Walter A. Sheaffer (July 27, 1867 – June 19, 1946) was an American inventor and businessman who developed the first commercially successful lever-filling fountain pen and founded the W.A.

His father, Jacob Sheaffer, moved to Bloomfield from Ottumwa, Iowa, after returning from California Gulch in 1854 and entered the jewelry business.

He was the oldest child of Elizabeth and Jacob Royer Sheaffer, who had settled in Bloomfield in 1854 and established a jewelry store.

Sheaffer dropped out of school and first started working as a printer's devil, then a grocery boy and in the summer he operated a peanut stand.

Within ten years, the company had joined the top rank of American pen manufacturers, and was advertising nationally.