Eccentric Newburyport merchant Timothy Dexter once ringed his mansion with 40 life-size wooden statues of famous men — Washington, Napoleon, himself. The Great September Gale of 1815 destroyed nearly all of them; the rest were sold off or burned as firewood. Only the William Pitt the Elder statue survived, later owned by the Smithsonian and eventually returned to Newburyport, where it now stands inside the Museum of Old Newbury.