Presidential Pens

Kamakura Fountain Pens

The modern fountain pen can actually trace its roots back to Thomas Jefferson. It was he who talked with John Isaac Hawkins about his problems with letter writing. Jefferson was a prolific writer and he went through quills painfully fast. He wished for a a pen with the same elasticity as a quill, but something that would last. Hawkins was a young inventor, and moved to London to study the pen making industry there. Hawkins with Samson Mordan developed and patented the first Mechanical pencil. Hawkins heard of a pensmith named Doughty who had experimented with soldering rubies to gold pens. Doughty experimented with the ultra hard metal irridum, but found it too hard and brittle to grind or shape into a pen tip. Hawkins asked to experiment with the samples and finally developed a method to shape and solder the iridium to make the first real "Gold Pen." Hawkins sold the patent rights to a Rev. Cleveland who returned to America and created a partnership with Levi Brown to make these gold pens. Brown relocated in New York and restarted production. Most of the famous names we know of the early pen makers were connected with Brown either by being apprentices under Brown or Apprentices of these apprentices once they started thier own shops. These include Leroy Fairchild, Bagley, Morton, John Foley and several others.

In the images here is a 1809 newspaper clipping that reads:

P. Williamson's Celebrated Elastic Three Slit Metallic Pen, which has been pronounced by many of the most eminent Penmen, to be far superiro to any metallic pen that has ever been made heretofore, either in Europe or America. It is well known, that all the pens upon the former principle have been wanting in that pliability which is so necessary in order to write with smoothness and rapidity, whichin this is happily effected by the two additional side slits.

Copy of a note from President Jefferson.

Washington 26th Jan. 1808.
I, Thomas Jefferson, present my compliments to P. Williamson and my thanks for the very fine steel pen he has been so kind as to send me. It is certainly superior to any metallic pen I have ever seen, and will save a great deal of trouble and time employed in mending the quill pen.

-------------

Washington 22nd March, 1808.
The four Callendar Pens arrived safely; I find them to answer perfectly, and now indeed use no other kind of pen.

The silver pen in the images has nothing to do with the Williamson Pens. It is a replica of the rather famous William Cowen Pen.

Jefferson hired William Cowen, a watchmaker from Richmond, to make for him a silver dip pen. The Original is in the Montecillo Museum, but replicas like this one were made available a few years back.