Decide for yourself: did a fool who has made millions just smiled at unprecedented success, or was he a business genius hiding under the mask of a fool?

How did Timothy Dexter get rich? In 1769 he moved to Newburyport and soon married a wealthy 32-year-old widow. Soon Dexter lived in a luxury villa and bought all kinds of trinkets for his wife’s money. During the American War of Independence, he began buying depreciated money. Why? Because they were devalued; If they were cheap, why shouldn’t you buy them?

After the war, the United States government took a series of steps to restore the value of the continental currency. Dexter suddenly became even richer than before. For his new money, he built two ships and started an export business between the United States, the Caribbean, and Europe.

Foolish Dexter’s success upset other entrepreneurs greatly and they really wanted to push an uneducated businessman into bankruptcy. They offered to export bed warmers (long-handled closed containers that could hold hot charcoal) to the Caribbean. Dexter, unaware that such comforts were not necessary in hot areas, asked for this advice. Fortunately for them, these dishes were in high demand in the Caribbean – locals started using them to make molasses. Dexter made a lot of money again. When asked for the exact same failed advice, Dexter offered woolen gloves to residents of the warm Caribbean islands. These didn’t need them, but the islands were also visited by Asian traders at the time, who bought all the gloves and exported them to Siberia.

Dexter has always been so successful. People jokingly advised him to “export coal to Newcastle”, a well-known saying at the time, a proverb describing unnecessary work. Because Newcastle was known as a city of miners. Only stupid Dexter didn’t understand the laugh and sent a shipment of coal to Newcastle. It arrived during the miners’ own strike and the coal was bought at a very good price.

Dexter’s casual entrepreneurial spirit was ridiculously incredible. He once exported the Bible to Southeast Asia. Do you see a problem in that? Christianity was never the dominant religion there. But the Bible was redeemed by the missionaries. The next time, Dexter sent many homeless cats to the Caribbean, which he profitably resold because those islands suffered from rodent problems. Even when Dexter seemed to have contributed, success turned to him from a different angle. Once he accidentally bought a large quantity of whale bone. And then he sold it to make corsets and made a good profit.

Other wealthy New England residents often gathered for all kinds of parties and gatherings. Dexter just wasn’t expected in them; to rich snobs he seemed a useless fool. The businessman was very angry about this and did his best to imitate the lifestyle of the rich. It is true that he did it wrong. Even if he had guests, he would tell them that his wife had died even if he was home. “That woman? No, she is not my wife, she is just her ghost,” said the strange Dexter.

Feeling underappreciated, Dexter decided to play his death. Up to 3,000 people turned up to the fake bodies. In fact, not all of them were Dexter’s friends. For others, it was an opportunity to get back to talking to the rich, who had often been harassed. Surprisingly, his wife didn’t know (or Dexter thought so) about the cheating. The worst part is that she didn’t cry at all, so Dexter then hit her with a stick.

Dexter’s house was decorated with strange wooden sculptures depicting various celebrities. There was also a minaret, a dome, a royal eagle. In 1802, Dexter’s book A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress was published. In it, the businessman complained about his wife, politicians, clergymen and other businessmen. There were only 8,847 words in the book (only 15 times more than in this article), but there were no punctuation marks. Without education, Dexter didn’t have any knowledge of grammar, so capital letters were used just as much anywhere as anywhere. The book was distributed for free at first, but as you can probably guess, it later sold profitably – that was Dexter! In the second edition of the book, he added an additional page filled with various punctuation marks with instructions to place them wherever you want.

Dexter died at the age of 59. But the story of an entrepreneur who was incredibly successful was never forgotten like this.