John E. Faber was born on December 6, 1822, at Stein, near the city of Nuremberg, in Bavaria, the youngest son of George Leonard Faber and Albertina Frederika Kupfer. His family for three generations had been makers of writing pencils at Stein, the industry having been started by his great-grandfather, Caspar Faber, in 1761.
Faber did his primary schooling at a Volksschule and then enrolled to study law at the University of Heidelberg. But he left his studies mid-way to pursue a career in commerce in America.
Migrating to America shortly after the Revolution of 1848, young Faber started himself in business in New York City, acting as agent in the United States for the pencil factory at Stein, which was then managed by his oldest brother, J. Lothar Faber. At the same time Eberhard Faber sold on commission various articles of stationery manufactured in Germany and England.
In due time he became an American citizen and acquired control of large tracts of cedar-forest land in Florida. He began by exporting cedar wood in logs to pencil factories in Europe and later built a sawmill at Cedar Keys on the Gulf coast of Florida, which cut the cedar logs into slats suitable to be worked up into pencils, and shipped the wood in that form to the European factories.
Meanwhile his pencil trade, which had grown from small beginnings, was dependent on the Bavarian factory for its finished product, although a good part of the raw material originated in America. There was also a tariff handicap. Faber believed that he could manufacture pencils advantageously in New York, provided machinery could be made to offset the difference in labor costs between Europe and the United States. He was nearer the source of cedar-wood supply, but farther from the graphite mines.
Faber was not ready to open his factory until 1861, the first year of the Civil War. This was an unfavorable time for launching such an industry, especially since cedar in quantity could be obtained only from Confederate territory. However, starting on a comparatively small scale, he was able to maintain an output which met the demands of the time.
After the war the industry grew rapidly and became firmly established. The graphite was obtained mainly from Austrian mines while the clay, to be used with the graphite, came from Bohemia.
When his New York factory on the East River was burned in 1872, a larger plant was set up in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, where the business went forward at an enhanced pace. Faber was the first pencil manufacturer to attach rubber tips and metallic point protectors to his pencils. Faber employed the nickel-plating process extensively and operated a factory at Newark, New Jersey, for the making of rubber bands and erasers. He also produced penholders. John Faber died on March 2, 1879, in New York City, and was interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
On July 1, 1854, John Faber married Jenny Haag, by whom he had six children.
