Detect-O-Graph No. 111

About Linton Pencil Co.

Lewisburg, TN-based Linton Pencil Co. was established by Samuel E. Linton, the same fellow who earlier founded the National Pencil Co. some 22 miles east in Shelbyville. While the founding date of the company is unknown, news reports show that Samuel Linton’s son, Leonard, worked as a purchasing agent for Linton Pencil Co. at the time of his death in 1948. The 27-year-old was killed in a motorcycle accident. Four years later the company was sued by a competitor, Jerusalem Pencils Ltd., for falsely stamping a large number of its pencils as being made in Israel. The suit alleged that Linton sold 30,000 gross of the misbranded pencils to a New York firm for export in 1951. Yowza.