TIMOTHY

See also:

• DEXTER, HENRY MARTYN (1821—1890)
• TIMOTHY DEXTER (1747—1806)

DEXTER (1747—1806)  , American merchant, remarkable for his eccentricities, was born at Malden, Massachusetts, on the 22nd of February 1747 . He acquired considerable wealth by buying up quantities of the depreciated continental currency, which was ultimately redeemed by the Federal government at par . He assumed the title of Lord Dexter and built extraordinary houses at Newburyport, Mass., and Chester, New Hampshire . He maintained a poet laureate and collected inferior pictures, besides erecting in one of his gardens some forty colossal statues carved in wood to represent famous men . A statue of him-self was included in the collection, and had for an inscription " I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western World." He wrote a book entitled Pickle for the Knowing Ones . It was wholly without punctuation marks, and as this aroused comment, he published a second edition, at the end of which was a page displaying nothing but commas and stops, from which the readers were invited to " peper and solt it as they plese." He beat his wife for not weeping enough at the rehearsal of his funeral, which he himself carried out in a very elaborate manner . He died at Newburyport on the 26th of October 1806 .