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Eccentrics

Odd-Inary People

Eccentric and Bizarre Behaviors

Born on January 22, 1747 (some sources say February 22), was ‘Lord’ Timothy Dexter (d. October 26, 1806), American eccentric businessman and author. I would venture to say that few men have ever combined in their life's narrative such wacky individuality and incredible good fortune.

Dexter was the author of A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, or Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress, a small collection of correspondence and chronicles, first self-published as an anthology in May, 1802. But who was the the so-called 'Newburyport Nut’?

In 1769, aged 22, he began working in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in his trade as a leather-dresser, but he had been working since he was only eight years old, as a farm laborer before his apprenticeship. He prospered sufficiently to attract a rich widow named Elizabeth (Lord) Frothingham (d. July 3, 1809), whom he married on May 22, 1770, and sufficiently to buy a big house in which they settled with her four children (they later had a son and daughter of their own) and set up a glover’s shop. He once gave Elizabeth $2000 to leave him and hired her back for the same sum two weeks later.

Despite his lack of education, Dexter had the Midas touch in business. At the end of the American War of Independence he bought large amounts of European currencies that were worthless at the time. When trade connections resumed, he had amassed a fortune. He built two ships and began an export business to West Indies and to Europe.

He shipped warming pans to the former, which is, of course, a tropical region, where they were discovered by his captain to be useful ladles for the local molasses industry. Dexter made a good profit. Asian merchants bought the mittens for export to Siberia.

His next venture was the proverbial ‘selling coals to Newcastle’, which should have signalled certain failure, but Dexter’s ships arrived as the city was crippled by a coalminers’ strike and Dexter gained an enormous profit.

He exported bibles to the East Indies and stray cats to Caribbean islands and again somehow turned a profit. He also hoarded whalebone by mistake, but ended up selling it profitably as a support material for corsets.  

Dexter bought a huge estate from Chester, New Hampshire, and somehow acquired a peerage, which was meant to help him gain access to the society that snubbed him for his eccentricities, but to no avail. He also bought a new house in Newburyport and decorated it with minarets, a golden eagle on the top of the cupola, a mausoleum for himself and a garden of 40 wooden statues of Venus and famous men, including George Washington, William Pitt, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, John Adams, King George III, and of course, himself, towering over all. The inscription on his own effigy read: I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western World. He stated, “I will show the world one of the Grete wonders of the world in 15 months … that is, if no man murders me in Dors or out of Dors.” People flocked to gawk at this collection. His 40-piece’”mouseum’ consisted of groupings with the titles such as, ‘Motherly Love’ and ‘Four Lions Lying Down with a Lamb’. It is said that his mansion was the scene of bacchanalian orgies.  

Dexter also had his own way with household staff. He had a black and protective housekeeper called Lucy, whom he claimed to be a daughter of an African prince. Other servants included a large idiot, a fortune teller and his “poet laureate”, Jonathan Plummer.

At the age of 50 Dexter decided to write a book about himself – the aforementioned 24-page pamphlet, entirely devoid of all punctuation: A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress. He wrote about himself and complained about politicians, clergy and his wife.

After the sell-out of the first printing, Lord Dexter, in deference to demanding readers, amended the second edition by adding periods, commas, semicolons and other punctuation. However: rather than disperse punctuation throughout the text, Dexter added a page of ‘stops’ containing nothing but punctuation marks, along with this curt message:

“the nowing ones complane of my book the fust edition had no stops I put in a nuf here and thay may peper and solt it as they please”

At first he handed his book out for free, but it rapidly became popular and ran into eight editions in total. It seems that no matter what Dexter did, he made money on it.

He wasn’t entirely daft, and his remarks could sometimes show great insight, as on one occasion, when the newspapers were reporting Lord Thurlow’s famous remark, “When I forget my king, may my God forget me.” Dexter parodied it to “When I forget myself, may God forget me”.

On July 28, 1803, Dexter published a notice of sale of his estate, mentioning fear of his life. It seems he also began to wonder what people would say about him after he died. He proceeded to announce his death and to prepare for a burial. About 3,000 people appeared for the wake – they went through all the rituals of an actual funeral while he watched from inside the house. However, Dexter’s wife refused to cry for his passing (legend says he beat her for this indiscretion) and so he decided not to appear to his guests at all. He did, however, actually pass on in 1806. Towards the end of his wacky career he appears to have regretted his follies, and was generous with his fortune. Or, so it is said.

« Index of articles on folklore and other topics

A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, at Amazon.com

Eccentrics in the Scriptorium: Bee Miles; Emperor Norton; Mr Eternity

List of notable eccentrics    More Dexter    And more Dexter