History of a pencil, as we know it, began in early 16th century when a large deposit of graphite was discovered in Cumbria, England. This deposit was very pure and solid. It could be sawn into sticks without too much problem, and people used it at first to mark sheep. Not know its true nature, people thought that graphite was a form of lead and called it “plumbago” (from Latin for "lead ore"). After it was discovered it was used for cannonball molds and because of that, graphite mines were owned and protected by Crown. First graphite sticks, earliest pencils, were square in shape and wrapped in string or sheepskin because graphite is brittle and not to leave marks on the user’s hand. England held a monopoly on graphite pencils until the second part of 19th century.
Italian couple Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti invented first wooden pencil in 1560. It was oval in shape and similar to today’s carpentry pencil. A way of making pencils like we still do today (from two wooden parts glued together with a graphite center) is invented shortly after that.
During the Napoleonic Wars France, unable to import graphite from England or Germany, was forced to invent something else. Nicholas Jacques Conté, an officer in Napoleon's army, mixed powdered graphite with clay and burned it in a kiln in 1795. He got a mixture that could be used as a core of pencils, shaped at will before burning and whose hardness can be changed by controlling the ingredients in mixture (if the mixture has more clay, pencil will be harder and its mark will be lighter). The same method is used today.
Hymen Lipman came to an idea to attach an eraser to the end of a pencil in 1858.
In America, Charles Dunbar stumbled upon a graphite deposit in New Hampshire and got into the pencil-making business with his brother-in-law, John Thoreau.
John's thoughtful son David, unemployed after graduating from college, started helping out with the family business. He developed new refining techniques that made Thoreau pencils less brittle, less greasy — at the time, they were the finest pencils America had to offer. The Thoreaus were able to offer a variety of pencils, from No. 1 (the softest) to No. 4 (the hardest). That numbering system survives today.
Today we have black pencils but also those that have pigmented wax-based cores in different colors. We also have solid graphite pencils that have no casings, grease pencils that can write on any surface, charcoal pencils, sepia pencils, white pencils and even watercolor pencils. Depending on their use we have carpenter's pencils that are oval and cannot roll from the desk, copying pencils that can be copied when moistened, and stenographer's pencils that are very hard to break.
