Kewaunee County and Parker Pens

Imagine what fourth grade would have been like if you had a ball point rather than a fountain pen. Remember that glass bottle of blue ink, filling the pen, your stained fingers and worrying what your mother was going to say about ink on your clothing again? Then there was the inkwell in the desk. There was trouble when boys had fun trying to dip the braids of the girls sitting in front of them into the inkwells. That memorable fountain pen probably came from Janesville’s Parker Pen Co, a company with a close connection to Kewaunee County.

Will Palmer was the son of Seymour C. Palmer, onetime owner of the Ahnapee Record. He was born in Racine and was 8 years old when he came with his family to Ahnapee. Will conducted a telegraph and post office in the present Algoma Mercantile building before leaving town in 1882.

Ten years later, Will was an insurance salesman sharing a hotel room with Mr. Parker in Janesville. Parker was a telegraphy instructor who conceived ideas about a perfect pen while repairing the different makes used by a school. Parker supplied the patent, Palmer the money and a new company was born.

The pen was originally manufactured in the east but within six months the demand was so great that Parker and Palmer opened their own factory. Twenty years later they were employing over 100 men and were turning out ½ million pens for an international market. At one time Parker Pen’s Main Street plant in Janesville was the largest writing instrument plant in the world. The company was eventually sold to Guilette and then sold again.

As so many others with roots in Kewaunee County, Will Palmer achieved a prominence well beyond its borders and yet remains obscure.