Timothy Dexter

Timothy Dexter (1747–1806) was born in Malden, Massachusetts, and made an unlikely fortune in Newburyport speculating in depreciated Continental currency, a gamble that paid off when the new federal government assumed the debt in the 1790s. Self-styled "Lord Timothy Dexter," he filled the grounds of his mansion with dozens of wooden statues of generals and presidents and once staged his own funeral to see how people would mourn him. In 1802 he published his only book, the eccentric autobiography A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, written with no punctuation at all; a later edition added a page of punctuation marks so readers could "peper and solt it as they plese." He died in Newburyport at fifty-nine.