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Timothy Dexter

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

American businessman and author (1747–1806)

This article is about the American businessman. For the bear enthusiast, see Timothy Treadwell.

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Timothy Dexter<br>1805 engraving of Dexter, by James Akin<br>Born(1747-01-22)January 22, 1747<br>Malden, Province of Massachusetts Bay, British America<br>DiedOctober 23, 1806(1806-10-23) (aged 59)<br>Newburyport, Massachusetts, U.S.<br>Resting place<br>Old Hill Burying Ground, Dexter Family Plot, NewburyportOccupationEntrepreneurKnown forUncommon good fortune, eccentricityNotable workA Pickle for the Knowing Ones (1802)Spouse<br>Elizabeth (Lord) Frothingham

(m. 1770)​<br>Children2<br>Timothy Dexter (January 22, 1747 – October 23, 1806), self-styled Lord Timothy Dexter , was an American businessman noted for his eccentric behavior and writings. He became wealthy through marriage and a series of improbably successful investments and spent his fortune lavishly. Though barely educated or literate, Dexter considered himself "the greatest philosopher in the known world", and authored a book, A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, which espouses his views on various topics and became notorious for its unusual misspellings and grammatical errors.

Life and works<br>[edit]

Dexter was born in Malden[1] in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He was from a poor family of Irish and English descent who had moved to the New World the century before. He had little schooling and dropped out of school to work as a farm laborer at the age of 8.[2][3]

When he was 16, he became a tanner's apprentice.[4] In 1769, he moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts.[5] He married 32-year-old Elizabeth Frothingham, a rich widow, and he then bought a mansion with the money.[5] Dexter set up a shop in the basement, selling moosehide trousers, gloves, hides, and whale blubber. Elizabeth also opened a shop that sold notions.[3]

At the end of the American Revolutionary War, he purchased large amounts of depreciated Continental currency that were worthless at the time.[5] At the war's end, the U.S. government made good on its notes at one percent of face value, while Massachusetts paid its own notes at par.[5] His investment earned him a considerable profit. He built two ships and began an export business to the West Indies and Europe.[citation needed]

Because he was largely uneducated, his business sense was considered peculiar. He was advised to send bed warmers—used to heat beds in the cold New England winters—for resale in the West Indies, a tropical area. This advice was a deliberate ploy by rivals to bankrupt him. His ship's captain sold them as ladles to the local molasses industry and made a handsome profit.[6] Next, Dexter sent wool mittens to the same place, where Asian merchants bought them for export to Siberia.[2]

People jokingly told him to "ship coal to Newcastle". Fortuitously, he did so during a Newcastle miners' strike, and his...