Writing Īt age 50, Dexter authored the book A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, in which he complained about politicians, the clergy, and his wife. When Dexter did not see his wife cry, he revealed the hoax and promptly caned her for not sufficiently mourning his death. In one notable episode, Dexter faked his own death to see how people would react, and about 3,000 people attended Dexter's mock wake. He frequently told visitors that his wife (who was actually alive) had died, and that the woman frequenting the building was simply her ghost. Dexter also bought an estate in Chester, New Hampshire.ĭespite his good fortune, his relationship with his family suffered. The last had the inscription, "I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western World". He decorated this house with minarets, a golden eagle on the top of the cupola, a mausoleum for himself, and a garden of 40 wooden statues of famous men, including George Washington, William Pitt, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Jefferson, and himself. Dexter bought a large house in Newburyport from Nathaniel Tracy, a local socialite, and tried to emulate him. While subject to ridicule, Dexter's boasting makes it clear that he understood the value of cornering the market on goods that others did not see as valuable and the utility of "acting the fool".
He also hoarded whalebones by mistake, but ended up selling them profitably as corset stays. He exported Bibles to the East Indies and stray cats to Caribbean islands and again made a profit Eastern missionaries were in need of the Bibles and the Caribbean welcomed a solution to rat infestation. His ships arrived there in time to sell the gloves to Portuguese boats on their way to China. On another occasion, practical jokers told him he could make money by shipping gloves to the South Sea Islands. Fortuitously, he did so during a Newcastle miners' strike, and his cargo was sold at a premium. People jokingly told him to " ship coal to Newcastle". Next, Dexter sent wool mittens to the same place, where Asian merchants bought them for export to Siberia. His ship's captain sold them as ladles to the local molasses industry and made a handsome profit. This advice was a deliberate ploy by rivals to bankrupt him. 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. īecause he was largely uneducated, his business sense was considered peculiar. He built two ships and began an export business to the West Indies and Europe. His investment enabled him to amass a considerable profit. government made good on its notes at one percent of face value, while Massachusetts paid its own notes at par. Īt the end of the American Revolutionary War, he purchased large amounts of depreciated Continental currency that was worthless at the time. He married 32-year-old Elizabeth Frothingham, a rich widow, and bought a mansion. In 1769, he moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts. When he was 16, he became a tanner's apprentice. He had little schooling and dropped out of school to work as a farm laborer at the age of eight.
Dexter was born in Malden in the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
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