"The subject line stuffing box got me intrigued"

Me too.

As an oilfield roughneck in my summer jobs in college days, I learned that this was the packing assembly in the wellhead of a pumped oilwell, where the "polished rod" from the pumpjack passed through. The stroke on those things often exceeded 10 feet, and the stuffing box had to handle high temperatures and high pressures.

Art's Wikipedia reference shows that these devices were used on any number of shafts to seal fluids under pressure, including steam locomotive piston rods. The stuffing box has been around a long time.
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Bob: Son's XC70, my 83 240, 89 745 (V8) and XC60. Also '77 MGB and some old motorcycles