About the Manhattan Pen Makers Project

For a long while this project was merely an Exell Spreadsheet that I used to help me keep my pen collection sorted. But it kept growing. It is true that other areas of the United States, like Boston and Cincinnati for example, were hot spots for gold pen and fountain pen development, but Manhattan has a unique place in fountain pen history.

After all, Manhattan was the birthplace of the American pen industry.

Levi Brown office

Isaac Hawkins, friend of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, traveled to England and studied the pencil industry in the old world. He befriended Samson Mordan and together developed the first mechanical pencil. Hawkins learned of an English jeweler who had experimented with iridium and pens, but had given up since he found iridium too hard to work and shape. Hawkins tried his had and created some techniques to work the material and created the first gold pens tipped with iridium. Hawkins sold the patent rights to a revreand Cleveland who returned to America and enlisted Levi Brown, a watchmaker from Detroit to help him with his pen business. They set up shop in Manhattan and began making pens. Many of the young apprentices of this firm started out on their own and the pen business grew. Many of the modern pen companies today like Waterman can trace their eveloution back to the first Manhattan pens. In most cases the pen companies have long since dissapeard and little is left of them. Often today pen collectors will find a pen with a New York imprint, but the collector will not be able to find any historical refrence to the pen. Hopefully, this database will help.

I do not pretend to claim that this New York fountain pen makers database is complete. Surely it is not, but please understand that this is still a wrok in progress. It started out as a reference for myself, but others have urged me to put it online, so here it is.

 

A note about the Dates in the list.

The dates listed here refer to the earliest reference that I have found for that pen maker at that address. The dates do not indicate the time of establishement unless I specified so in the biography. Special thanks to Saul Davis for bringing this point to my attention.

Note to ebay sellers: In the last few weeks since the MPMP has been on line we have been swamped with e-mails from ebay sellers wanting to use our information and/or use a link to us as a reference url in their auction descriptions. The simple answer is yes you may. One of the main reasons for putting this project on line is to make use of the information. We sincerly thank the sellers who took the time to ask permission. It seems in this day and age, most people tend to lift information at will and never give a citation or credit from where they found the data. If you intend to use the information on this site for your ebay description, you do not need to ask for any special permission, but we do ask that you credit Kamakura Pens. Ebay allows one outside link in the description for reference information, and you may certainly link to the Manhattan Pen Makers Project page. Good luck with your auctions. From our expereince in selling pens on ebay, the more information and history you include in your description, the better the pen will sell. Most of our buyers are not merely looking to buy a pen to write with, they are looking for a piece of history to enjoy.

If you have any Manhattan Fountain Pen history or information to add or to correct a mistake we made, we certainly want to hear from you. send me an e-mail at mailto:rd@kamakurapens.com

 

Project Origin
References
Notes

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Stay Well,
Dr. Ron Dutcher