A tribute to Timothy Dexter, First in the East, author, patron of the arts society scion, astute investor and exporter. Most men would be pleased to be remembered for having a single stroke of genius which enriches himself and the world, but Timothy Dexter was not like most men. Let me explain.
As an author he should best be remembered, it was his book, A
Pickle for the Knowing Ones that lead the way for James Joyce, e. e.
cummings and others. This small rare volume avoided the problems of
punctuation, captalization, rules of grammar and the like. Lord Dexter
(and surely he deserved the title, although self anointed) wrote
free-style, one long sentence from beginning to the end of the book. And
in recognition that perhaps the learned reader would miss the punctuation
so prevalent in other writings, the Lord added an additional page to the
book when it was reprinted. The following is a quote from all printings
after 1838: "fourder mister printer the Nowing ones complane of my book
the fust edition had no stops I put in A nuf here and thay may peper and
solt it as they please
What genius Timothy Dexter possessed to anticipate our educational system
of the 1990s wher ifn it fels gud do it
Now as a patron of the art, it was another matter. On his estate, he
wanted to have marble statuary of all the great men of the world. Alas,
he discovered the cost and the sculptor convinced him that doing the
carving in wood would be just fine and an additional benefit was that the
statues could be painted to give life and form to them. As his gardens
became the "wonder" of Newburyport Massachusetts, tourist flocked to
visit. They were always welcome, especially the pretty ones who had to
keep an eye on the Lord. And there is more, far in advance of the
Rockefeller, Dodge, and railroad barons, Timothy Dexter supported the
arts. He had a resident poet who composed verse about, what else, why
Lord Dexter, of course.
As a leader of society, it is fair to say that the blue-noses of
Massachusetts tried to ignore Mr. Dexter. But because he wisely invested
his monies in properties in the area, there was no avoiding him. Perhaps
he was a bit like Sam Walton, happy to have his old truck and dog (or
in the case of Dexter his fine carriage, &c., danced to his own tune
and just assumed that the rest of the world was in step with him.
Timothy Dexter made his fortune, the old fashion way by buying low and
selling high. He exported bed warmers to the tropics. Now bed warmers in
those days (early 1800's) were designed to have coals placed within them
and when covered with the accompanying top were placed in the New England
beds to take off the chill. How do you imagine that bed warmers would
have a place in the Indies? As luck would have it or perhaps because of
his genius, the molasses trade was in need of equipment and these same bed
pans and their tops were modified only slightly to become skimmers and
ladles which were desperately needed in the refining of molasses. Mark
one up for our friend Timothy Dexter. And he shipped woolen mittens to
the tropics as well, and as usual made a fortune. How? Shipping was and
is an international trade. Just because an items destination is Barbados
doesn't mean that the item will be unloaded there, in fact, Dexter's
mittens found their way to Russia. There is even more, but you will have
to delve into it on your own.
So now as we pause to remember Timothy Dexter, as few have done so before,
it is good to note that each time we misplace a punctuation mark, misspell
a word or perhaps create a run-on sentence which seems perfectly clear to
us but is an enigma to others, we are following in Lord Dexter's well
placed footsteps. The "First in the East" would have been right at home at
a computer keyboard with its propensity to immortalize mistakes.
Now you may think that Anne Newport Royall and
Timothy Dexter
would have made strange bedfellows, not withstanding that they lived and
wrote in the same period. You see Anne also had the same
disdain for the rules of grammar and punctuation. It is reported
that "her spelling is original and inconsistent. It is not
especially phonetic except when she attempted to reproduce a
dialect. ... She often doubled a consonent where it should have
been single or vice versa. She likewise often uses a wrong vowel
in one or more syllables. However, her spelling merely annoys. It
does not make her writing difficult to read. But her punctuation
does. Her excessive use of commas and dashes, colons for
semicolons, and periods in the middle of a sentence after which she
continues writing without using a capital letter are among her
frequent errors." (From the foreword written by Lucille Griffith
for the reprint of Anne's book; Letters From Alabama . So
you see, Timothy Draper merely provided the necessary punctuation
which Anne Newport Royall used. A pickle for the Knowing ones,
indeed!/?,;&. (including Ms. Griffith*).
***
Irving Wallace's book, The Square Pegs served as the source for
much of this diatribe. I recommend it highly!
* Anne Newport Royall's Letters from Alabama covered the period
1817 to 1822 and makes for a good read to discover a different view of our
emerging Republic. The foreword to the book, written by Ms. Griffith is
overdone and out of keeping with Anne's writing.
ABOUT Joe Wortham
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