Through their experimentation with graphite, the Dixons discovered the substance could be used as an effective stove polish, which they marketed, to widespread demand, as Dixon ’s Stove Polish. Together, Dixon and Hannah Martin began experimenting with different ways to make pencils, a process that accidentally led to considerable success with another product, one of several innovative successes credited to Dixon. Ten years after his first introduction to pencil fabrication, Dixon, age 23, married the daughter of the cabinetmaker who had helped him construct his first pencil. That relationship would be engendered later, by another war Dixon, meanwhile, moved on to other interests, maintaining through his teenage years his fascination with pencils while pursuing an education in printing, medicine, and chemistry. ![]() Americans, in contrast to Europeans, still had not developed an affinity for pencils. ![]() The same year in which Dixon ’s waterfront observations led him to make his first pencil, the War of 1812 broke out, stanching the flow of British graphite into America, but dwindling supply did not spark increased demand. Accordingly, it was not so much the originality of Dixon ’s work with pencils, but his persistence in marketing the products that earned him the distinction as one of the pioneers of the U.S. These early versions -sticks of graphite known as “marking stones ” -were considerably more primitive than Dixon ’s first attempts, but after several centuries of gradual improvements, pencils began to rival goose quills as the writing instruments of choice, the most noteworthy among the pencil ’s adherents being Napoleon Bonaparte, who reportedly became upset when his campaign to overrun Europe led to a paucity of graphite pencils. Shepherds used chunks of this graphite to mark their sheep. Pencils first appeared shortly after 1564, when a storm in Cumberland, England, uprooted a large tree and exposed a rich deposit of plumbago, or “black lead, ” the purest form of graphite yet discovered. With the help of a local chemist named Francis Peabody and a cabinetmaker named Ebenezer Martin, Dixon was able to make a crude pencil, certainly not the first such writing instrument, but an item that was regarded nevertheless as somewhat of an oddity by Americans at the time. This wasted substance, which generally was discarded in the bay, was the source of Dixon ’s inspiration, the common occurrence he noticed one fateful day in 1812 that led to the creation of Dixon Ticonderoga and America ’s dependence on the ubiquitous and indispensable pencil. Ship owners, like Dixon ’s father, who sailed between the Orient and Marblehead, used Ceylonese graphite as ballast for their ships, then dumped the graphite once back home. When ships returned without any goods, ship owners filled their hulls with sand or stones to give their ships the necessary ballast to counteract the weight of the ship ’s sails. Bound for destinations along the eastern seaboard, to ports in Europe, and to as far away as the Orient, the ships left loaded with goods, the weight of which functioned as a ballast to keep the vessels upright. Born in 1799, Dixon was the son of a local ship owner and, naturally, spent a considerable amount of time at the harbor watching ships arrive and depart from Marble-head ’s busy port. With these products, as well as real estate holdings and graphite-related manufacturing operations predicating its business, Dixon represented one of the leading companies of its kind and the primary player in the history of the pencil in the United States.įor Joseph Dixon, the bustle of commerce along the waterfront in his native Marblehead, Massachusetts, provided the inspiration for his life-long work, an inspiration that was remarkable for two reasons: it came from a sight seen nearly every day by the residents of Marblehead and it came to Dixon when he was only 13 years old. The eleventh oldest company in the United States, Dixon Ticonderoga Company for many years was known predominately for its yellow and green pencils, but, after nearly two centuries of growth, Dixon ’s product line expanded substantially, comprising a diverse assortment of writing instruments and art supplies by the mid-1990s. Public Company Incorporated: 1868 as Joseph Dixon Crucible Company Employees: 1,250 Sales: $81.9 million Stock Exchanges: American SICs: 3952 Lead Pencils and Art Goods 3951 Pens and Mechanical Pencils 3295 Minerals and Earths, Ground or Otherwise Treated 6552 Subdividers and Developers, Not Elsewhere Classified ![]() 2600 Maitland Center Parkway Suite 200 Maitland, Florida 32751 U.S.A.
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