from Wikipedia
He was one of the most foolish and gullible people in history, yet he made a huge fortune.
– People jokingly told him to “ship coal to Newcastle”, which he did, and through sheer luck there was a miners’ strike going on at the time, and his cargo was sold at a premium.
– At another time, practical jokers told him he could make money shipping gloves to the South Sea Islands. His ships arrived there in time to sell the gloves to Portuguese boats on their way to China.
– Someone told him to send warming pans (used to heat sheets in the cold New England winters) to the tropical West Indies – an unlikely market. However, his captain successfully sold them as ladles for the area’s burgeoning molasses industry, and again Dexter made a significant profit.
What does Timothy Dexter have to do with this thread?
At the age of 50 he wrote a book about himself – 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. The book contained 8,847 words and 33,864 letters, but no punctuation, and capital letters were seemingly random. At first he handed his book out for free, but it became popular and was re-printed in eight editions. In the second edition Dexter added an extra page which consisted of 13 lines of punctuation marks. Dexter instructed readers to “peper and solt it as they plese”.