Dexter Edgar Converse

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.

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.

[2] After his father's death in 1832, Dexter was raised by an uncle in Quebec who was also a woolen manufacturer.

[5] At the outset of the Civil War, Converse's loyalty to the Confederacy was questioned so he and his brother-in-law, Albert Twichell, enlisted in the Confederate Army, but mill colleagues convinced Converse to remain running the mill and producing cotton products for the Confederate Army.

Later Helen Converse had her husband's body re-interred in nearby Oakwood Cemetery.