(Lord) Timothy Dexter

- Timothy Dexter (1747–1806) was an eccentric American businessman known for a string of absurdly lucky business gambles. Despite being nearly illiterate and widely mocked as a fool, he repeatedly made fortunes by doing the opposite of conventional wisdom. - His most famous exploit: at the advice of a prankster, he shipped warming pans (used to heat beds) to the tropical Caribbean. To everyone's surprise, the pans were sold at a profit — used by plantation owners as molasses ladles. He similarly dumped wool mittens in the same region; they were bought up as cleaning cloths. - He also sent Bibles to the East Indies and stray cats to Caribbean islands, both of which turned profitable through unexpected demand. - Dexter styled himself as an aristocrat, wrote a bizarre, punctuation-free autobiography (*A Pickle for the Knowing Ones*), and staged a fake funeral to hear what people said about him. - He is a legendary figure in American folklore, often cited as a "Lord of Misrule" or a real-life example of the Dunning–Kruger effect before the term existed.