Brought up on a farm, he taught himself the use of colors, and in 1820 went to New York City and studied painting with Alexander Robertson.

Afterwards, he resided for nearly a decade in Boston, Massachusetts, where he had considerable vogue, and where he painted a portrait of Charles Dickens (1842).

Their daughter Francesca Alexander was a popular illustrator, author, and translator.

[3] One of Alexander's best portraits is that of Mrs. Fletcher Webster, formerly in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

[2] This romantic portrait, in which the sitter appears swathed in ermine, was deaccessioned from the Museum early in the 20th century and returned to descendants in the Sargent family.