His name was ‘Lord’ Timothy Dexter. He invited people to attend to his burial. About 3,000 people attended his fake wake, but they were welcomed to Lord Dexter screaming at his wife for not grieving enough. 

He finally passed away in 1806, leaving quite a legacy behind. His life was pretty remarkable. He was mainly a Bible exporter, but he became really successful when he started investing in continental dollars during the civil war because they were really cheap. 

After the war was over, the value of the dollar increased and he became really wealthy. He apparently took jokes really seriously, because they made him even richer. 

One time, people teased him by asking him to ship coal to Newcastle, when they arrived with the coal, there was a strike in the mines and he sold it as premium. He had a couple stories that also turned out successful, like when people laughed while telling him to send gloves to the South Sea Islands. 

The ship ended showing up just in time as another ship was leaving to China, so they bought the merchandise. He wrote a book about himself where he shared his thoughts on politics, clergy and his wife. 

The book had 8,847 words and no punctuation marks. He started giving away his book but it became popular. In the revision he added one extra page with 13 lines of punctuation marks and he told the readers to “peper and solt it as they please.” 

(Source)