The Esterbrook Factory in Camden: 1860s-1909

[AAAndrew]

Esterbrook purchased the old water works in Camden, NJ and opened their first factory there in 1861. They used that factory for over a century, well into their fountain pen era. They had other factories both around Camden, as well as in other countries, but this was the main factory, the heart of the company. The building is gone now, and is currently a parking lot, but we have some tantalizing clues how the building changed, and what it might have looked like in its heyday. 

 

Here is where it was located as indicated on a map today. 

 

The original building was purchased in 1846 by the Camden Water Works Company from the Cooper sisters, the original owners. (and presumably the namesakes for Cooper street.)  In 1861, when Esterbrook first opened their factory on the site, the Esterbrooks did not own it. In 1866, when Richard Esterbrook Sr. dissolved the original partnership with Jr., Cadbury and Bromsgrove, and then restructured the company as a Joint Stock Company with limited liability they included in their announcement of the dissolution, as possessing a "freehold premises." They are referring to the fact that a couple of months earlier, in July of 1866, Richard Sr. purchased the building from the Camden Water Works Company for $1000. 

 

 

Sometime just after this, between 1867  and 1870, the factory looked something like this. 

 

 

 

I've so far not been able to visit Camden and confirm if the tall building or the lower building were the original structure. I suspect it was the lower building. 

 

Around 1879 the building now looked like this. A big upgrade and significant improvements. The artist did get the location of the river wrong, and has sailboats floating along Market St. 

 

 

Sanborn was a map company that made maps for the Fire Insurance and other companies. They made incredibly detailed maps of primarily industrial and business buildings. Fortunately, Princeton University's library has several of the years for Camden. 

 

Here is the building in 1885. The way to read it is that in each section of the building it will list what is on each floor. For example in section A, it is a 4 story building, and on floor 1 is Scouring, 2nd has Cutting, 3rd has Raising and 4th is piercing. 

If you want to know what those operations were, just head over to my site and look in the middle of the page for links to my articles on the Industrialization of the Steel Pen Trade, parts 1-3. 

 

 

Here's what the factory looked like a very short time before 1900. 

 

 

 

And finally we have a 1906 Sanborn map of the factory. Notice the expansion and increasing sophistication of their operation. I've yet to find a similar view into the operations going on in their factory once fountain pens became more prominent. It would be interesting to compare the two and see what parts shrunk, as others grew. Overall, short of finding photographs of the interior of the factory, this is as close we we'll ever get of a tour of the Esterbrook Steel Pen Manufacturing Company's main factory in Camden, NJ. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Estycollector]

Thank you. 👍 I notice a "varnishing" section on the factory floor. Were the nibs varnished to prevent rust? 

[Penguincollector]

    This is fascinating, and the intersection of many topics that interest me. It’s too bad that the area is so blighted, it would be interesting to see what remnants could be found in the surrounding neighborhoods otherwise, like building materials, or Esterbrook related ephemera. 

[AAAndrew]

  On 2/23/2025 at 5:55 PM, Estycollector said:

Thank you. 👍 I notice a "varnishing" section on the factory floor. Were the nibs varnished to prevent rust? 

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Yes, @Estycollector. One of the final steps before sorting and boxing was to coat the pens in a varnish to help prevent rusting before they got to the customer. It is this varnish that prevents pens new from the box from holding or flowing ink well. You must either remove this varnish, or coat it with something else that works better for ink retention and flow. This is called pen prep. 

 

The topic is fraught. In the old days, school kids would often stick a pen in their mouth. The saliva seems to work well to coat the pen. (I would never recommend this as we have no idea what kinds of compounds, heavy metals, etc... are in the varnish or the coating of the pen itself).   A very early practice was to keep your nib shoved into a potato to clean it. The starches in the potato seem to also work well as a coating for ink flow. Some have taken this to mean that the potato trick is good for initial prep, but initial prep is better if you can remove the varnish first.

 

To remove the varnish, nowadays some use alcohol, and since most vintage varnishes were shellac-based, that should work ok, with some work. Some use toothpaste and an old toothbrush. I'm in the controversial camp who burn off the coating. It's true that you can damage a nib, especially the very tiny and delicate tip of the nib, with an overzealous application of heat. The way I do it is that I put the nib in a holder (it will get hot), and using a small lighter (no blow torch) I run the flame under the center of the body of the nib for a whole "one-one-thousand" as I move the flame around, then remove the pen from the flame entirely. For bigger or sturdier nibs I'll do it a third time, but usually twice is enough to soften the varnish. Then wipe it off with a tissue. 

 

You only really need to remove it from the underside of the nib. When you heat the center, the nib is thin enough that it will transfer enough heat throughout the pen without focusing too much on the tip, to soften the varnish so that it can be wiped off. Using this technique, with the care I'm mentioned, I've never ruined a pen. A really tiny, delicate pen, like a mapping pen, may require only one pass. Use your judgement. 

 

After you prepare a nib like this, or in any way, make sure you never touch the underside, especially the area where the ink goes. Oils from your skin can make it so either the ink just falls right off the nib, or it gathers at the top, and will not flow to the point. Either of these conditions shows that you need to re-prep the nib. If you've already done it once, then sometimes just a quick wipe with a tissue using the ink already not flowing on the nib, will do the trick. If it's bad, then just a single pass over the flame and a wipe should do it.  

 

The debate about how to best prep and preserve a nib is a very old one. Here's a news story from 1882 that mentions both the potato as well as flame techniques, though they talk about the potato as more of a cleaner than a prep. 

 

[welch]

Thank you, AAAndrew!

[Estycollector]

Excellent, @AAAndrew. Thank you for the thorough and detailed reply. 

 

I must have read the flame prep before because doing so sounds familiar. That is probably what I did several years back when a got a collection of Esterbrook pen nibs. Yes, surely a cooked potato so as not to bend the nib.  

[CS388]

  On 2/23/2025 at 3:46 PM, AAAndrew said:

Here's what the factory looked like a very short time before 1900. 

 

 

 

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What a fantastic photograph - it looks so modern, for the period.

 

Thanks for sharing.