what if I told you there was once a guy who sold coal to Newcastle bed warmers to the tropics and straight cats to the Caribbean it all sounds like some good material for a standup comedian sketch but it was in fact the true story of Timothy Dexter he was born in the winter of 1747 in Malden Massachusetts the family's financial situation was far from perfect so they couldn't afford to give the boy a decent education at the age of eight he dropped out of school and started working at a farm at 16 Timothy became a
Tanner Apprentice in Boston this job was considered a lower class one but the salary was pretty good his teacher had unique knowledge of how to work with Moroccan leather which was a hit among the fashionistas of those times at 21 Dexter was ready to start his own business making leather gloves and moosey breaches things got Rowdy in Boston after the new taxes and the famous tea party but Timothy didn't want to leave the city his loyalty was soon rewarded as he met a wealthy newly widowed Elizabeth frothingham she fell in love with Dexter and they
got married Mr Dexter was thrilled to have moved to Boston's Posh Charleston neighborhood but the neighbors didn't share his desire to be friends Nobles like John Hancock and Thomas Russell who was then one of the richest people in the country didn't see Timothy an uneducated guy who had married into money as their equal our hero couldn't accept that and decided to prove to them that he was worthy of respect first he decided to secure a position in public office he submitted dozens of petitions to his hometown governing body finally they agreed to create a post
just for him in Farmer of deer his task would be to watch over the deer population in town although the last Fawn had left the nearby Woods 19 years before still Mr Dexter loved his new position and moved on to the second part of his master plan to become rich he opened a shop in the basement of his wife's house and managed to save several thousand in 1775 the Continental Congress issued around 250 million worth of a new paper currency the Continental dollar shop owners refus to accept this new money yet even more of it
was printed and it soon flooded the market and went down in value they even coined a new expression not worth a continental Dexter's wealthy neighbors wanted to look good in the public eye and support the common folk by buying some of those nearly worthless bills from them our hero decided it was a great idea and so he took all his and his wife's savings and bought tons of those depreciated bills and his risk totally paid off once the United States Constitution came into the picture holders of Continentals were able to trade them for 1% of
the original value because Dexter had a lot of that money it was enough to make him extraordinarily Rich he was sure that would be enough to become friends with the neighbors but they rejected him again Mr Dexter decided the problem was their character and not him and moved to the coastal mertile town town of Newberry Port Massachusetts with his family he now had enough funds to buy a fleet of shipping vessels a stable full of horses a fancy Chateau with a sea view and lavish Furniture including a coach with his initials Dexter loved it when
people addressed him as Lord he hired the best artists of European architecture to create over 40 giant wooden statues to Adorn his property among them there were figures of George Washington Thomas Jeff John Adams and of course Timothy Dexter himself the plaque under his statue described him as the first in the East and in the west and the greatest philosopher in the Western World all those statues cost as much as the entire estate and made people stare Dexter's wife was so embarrassed he even moved out and the house turned into a palace of frivolity his
new neighbors didn't enjoy his company and were hoping they could make Dexter go bankrupt with their bad financial advice one of them suggested that Dexter sell warming pans to the West Indies warming pans were a real hit in the 18th century made out of brass with long handles and were used for keeping the bed warm but the West Indies yeah that place where it's always warm well it didn't stop our hero and he purchased 42,000 of those loaded nine shipping vessels with them and set off on a journey with his neighbors chuckling around once he
arrived in the West Indies and figured no one needed warming pant there he rebranded the goods and sold them as molasses ladles to owners of sugar plantations everyone wanted to buy at least three or four and he made some really good money with a markup of 79% for each item he also managed to sell wool mittens in the same place Asian Merchants bought them for export in Siberia so selling a heating device to the tropics worked out well but no one would carry coal to Newcastle right one Trader managed to convince Dexter that anthy coal
was in huge demand in Britain's largest coal mining town he had no idea about that little detail and set off to the UK when he arrived though the workers were on strike and he managed to sell Cole to Newcastle with a big markup Dexter returned to his Chateau and as a winner with a barrel and a half of silver then he made another eccentric business decision and shipped winter gloves to the South Pacific he arrived there just in time to run into Portuguese Sailors who saved the day and bought the gloves on their way to
colder climates as they'd need them there he also managed to Market 340 tons of whale bones he had stocked up on to monopolize the market as ladies corsets collar stays buggy whips toys and typewriters and made some good profit once Newberry Port stray cat situation went out of control the town meeting voted to get rid of them all but Dexter offered to buy the cats and take good care of them and yes he found a way to sell them at a premium price as well Warehouse owners in the Caribbean were desperately looking for a solution
to their rat problem it might seem like his choices were just eccentric and emotional but biographers who analyzed his decisions later believed he actually developed a strategy Dexter came to realize his key to success was to find out which goods were missing from the market stock up on them to the brim and then sell them at the price of his choice the choice of those goods was often odd but it all worked out in the end when he was 50 Dexter wrote a book a pickle for the knowing ones in which he complained about those
in power of country and his wife the book had nearly 9,000 words but not a single punctuation mark and his own unique spelling and capitalization one section opened like this he published the first edition for his own money and distributed the book for free and yes it became a hit and was reprinted eight times in the second edition Dexter added an extra page of 11 lines of punctuation marks was his response to all those people who complained there weren't any of those in the first edition he offered them to feel free to insert the signs
wherever they wanted dixter really cared what other people thought about him all his life he even staged his own passing away to see who'd show up at the ceremony and how they behave he revealed that it was all a joke when he noticed his wife wasn't mourning enough that's it for today so hey hey if you pacified your curiosity then give the video a like and share it with your friends or if you want more just click on these videos and stay on the bright side
