[5] Robert Augustus Chesebrough, a chemist who started the company, was interested in marketing oil products for medicinal use.
He produced the first petroleum jelly by refining rod wax, a paraffin-like substance that formed on oil drilling rigs,[6] using heat and filtration.
[7] Chesebrough Manufacturing Company distributed its product throughout the United States and Britain during the early and mid-20th century.
[9] The company had a productive record of earnings and dividend disbursements, even after the onset of the Great Depression.
[10] Chesebrough and Pond's merged in June 1955 and, in 1987, Chesebrough-Ponds was acquired by the British consumer goods company Unilever.