Edward A. Barrier of Arkwright Mutual to E. H. Jeffords on the North Charleston Dust Tunnel Plans (1935)

A one-page copy of a letter of July 25, 1935, from Edward A. Barrier, vice president and engineer of the Arkwright Mutual Fire Insurance Company in Boston, to E. H. Jeffords, general manager of Raybestos-Manhattan's General Asbestos & Rubber Division at North Charleston, South Carolina. Reviewing blueprints for a new dust-collecting system, Barrier found the plan "in general, satisfactory" but asked how a roof tunnel would be anchored and braced against windstorms. Because the dust was understood to be about 90% asbestos and 10% cotton, he said sprinklers would not be needed but for the tunnel's wooden deck, which would need sprinklers or a sheet metal lining, and he suggested side doors about 50 feet apart for fire hoses.

What it shows

In the summer of 1935 the North Charleston plant was building a new system to collect the asbestos and cotton dust from its mill: pipes from the collectors to a dust house with burlap baffles on the top floor of Building No. 3, and a tunnel on that building's roof. This letter and those that follow are the plant's correspondence with its fire insurer. The insurer's questions were about fire and wind, not about the workers' health.

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's attorneys indexed the Sumner Simpson Papers. Their index describes this document as follows:

Comments on blueprints for new dust collecting system sent on 7/18/35. Requests further information regarding windstorm resistance of tunnel. Advises proposed wooden deck is a fire hazard and requires that sprinklers be installed. Suggests putting emergency exits on sides of tunnel.

Related documents

• E. H. Jeffords to Sumner Simpson on Progress of the North Charleston Dust Collecting System (1935)

About this copy

This is document 02500 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.