I read Quora every day, because I love learning new things, and I stumbled upon this article about an eccentric and utterly accidental businessman by the name of Timothy Dexter. This guy was honestly like the Forrest Gump of the 18th century. Here’s how the article reads:
He lacked any formal education and still managed to make a fortune with a series of horrible business decisions that—because Cthulhu or God or whatever smiled on his soul— turned out to be extremely profitable!
The man literally made some of the stupidest decisions ever (even took advice from people who hated him and wanted to ruin him!!!) and managed to become loaded with money.
Of course, he gained a massive fortune from marrying a wealthy widow, and his collogues were deeply jealous. They tried to ruin him by tricking him into investing his money into stupid ideas. All of them backfired and made him even more money!
- He stocked up on Continental dollars during the Revolutionary War under the presumption that the Colonists would lose and he would make tons of money off of rare money.
- His “friends” told him to play the stock market and choose them at random. All of them went up in value.
- He invested in British Pounds and French Currency for no reason. They became valuable after the American Revolution.
- He sold Bed Warming Pans to the Caribbean which turned out to be useful for collecting Molasses. He made tons of money in trading with the Molasses Industry.
- He sold Stray Cats to the Caribbean, which turned out to be extremely helpful with their massive rat infestation.
- He sold tons of Mittens to the Caribbean, which the Asian traders bound for Siberia bought in droves.
- He sent Bibles to the East Indies which weren’t Christian at the time, however the Missionaries sent there at the same time were extremely enthusiastic to use them to help spread Christianity in the area.
- He sent Coal to Newcastle (which already had a surplus of coal, since it’s mined there, and indeed the phrase “sending coal to Newcastle” is an ancient phrase to suggest something preposterous) around the same time that the Coal Miners happened to strike during the Winter, which caused everyone in Newcastle to buy his Coal.
- He had a collection of Whalebones, which just so happened to be the most useful material for corsets. He sold out in record time.
- He wrote a book about himself, which had atrocious grammar and no punctuation. (“Solt andpeper teh booke as they plese”) The book sold really well because “people thought it was a parody.” (I believe that the people who purchased the book wanted to know how he managed to pull off his success!)
Regarding his book, A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, you can read the entire thing here. You won’t get far, though, because it’s an honestly impenetrable “read.” And, to show the guy was made of unadulterated balls, he put in a whole ton of pure punctuation at the end (just a solid sheet of commas, periods, etc.) and told the reader to put them wherever he wanted.
This guy sounds hysterical as well as amazingly lucky. Here’s to you, Timothy! You would be an honorary 5-Star in the comments section!
