The Pencil Mine

I see that among the other daffy things he wants to do, the current occupant of the Oval Office wants to bring back coal mining. Which is interesting, because there haven't been all that many coal miners since, like, forever. It's almost like wanting to bring back buggy-whip makers, overlooking the fact that buggy-whip makers don't die of lung disease or get crushed in cave-ins. And buggies and whips don't cause all sorts of nasty old pollution, so there's that.

Anyway, at its peak a bit over 100 years ago, there were nearly 900,000 coal minors in the US. As natural gas and oil became more prevalent, and as mining became more efficient, there were fewer and fewer coal miners. By 1950, there were fewer than 500,000; these days, there aren't even 50,000. 

I understand that coal dying out as the fuel of choice did mean the loss of good paying jobs (albeit miserable and dangerous ones) and the hollowing out of communities. But bringing back coal mining and the handful of jobs that come with - however you position coal as "clean" - isn't the answer to restoring economic health to struggling areas.

But reading about Trump's desire for more manly, tough-guy coal-mining jobs got me thinking about other forms of mining. 

And while I was thinking about other forms of mining, what to my wondering eyes did appear but a story about a graphite mine in my home turf of Worcester County, in the town of Sturbridge. 

The mine has all sorts of history embedded in it. 

Originaly, the Nipmuc tribe had used graphite to make paints. But in 1644, John Winthrop Junior, son of Massachusetts's first governor, bought the mine. I guess this made him the first nepo baby in American history, but, alas, Junior didn't quite make the fortune he anticipated - "the mine's supply dwindled," and in 1784 the Winthrop family sold their stake. 

It's not clear who took the mine off of the House of Winthrop's hands, but in 1928, Frederick Tudor of Boston bought the mine. And here's where it gets a bit more interesting.

A fellow named Joseph Dixon worked for Tudor at the time. Dixon went on to found the J.D. Crucible Company. Maybe the word "crucible" was not great branding - who knows what a "crucible" is? So J.D. changed the company's name to Dixon Ticonderoga. As in the Dixon Ticonderoga yellow pencil, an item which we've all had in our possession at some point of another, what with college boards and Sudoku. 

Dixon's timing was good:

With the start of the Civil War, the pencil quickly began replacing ink and quills on the battlefield, as soldiers wrote to their family and friends at home. By the end of the war Dixon's company was making some 86,000 pencils a day. (Source: Worcester Telegram)

The mine in Sturbridge was not yet played out, but it's not clear how much graphite they contributed to the lead in the Dixon Ticonderogas. But there are ties to Dixon and the mine through Tudor. 

Tudor, by the way, employed men who "were direct descendants from slaves and Indigenous peoples," including the mine's foreman, Guy Scott. Not the main part of the story, but worth penciling in. 

As is the fact that the revival of the Dexter series - Dexter: New Blood - was filmed in part around and about the Sturbridge lead mine. 

The mine makes several appearances in the 10-episode series, including as a potential place to dispose of a body and home to a hibernating bear, unhappy to have been woken from slumber.

Quite a history for a little Worcester County mine. Wonder if they'll start trying to revive the lead mining industry here. Sure, we're a blue state, so Trump's not that interested in reviving squat for our ilk, but most of the lead in Dixon Ticonderoga pencils comes from Sri Lanka. Can't let those guys keep showing us up! Let's slap a 200% tariff on them and see how we can get back in the penicl mining game.