Have you ever heard the story of Timothy Dexter, the world’s luckiest idiot? A rube from Massachusetts, he made his first fortune by buying up huge sums of worthless Contintental currency that the government unexpectedly made good on after the American Revolution. Fortune in hand, he took his jealous rivals’ sarcastic advice to send bed warmers and woolen mittens to the tropical West Indies. Amazingly, the bed warmers were sold as molasses ladles and the mittens were gobbled up by Asian merchants to export to Siberia¹! Other transactions involving sending gloves to Polynesia, Bibles to the East Indies, and stray cats to the Caribbean all worked out in his favor, and Timothy Dexter died a rich man in 1806. I mention the guy because it’s only by a similar series of events that the town of Coldwater, Michigan ever became the seat of Branch County.