"A Pickle for the Knowing Ones" by Timothy Dexter. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read
Dexter was born in Malden in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He had little schooling and dropped out of school to work as a farm laborer at the age of eight.[1] When he was 16, he became a tanner's apprentice.[2] In 1769, he moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts.[3] He married 32-year-old Elizabeth Frothingham,[4] a rich widow, and bought a mansion.[3]
At the end of the American Revolutionary War, he bought large amounts of depreciated Continental currency that was worthless at the time.[3] At war's end, the U.S. government made good on its notes at one percent of face value, while Massachusetts paid its own notes at par.[3] His arbitrage enabled him to amass a considerable profit. He built two ships and began an export business to the West Indies and Europe.[citation needed]
Because he was largely uneducated, his business sense was considered peculiar. He was advised to send bed warmers—used to heat beds in the cold New England winters—for resale in the West Indies, a tropical area. This advice was a deliberate ploy by rivals to bankrupt him. His ship's captain sold them as ladles to the local molasses industry and made a handsome profit.[5][unreliable source?] Next, Dexter sent wool mittens to the same place, where Asian merchants bought them for export to Siberia.[1]