Timothy Dexter's Story of Getting Rich Through Stupidity

Many of us are well aware of cases where someone invested in a win-win business and went bust. But very few people will remember at least one case when money was invested in absolutely stupid projects and brought great profits. But this is quite real, which was proved back in the 18th century by the American Timothy Dexter. He started the most stupid business projects and at the same time always received considerable benefits from them.

Timothy Dexter was born in 1747 in America, in the family of a poor peasant. Of course, he did not receive any education, and his childhood was filled with hardships and troubles. At the age of 8, Timothy was forced to work as a laborer and do hard, often dangerous work. At the age of 16, he became an apprentice tanner and soon managed to open his own small business.

When Dextrere was 22, he married a 30-year-old widow, Elizabeth Frothingham. The woman owned a small capital, which Timothy quickly found a use for. He invested all the funds in the so-called "continental dollars". It was money printed in large quantities by the US Congress during the Civil War. They differed from ordinary banknotes in that they had absolutely no material support.

The year was 1776, and the government declared that the new dollars had the same value as the pre-war, paper and silver money. But soon everything cleared up and in 1778 for 200 "continental" they gave only one real dollar. In 1781, the rate fell even more, and money was changed at the rate of 1000 to 1. It was at this moment that Dexter spent his wife's entire fortune on several bags of waste paper.

But an act that can only be called stupid, suddenly enriched Timothy. In 1790, the state decided to exchange "continental dollars" for government bonds at a rate of 100 to 1. Thanks to this, Dexter made a tenfold profit! It is worth clarifying that he was not the only one who bought the "candy wrappers". His more affluent neighbors did the same just to support their country in times of need. Timothy simply did as they did, but unlike the rich, he spent everything his family had on banknotes.

Perhaps the wife of 9 years morally destroyed her husband, but it was not in vain. After selling the bonds, Dexter purchased several merchant ships and decided to become a merchant. The first major business of the newly-minted merchant was the supply of bed warmers to the Caribbean. What could be more stupid than this idea, given the hot climate of the islands? But the deal turned out to be profitable.

The heating pads were large frying pans with wooden handles and perforated lids. They quickly sold out, as they were excellent as scoops for the production of molasses from sugar cane. Dexter's next deal was the sale to the West Indies ... warm mittens. But here, too, success awaited him. The mittens were bought by Russian merchants who bought rum on the islands.

Dexter became a very rich man. However, he continued to make unpredictable transactions. Once he bought up all the stocks of whalebone in Boston. He did not know what to do with it, and filled all his warehouses with goods. Competitors rubbed their hands and were sure that now Timothy would definitely burn out. But in Europe, a boom in men's corsets suddenly began, and whalebone was bought quickly and expensively. And again, Dexter hit a solid jackpot where he did not smell.

But Dexter's most risky trading operation was the delivery of a cargo of coal to the English city of Newcastle. At the end of the 18th century it was the center of European coal mining. Do you think he lost money? Not at all. When the ships entered the port of Newcastle, a coal strike had just begun there. The mines stopped extracting coal, and companies that had large contracts for the supply of this fuel bought coal from Dexter at an extortionate price. However, there is an opinion that the entrepreneur had an agreement with the trade union leaders and it was not at all a matter of luck.

Another Dexter deal has gone down in history. He took several hundred cats from Newburyport, Massachusetts to the West Indies and sold them profitably there. There were too many stray animals in the American town and the authorities urged them to be destroyed. But Timota advertised in the newspaper that he was ready to buy cats inexpensively. The inhabitants of the city caught all the cats, which soon went to the islands.

But why did they start buying cats at exorbitant prices in the West Indies? It just so happened that at this time the islanders suffered from the dominance of rats and the animals turned out to be very useful. Dexter again made a fabulous profit, and no one was surprised at this. They began to say that Timothy was not a simpleton at all and, perhaps, he sold his soul to dark forces.

Dexter retired at the age of 50. This successful entrepreneur was so rich that he could afford it. He bought a huge house and called it a castle. He demanded that he call himself no other than a lord, and he generously presented everyone who agreed with this. The old man turned out to be ambitious, and soon he began to demand from the authorities recognition of his services to the country. He was encouraged by appointing a deer caretaker. The work was not dusty, because deer had not been seen in the regions where Timothy lived for more than 20 years.

In his declining years, the extravagant rich man decided to perpetuate his person. In the park near his house, he placed statues of famous people, and among them - his own. On the pedestal of a lifetime monument to himself, Dexter ordered to inscribe pathetic words: "The first in the East, the first in the West, the greatest Western philosopher." Needless to say, everyone laughed at the old man. But even here Dexter got a profit. A lot of bored ladies came to look at the eccentric, with some of whom the old ladies' man had affairs. The behavior of the spouse could not but disturb the wife, and she left him.

In the end, Timothy Dexter was so imbued with the idea of his greatness that he wrote the book Nonsense for the Wise Men, or Pure Truth in a Rough Dress. These were his personal criticisms of the clergy, politics and married life. Even in his declining years, he did not fully master the letter, so there were many errors in the text and not a single punctuation mark.

Because of this, the author began to be ridiculed, and in the second edition Dexter "corrected". He added a page with punctuation marks and a postscript at the end of the book. It said that the reader himself, at his own discretion, can arrange them where necessary. Yes, the book went through as many as eight editions and became the main source of information about the life and entrepreneurial activities of the author.

This amazing man died at the age of 59. He left a will in which he fairly divided his considerable fortune among relatives and friends, while not forgetting about charity. Two centuries later, another man named Amarillo Slim proved that you can win big money on deliberately losing bets. Even Dexter did not dream of such a business.