Lewis Waterman

Life & Legacy

Lewis Edson Waterman (November 20, 1836 – May 1, 1901) was an American inventor. He held multiple fountain pen patents and was the founder of the Waterman Pen Company.
His entry into fountain pen manufacturing has only recently been properly researched. Waterman was working as a pen salesman in New York for a new company founded in the spring of 1883 by a volatile inventor named Frank Holland. Holland abandoned his company after only six weeks; Waterman stepped in and took over, fitting the pens with a simplified feed of his own design. It was for this "three fissure feed" which his first pen-related patent was granted in 1884.

Waterman was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.