Timothy Dexter

Born in Malden, Massachusetts, in 1747, Timothy Dexter started out with little formal education and worked as a leather dresser before marrying a wealthy widow. That marriage, along with bold speculation in Continental currency and other unlikely ventures, helped him build a fortune in the years after the American Revolution.

He became best known for the strange business deals that made him a legend. Stories attached to his name include sending warming pans to the Caribbean, where they were reportedly sold as ladles, and shipping coal to Newcastle at a moment when local demand unexpectedly made the venture profitable. Whether told with admiration or disbelief, these episodes helped turn him into one of early America's most colorful folk figures.

Dexter later styled himself "Lord Timothy Dexter" and filled his Newburyport home with statues and grand displays. He also wrote A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, a famously unpunctuated book that added to his reputation as an eccentric showman. He died in Newburyport in 1806, but his odd mix of self-invention, luck, and comic extravagance still makes him hard to forget.