Gordon Hall

Gordon Hall, also known as the Judge Samuel W. Dexter House, is a private house located at 8341 Island Lake Road in Dexter, Michigan. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1958 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The house is unique in Michigan for its balance, large scale, and massive hexastyle portico. The structure is also significant as the dwelling of Judge Samuel W. Dexter, a pioneering Michigan resident and land baron who had a substantial impact on early development of Washtenaw County and other sections of the state. The house was later owned by Dexter's granddaughter Katherine Dexter McCormick, a pioneering research scientist, suffragist, and philanthropist. In its early days, Gordon Hall hosted at least two, and possibly three United States presidents, and it was almost certainly a stop along the Underground Railroad.Samuel William DexterSamuel W. Dexter was born in Boston in 1792 to Samuel Dexter, a politician who served as a Congressman, Senator, and both Secretary of War and Secretary of the Treasury under President John Adams; and Catherine Gordon, daughter of William and Temperance Gordon of Boston. The younger Dexter attended Harvard University, where he graduated in 1812, and he received a law degree three years later. He moved to Athens, New York, in 1816 and married Amelia Augusta Prevost. The couple had two children: Samuel, born in 1817, and Augustine, born in 1820. However, both Amelia and Augustine died in 1822.