Robert Chesebrough Robert Chesebrough Robert Augustus Chesebrough, (January 9, 1837 – September 8, 1933) was an American chemist. He discovered petroleum jelly which he marketed as Vaseline and he founded the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company. Born in London to American parents, he was raised in New York City. Chesebrough began his career as a chemist clarifying kerosene from the oil of sperm whales. The discovery of petroleum in Titusville, Pennsylvania, rendered his job obsolete, so he traveled to Titusville to research what new materials might be created from the new fuel. This led to his discovery of petroleum jelly, which he trade-named as
Star jelly of grass". <poem>As he whose quicker eye doth trace A false star shot to a mark'd place Do's run apace, And, thinking it to catch, A jelly up do snatch</poem> That the Starres eat...that those falling Starres, as some call them, which are found on the earth in the form of a trembling gelly, are their excrement. When I had taken up what I supposed a fallen star I found I had been cozened with a jelly. <poem>Swift as the shooting star, that gilds the night With rapid transient Blaze, she runs, she flies; Sudden she stops nor longer can