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How Timothy Dexter Turned Ridiculous Ventures Into Riches

Khalid Elhassan November 22, 2024 13 min

Dexter - Timothy Dexter — Timothy Dexter. New England Legends

8. Sending Coal to Newcastle

On another occasion, rival merchants convinced Timothy Dexter to send coal to Newcastle, England – a city so known for its abundant coal that the term “sending coal to Newcastle” became a byword for futility and stupidity. Once again, however, luck rescued Dexter. His ships, laden with anthracite coal, arrived in Newcastle in the middle of a miners’ strike that had crippled local production. It was one of the few times when Newcastle did not have any coal. Dexter unloaded his sooty cargo at a huge markup, and returned to Massachusetts with “one barrel and a half of silver“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.