Ebenezer Wood
The founder of the factory at this site was Ebenezer Wood (1792–1880). Wood brought several innovations to pencil manufacturing, such as the use of the circular saw and octagonal and hexagonal forms for wood pencil casings. The hexagonal form has since become common for pencils.
Ebenezer Wood was, like Munroe, a cabinet maker. It was perhaps this commonality that brought them together when Munroe hired Wood to help operate his two man-saw saw for cutting the pencil casings. Eventually, Wood brought additional machinery and automation into Munroe's factory.
Wood then started his own mill for grounding plumbago for the graphite used in pencils. Initially, Munroe was one of his customers. However, by the 1830s, he sold plumbago exclusively to the Thoreau company, a business relation that lasted many years. Henry David Thoreau supposedly purchased his sketch pencils from Wood's factory.
Read more about this topic: Nashoba Brook Pencil Factory Site
Famous quotes containing the word wood:
“There are enough fagots and waste wood of all kinds in the forests of most of our towns to support many fires, but which at present warm none, and, some think, hinder the growth of the young wood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)