Shipping 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, dumb luck came to the rescue. Dexter’s 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 managed to unload his sooty cargo at a huge markup, and returned to Massachusetts with “one barrel and a half of silver“.
On another occasion, Newburyport was plagued with stray cats, and a proposal to destroy them all was put to a local vote. It failed, and somebody convinced Dexter that the cats could be sold in the Caribbean. It was a ludicrously dumb idea, but Dexter bit. He advertised in local newspapers that he would pay for stray cats, and promised to treat them well. He shipped them to the Caribbean, where a recent infestation of mice plagued plantations and warehouses. The cats were sold at a premium to eager buyers, and Dexter earned another fortune from a seemingly dumb idea that nonetheless panned out.
