A. W. Chesterton Company

A. W. Chesterton Company of Stoneham, Massachusetts, made mechanical packings, gasket sheet and seals, chiefly for the chemical process industry, and wrote in 1976 that many of its products contained asbestos. Its packings and sheets included white and blue (crocidolite) asbestos. Our library lists no asbestos trust for the company.

Draft. The history on this page was written from the documents in our library and has not yet been reviewed by a person.

The company and its products

The company was founded in Boston in 1884 by Arthur W. Chesterton. Trademark files in our library give 1884 as the date of first use in commerce on catalog pages for its Style 235 compressed asbestos sheet and Style 240 metal asbestos sheet.⁴⁵ In 1969 Asbestos, the industry's trade journal, recorded the death of A. Devereux Chesterton, chairman of the board.⁶

Chesterton's 1974 catalog, Bulletin 71250, describes Style 320 Blu-Lon braided packing as made with "South African Blue Crocidolite asbestos" and Style 260 sheet as incorporating "a blue asbestos fibre."⁷⁸ It presents Style 326 Ches-Lon as "a white asbestos" coated with Teflon, with a chemical resistance "previously associated only with blue asbestos."⁹ North American Asbestos Corporation listed A. W. Chesterton Co. among its textile customers in 1975.¹⁰

What the documents show

In 1973 Chesterton was on the board of the Fluid Sealing Association with Garlock, Johns-Manville, Anchor Packing and others.¹¹

On April 1, 1976, the company wrote to R. H. Mereness, executive director of the Asbestos Information Association, that customers were asking whether its products complied with OSHA rules on asbestos.¹ The letter says the asbestos in its packings was "in a locked-in form," and proposed telling customers that no airborne asbestos above OSHA limits would be released in any reasonably foreseeable use, and that the products "should never be sawed or abrasive cut" but cut with a knife.¹ It asked for the Association's view before using that statement.¹² Mereness asked the chairman of the Association's Standards and Technical Committee, among others, to review it, writing that similar inquiries had been answered by referring to the OSHA standard but that a reply was needed "in view of growing concerns by industry's customers regarding asbestos-containing products."¹³

In December 1975 Business Week quoted the company's president, Richard T. McDermott, as studying Teflon and graphite fibers as substitutes, but saying "for the time being asbestos is still a critical material for this company's products."¹⁴

References

1. UC-4242: Union Carbide File on the AIA/NA Technical Committee (1973–1976), A. W. Chesterton Company letter to R. H. Mereness, April 1, 1976, p. 21
2. Chesterton: Mechanical Packings and Seals for Industry (Bulletin 71250) (1974)
3. A. W. Chesterton Company, company page
4. Style 235 Compressed Asbestos Sheet (A. W. Chesterton), product page
5. Catalog page: Style 240 Metal Asbestos Sheet (A. W. Chesterton Co.)
6. Asbestos, December 1969, p. 39
7. Chesterton Bulletin 71250 (1974), p. 32
8. Chesterton Bulletin 71250 (1974), p. 55
9. Chesterton Bulletin 71250 (1974), p. 28
10. UC-1118: North American Asbestos Corporation Transmittal of Textile and Fiber Customer Lists, 1954–1975 (1976), p. 9
11. Asbestos, March 1973, p. 24
12. UC-4242, A. W. Chesterton Company letter to R. H. Mereness, p. 22
13. UC-4242, R. H. Mereness memorandum, April 14, 1976, p. 20
14. UC-2386: J. L. Myers to B. J. Pigg on the California Asbestos Standard Hearing, with Enclosures (1980), Business Week clipping, p. 27

Asbestos products

15 products our documents name A. W. Chesterton Company as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

Court cases

65 court decisions in our case-law library name A. W. Chesterton Company as a defendant, newest first.

