The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1870-02-12
Slate Pencils.


used were manufactured in Germany. She
then supplied America with this commodi-
ty. In 1850, there was young man living
in West Rutland, Vt, eighteen years of
age, who fortunately discovered a supply
of stone for making a first-class article of
slate pencils. He began by whiting out
the pencils and selling to school children.
Being better article than that for sale in
the stores, he found ready sale for all he
white out.
He argued that if they would sell thus
readily at home, they would sell readily
everywhere. He became possessed of the
idea that there was fortune in the bust
ness, and his dream has been realized
This quarry of slate pencil stone was
situated in a large ravins, four miles north
of Castleton, VT, near Bemoseen Lake
The land on which it was situated was for
sale one at hundred dollars. purchased
it, and began operations by saving out the
pencils and whiting them reund.
The business Of making them grew i'm
possible to keep clean order book.
Machinery was invented to facilitate the
process, which has reached something like
perfection, and enormously increases the
production of pencils. At present the
quarry and mills are owned by joint stock
company. They are are valued at three
hundred thousand dollars. From fifty to
one hundred thousand pencils are turned
out daily, and upward of hundred hands
are employed in the quarry and in the
mill.
After the stone is quarried it passes
through four processes before it is made in
to pencils. 1t is sawn into rectangular
blocks five inches by seven, and split by
hand into slabs OF the same length and
breadth, which are carefully assorted
These slabs pass through machine which
shaves them all to the uniform thickness of
a quarter of an inch, when they are ready
for the final process.
The machinery for reducing these slabs
to pencils consists of iron plates fitted to
receive them, fastened to an endless chain
which passes over rollers at either end.
These plates, of which there are about
twenty on chain, each receives slab, and
as it passes from one roller to the other the
pencils are cut and rounded out kali way
to completion by semi-eircular knives; .
dozen different sets of knives being firmly
fastened above them.
The slabs are then turned over and pass
ed back through another machine exactly
similar, and perfect pencil is the product.
They are counted out by children and
packed one hundred in a box. The pencils
are sold by the manufacturer at half cent
piece or fifty cents box, or ten times the
cost Of slate pencils i'll Germany, where
one thousand can be bought for less than
fifty cents. Being made from a superior
article of stone they are used throughout
the United States in preference to those
imported from Germany
The slate pencil business, like the pin
business is a small one in ITSELF but becomes
large where it is necessary to supply all
the school children of America with pencils.
Twenty years ago the whole idea Of it was
in the brain of a young Yankee boy. To-
day it is Il business involving over quarter
million of money. 1t has been and will
continue to be profitable business as this
is the only quarry and slate pencil mill in
the United States.
Besides manufacturing the pencils the
firm have mill for grinding the stone to
flour, boiling it finer than fine flour, to be
used in the process of manufacturing paper,
especially wall paper. This flower sells
for twenty dollars tun. The stone from
which the pencils are made contains upwards
of thirty per cent. of alumina, from five to
eight per cent. more than the stone from
which slate pencils are manufactured in
Scotland. The company are putting up
buildings and will soon be manufacturing
alum on Il large scale.