 DeWitt Clinton Baxter was born March 9, 1829, in Dorchester, Massachusetts.In early city directories identified Baxter as an "engraver" (1850–60), "designer" (1861), and "artist" (1862) as he was publisher of "The Baxter Panoramic Business Directory" in Philadelphia.From 1857 on he lived at 454 North Eighth Street, a substantial townhouse (3 stories, 24-feet wide) near Buttonwood Street, and from 1855 until the Civil War he had an office in Hart's Building at the northeast corner of Sixth and Chestnut.