• Pyle v. AH Bennett Co. (2023)
• Robichaux v. Huntington Ingalls Inc. (2023)
• Susino EX rel. Estate OF Decedent Susino v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2023)
• Hutchins v. Anco Insulations, Inc. (2023)
• Kallsen v. AW Chesterton Company (2021)
• Succession OF Adams (2019)
• Barrett v. AW Chesterton Co. (2019)
• French v. AW Chesterton Company (2017)
• Stewart v. Aurora Pump Company (2017)
• Carroll v. Abb, Inc. (2017)
• Shonkwiler v. AW Chesterton Company (2017)
• George v. AW Chesterton Co. (2016)
• Arbogast v. AW Chesterton Co. (2016)
• DePriest v. Crane Co. (Matter of New York City Asbestos Litig., 2016)
• Shearer v. AW Chesterton Company (2015)
• Meyers v. Chesterton (2015)
• Meyers v. Chesterton (2015)
• Sherin v. John Crane-Houdaille, Inc. (2015)
• Sparkman v. AW Chesterton Company (2014)
• Sparkman v. AW Chesterton Company (2014)
• Horrie v. AW Chesterton Company (2014)
• Smith v. AW Chesterton Company (2014)
• Howard v. AW Chesterton Co. (2013)
• Keeney v. AW Chesterton Company (2013)
• Kiser v. AW Chesterton Co. (2013)
• Cera v. AW Chesterton Company (2012)
• Delsart v. Albany Felt Company, Inc. (2012)
• Lovaglio v. AW Chesterton Co. (2012)
• Daley v. AW Chesterton, Inc. (2012)
• Howard v. AW Chesterton Co. (2011)
• Vickroy v. AW Chesterton, Inc. (2011)
• Defazio v. Chesterton (2011)
• Brandt v. AW Chesterton Company (2011)
• Defazio v. AW Chesterton (2011)
• Kiser v. AW Chesterton Co. (2011)
• Reaser v. AW Chesterton Company (2010)
• Hauser v. AW Chesterton Co. (2010)
• Asbury v. AW Chesterton Company (2010)
• Adamson v. General Elec. Co. (2010)
• Stephens v. AW Chesterton, Inc. (2009)
• Fuller v. AW Chesterton, Inc. (2009)
• Funk v. AW Chesterton, Inc. (2009)
• Crowder V AW Chesterton Co. (2009)
• Newinski v. John Crane, Inc. (2009)
• Daley v. AW Chesterton, Inc. (2009)
• Grossman v. AO Smith Water Products Co. (2008)
• Louden v. AW Chesterton Co. (2008)
• O'connell v. Foster Wheeler Energy Corp. (2008)
• Woody v. AW Chesterton Company (2008)
• Nostrom v. Chesterton (2008)
• Wille v. AC Product Liability Trust (2007)
• Caradonna v. AW Chesterton Co., Inc. (2007)
• Held v. Sequoia Ventures (Matter of New York City Asbestos Litigation, 2007)
• Lindstrom v. AC Product Liability Trust (2005)
• Hughes v. Olin Corporation (2003)
• John Crane, Inc. v. Jones (2003)
• Lindstrom v. AC Products Liability Trust (2003)
• Crooks v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. (2001)
• Holmes v. ACandS, Inc. (1999)
• Asbestos v. Bordelon, Inc. (1998)
• Horton v. Harwick Chem. Corp. (1995)
• Harris v. AC & S, Inc. (1995)
• Chesterton v. Fisher (1995)
• Jackson v. Anchor Packing Co. (1993)
• Swogger v. Waterman SS Corp. (1989)

In our library

3 documents in our library name A. W. Chesterton Company, by collection.

Other library documents (3)

• Chesterton: Mechanical Packings and Seals for Industry (Bulletin 71250) (1974) (publisher)
• Catalog page: Style 240 Metal Asbestos Sheet (A. W. Chesterton Co.) (1884) (publisher)
• Label: Parachute Packing, Style 600 (A. W. Chesterton Co.) (1940) (publisher)

In the Union Carbide documents

A. W. Chesterton Company is named in 2 Union Carbide documents dated 1976 (2 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• North American Asbestos Corporation Transmittal of Textile and Fiber Customer Lists, 1954-1975 (1976) UC-1118 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide File on the AIA/NA Technical Committee, the Standards and Technical Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee for Construction, with H. B. Rhodes Letter to J. J. Gafford (1973-1976) UC-4242 (mentioned)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for A. W. Chesterton Company, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: A. W. Chesterton Co..

Where this comes from

This page brings together every document in our library that names A. W. Chesterton Company, across collections. Titles and affiliations are taken from the documents themselves, and units and subsidiaries are grouped under the company they belong to.