annals of Multifernan.
The Dexter-Mac Jordans also had possessions in the Irish principality of Meath, where they built Castle Jordan. About 1274 they founded an abbey in Mayo. In De Burgo’s time the Dexter family had reached its thirteenth generation in Ireland.
In common with other great Irish families, the Dexters suffered much at the hands of the English enemy, a large part of their choicest property being seized and confiscated. While some of the Irish Dexters took the name Mac Jordan, others, it would appear, did not, for we find Dexters prominently mentioned in the Munster counties of Cork and Limerick.
It is a well-known fact that at one time the Irish living within the pale were obliged by law to drop their Irish surnames and assume others. Possibly, some of the Dexters bearing the name Mac Jordan came under the operation of this enactment and went back to their original name of Dexter. Be that as it may, it is certain that several of the Irish Dexters of Munster were unscrupulously victimized during the Cromwellian and Williamite regimes.
Thomas Dexter of Cloyne, Cork, was among the forfeiting proprietors under the Cromwellian settlement. He was of the Barony of Imokilly. Stephen Dexter of the Parish of Templemurry, County Limerick, also suffered at the same time and in like manner. William Dexter, likewise of Templemurry, was similarly treated by the rapacious foe.
What part of Ireland Richard Dexter, the Boston pioneer, came from we do not know. It is reasonable to conclude, however, that he was from either Munster or Connaught—the south or the west, since it is in these two provinces the Irish Dexters are mainly found. Neither do we know the maiden name of his wife, Bridget. Richard Dexter was admitted a townsman of Boston on “the 28th day of the twelfth month, 1641.” At the meeting where this action was taken there were present: Richard Bellingham, John Winthrop, William Tynge, Captain Gibbones, Valentine Hill, Jacob Eliot, James Penn and John Oliver.
According to Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary, Richard Dexter, the pioneer, was of Charlestown, Mass., in 1644. Munsell’s American Ancestry states that he was born in 1606, which would make him about thirty-five years of age on his arrival in Boston from Ireland. He bought a large amount of land on “Mystic side,” and must, at the outset, have been a man of considerable means. In 1648 his name appears signed to a petition relative to the laying out of a highway in Charlestown, Mass. The petition thus quaintly concludes: “So shall wee be bound to pray as we desire dayly to doe for yr prsptie & peace temporall & Eternall.”
On “the 14th of the third month, 1650,” Richard Dexter purchased of Robert Long of Charlestown five lots on “Mystic side.” In 1654 John Palmer mentions the sale to Dexter of five acres of “arable land” in Charlestown, which land had at one time belonged to Maj. Robert Sedgwick. Richard Dexter also purchased other pieces of land, chiefly upland, in Charlestown at various times. In 1663 he became owner of forty acres in Malden, Mass., buying the same of Edward Lane of Boston. This latter property was increased from time to time, and much of it remained in possession of descendants of Richard down to as late a period as 1854.