There have been at least two different "National" pencil companies in the United States. The most commonly found National Pencil Co. brand of pencils was established in Shelbyville, Tennessee (aka Pencil City) by Samuel E. Linton sometime in the late 1920s. This was the same Mr. Linton who founded the Linton Pencil Company in Lewisburg, TN. He died in 1960, and his son by the same name took over. By 1964 the National Pencil Co. was sold to Memphis-based Plough, Inc., a drug manufacturer that had been reselling National’s pencils for 25 years under the name "St. Joseph Nickel Pencil."
