The actual house, on Fifth Street north of Arch, was demolished in the 19th century. Dexter's name, once prominent in the city's small but vibrant free black community, vanished as well. But an archaeological dig four years ago brought Dexter's home site and identity back from historical oblivion.
Now Drexel University students have built a digital model of the house, seeking to reconstruct it with historical accuracy as part of an ambitious long-range effort to rebuild colonial Philadelphia and its environs - in three-dimensional interactive virtual reality.
Even though the project is very much in its infancy, there is nothing quite like it elsewhere in the country, although the University of Virginia has created an extensive virtual ancient Rome (http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/) and MIT has started and stopped a few projects.
Drexel's project is part Second Life virtual world, part social and economic history, part video game, part computer science, part teaching tool.
"What we hope to do is create a 3-D interactive environment for teaching and learning about colonial American history," said Glen Muschio, digital media program director at Drexel.
"As AI [artificial intelligence] capabilities develop, we hope that the interaction will get to the state where we can really do this on a big scale and people can get involved in role playing. That's where we're headed. Right now, were building the spaces in a photo-realistic way."
"Colonial Philadelphia: The Game," joked Chester Cunanan, a 23-year-old graduate student who has worked on researching and building the Dexter house and other parts of the project.
Jokes aside, what Muschio envisions is the rebuilding of the 18th-century city and its economic ecosystem, ultimately peopling buildings with avatars - digitized characters - who will show visitors around, explaining the objects found there, bringing them to viewers for inspection, and describing the significance of the site.
