Timothy Dexter was an American eccentric businessman who was peculiarly lucky and never bothered to learn to spell. Dexter bought a huge estate in Chester, New Hampshire. He also bought a new house in Newburyport and decorated it 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 of course, himself. It had an inscription “I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western World.” People flocked to gawk at this collection. Dexter also had his own way with household staff. He had a black and protective housekeeper called Lucy, whom he claimed to be a daughter of an African prince. Other servants included a large idiot, a fortune teller and his “poet laureate” Jonathan Plummer. At the age of 50 he decided to write 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 absolutely no punctuation, and capital letters were sprinkled about at random. At first, he handed his book out for free, but it rapidly became popular and ran into eight editions in total. When people complained that it was hard to read, for the second edition he added an extra page – 13 lines of punctuation marks – asking readers to “peper and solt it as they plese.”
Timothy Dexter
