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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

5. Selling the Good Book

Another dumb investment that rivals talked Dexter into that turned out not to be so dumb and earned him a good return was bibles. Somebody convinced him that the West Indies were in desperate need of The Good Book. So Dexter bought thousands of them in New England for pennies on the dollar, and shipped them to the Caribbean. The demand was low at first, until Dexter began to preach that the locals would go to hell, unless they had a Holy Bible at home. It resonated, and he made a huge profit as a result.

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.