My Genealogy Hound

Newburyport, Massachusetts, The Timothy Dexter House, vintage postcard

A vintage postcard of The Timothy Dexter House, Newburyport, Massachusetts. Note the numerous statues on the tops of the columns. This postcard view is from before 1910.

There have been and always will be those amongst us those who are considered to be a little odd or eccentric in their behaviors, one such more well-known "character" from the 18th century was Lord Timothy Dexter. Not truly a Lord at all, he simply chose to bestow that title upon himself. He was born in Malden, Massachusetts January 22, 1748 to a family of farm laborers. He worked as a farm laborer from the age of eight, eventually becoming a leather dresser.

In 1770 he married the widow Elizabeth Frothingham, an industrious woman who owned a house and lot, from where he continued his business as a leather dresser. He prospered with his business and soon became a speculator, buying land and becoming fairly well off. He was considered by his social contemporaries to be uncouth and unintelligent and was purposely given bad investment advice to try to bring him to financial ruin. It is rather amazing to see how many times the advice that truly should have brought him down actually brought him even greater wealth. Several examples are: At the end of the American Revolution he bought up large amounts of worthless Continental Currency, which the government made good on after the war was over. He amassed a fortune and started an export business to the West Indies and Europe.

He was encouraged to buy warming pans (used to heat beds in the cold New England climate) and sell them in the tropical West Indies. Instead of selling them as warming pans they were sold as ladles for the molasses industry and soon sold out. He also sent wool mittens to the same area where Asian merchants purchased them and exported them to Siberia. He was told to ship coal to Newcastle, where there was already a coal mine. However when his coal shipment arrived the miners were on strike and his coal sold for top dollar. These are just a few examples of bad advice turned to gold for Timothy Dexter.

In 1798 Timothy Dexter purchased a large home on High Street in Newburyport and immediately began to transform it into a home that suited his tastes. He added minarets, a mausoleum for himself, and most noticeably a garden of 40 wooden statues of famous men, including Washington, Jefferson, Napoleon and of himself along with the inscription "I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western World." The house eventually became a hotel, with most of the statues being destroyed in a storm.

At the age of 50 he wrote a book about himself titled, "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truth for the Homespun." It contained no punctuation and capital letters thrown in at random. The second edition had an added page of punctuation marks with instructions to the reader to add them as they saw fit. Timothy Dexter died at the age of 59 on October 23, 1806 in Newburyport, Massachusetts.