rising was half-past six o'clock in the morning, and he was in his
library alone until breakfast, at eight. He loved to hear the birds in
their native songs, and he could distinguish the notes of each species,
and would speak of the quality of their respective music. He spent most
of the day in reading and writing, rarely taking exercise, except
walking in his garden to visit his graperies, in which he took special
pride, or to the stable to see if his horses were well cared for. He did
not ride out regularly with his family, preferring the repose of his own
grounds and the labors of his study. But when he walked or rode in the
country, he was constantly disposed to speak of the beauty and glory
around him, as revealing to his mind the beneficence, wisdom, and power
of the infinite Creator, who had made all these things for the use and
enjoyment of men.
One of his daughters writes of him in these simple and tender words: "He
loved flowers. He would take one in his hand and talk for hours about
its beauty, its wonderful construction, and the wisdom and love of God
in making so many varied forms of life and color to please our eyes. In
his later years he became deeply interested in the microscope and
purchased one of great excellence and power. For whole hours, all the
afternoon or evening, he would sit over it, examining flowers or the
animalculæ in different fluids. Then he would gather his children about
him and give us a sort of extempore lecture on the wonders of creation
invisible to the naked eye, but so clearly brought to view by the
magnifying power of the microscope. He was very fond of animals, cats,
and birds in particular. He tamed a little flying-squirrel, and it
became so fond of him that it would sit on his shoulder while he was at
his studies and would eat out of his hand and sleep in his pocket. To
this little animal he became so much attached that we took it with us to
Europe, where it came to an untimely end, in Paris, by running into an
open fire."
His biographer, Prime, says of him:
"In person Professor Morse was tall, slender, graceful, and attractive.
Six feet in stature, he stood erect and firm, even in old age. His blue
eyes were expressive of genius and affection. His nature was a rare
combination of solid intellect and delicate sensibility. Thoughtful,
sober, and quiet, he readily entered into the enjoyments of domestic and
social life, indulging in sallies of humor, and readily appreciating and
greatly enjoying the wit of others. Dignified in his intercourse with
men, courteous and affable with the gentler sex, he was a good husband,
a judicious father, a generous and faithful friend. He had the
misfortune to incur the hostility of men who would deprive him of the
merit and the reward of his labors. But his was the common fate of great
inventors. He lived until his rights were vindicated by every tribunal
to which they could be referred, and acknowledged by all civilized
nations. And he died leaving to his children a spotless and illustrious
name, and to his country the honor of having given birth to the only
electro-magnetic recording telegraph whose line has gone out through all
the earth and its words to the end of the world."
[Illustration: Charles Goodyear.]
VI.
CHARLES GOODYEAR.
India-rubber had been known for more than a hundred years when Charles
Goodyear undertook to make of it thousands of articles useful in common
life. So long ago as 1735 a party of French astronomers discovered in
Peru a curious tree that yielded the natives a peculiar gum or sap which
they collected in clay vessels. This sap became hard when exposed to the
sun, and was used by the natives, who made different articles of
every-day use from it by dipping a clay mould again and again into the
liquid. When the article was completed the clay mould was broken to
pieces and shaken out. In this manner they made a kind of rough shoe and
an equally rough bottle. In some parts of South America the natives
presented their guests with these bottles, which served as syringes for
squirting water. Articles thus made were liable to become stiff and
unmanageable in cold weather and soft and sticky in warm. Upon getting
back to France the travellers directed the attention of scientists to
this remarkable gum, which was afterward found in various parts of South
America, and the chief supplies of which still come from Brazil. About
the beginning of the present century this substance, known variously as
cachuchu, caoutchouc, gum-elastic, and india-rubber, was first
commercially introduced into Europe. It was regarded merely as a
curiosity, chiefly useful for erasing pencil-marks. Ships from South
America took it over as ballast. About the year 1820 it began to be used
in France in the manufacture of suspenders and garters, india-rubber
threads being mixed with the material used in weaving those articles.
Some years later Mackintosh, an English manufacturer, used it in his
famous water-proof coats, which were made by spreading a layer of the
gum between two pieces of cloth.
About the same time a pair of india-rubber shoes were exhibited in
Boston, where they were regarded as a curiosity; they were covered with
gilt-foil to hide their natural ugliness. In 1823 a Boston merchant,
engaged in the South American trade, imported five hundred pairs of
these shoes, made by the natives of Para, and found no difficulty in
selling them. In fact, this became a large business, although these
shoes were terribly rough and clumsy and were not to be depended upon;
in cold weather they became so hard that they could be used only after
being thawed by the fire, and in summer they could be preserved only by
keeping them on ice. If during the thawing process they were placed too
near the fire, they would melt into a shapeless mass; and yet they cost
from three to five dollars a pair.
In 1830 E.M. Chaffee, of Boston, the foreman of a patent leather
factory in that city, attempted to replace patent leather by a compound
of india-rubber. He dissolved a pound of the gum in spirits of
turpentine, added to the mixture enough lamp-black to produce a bright
black color, and invented a machine for spreading this compound over
cloth. When dried in the sun it produced a hard, smooth surface,
flexible enough to be twisted into any shape without cracking. With the
aid of a few capitalists, Chaffee organized, in 1833, a company called
the Roxbury India-rubber Company, and manufactured an india-rubber cloth
from which wagon-covers, piano-covers, caps, coats, shoes, and other
articles were made. The product of the factory sold well, and the
success of the Roxbury Company led to the establishment of a number of
similar factories elsewhere. Apparently all who were engaged in the
production of rubber goods were on the highway to wealth.
A day of disaster, however, came. Most of the goods produced in the
winter of 1833-1834 became worthless during the following summer. The
shoes melted to a soft mass and the caps, wagon-covers, and coats became
sticky and useless. To make matters worse they emitted an odor so
offensive that it was necessary to bury them in the ground. Twenty
thousand dollars' worth of these goods were thrown back on the hands of
the Roxbury Company alone, and the directors were appalled by the ruin
that threatened them. It was useless to go on manufacturing goods that
might prove worthless at any moment. India-rubber stock fell rapidly,
and by the end of 1836 there was not a solvent rubber company in the
Union, the stockholders losing about $2,000,000. People came to detest
the very name of india-rubber.
One day, in 1834, a Philadelphia hardware merchant, named Charles
Goodyear, was led by curiosity to buy a rubber life-preserver. And thus
began for this unfortunate genius nearly twenty-five years of struggle,
misery, and disappointment. Charles Goodyear was born in New Haven,
Conn., December 29, 1800. When a boy his father moved to Philadelphia,
where he engaged in the hardware business, and upon becoming of age,
Charles Goodyear joined him as a partner. In the panic of 1836-1837 the
house went down. Goodyear's attention had been attracted for several
years by the wonderful success of the india-rubber companies. Upon
examining his life-preserver he discovered a defect in the inflating
valve and made an improved one. Going to New York with this device, he
called on the agent of the Roxbury Company and, explaining it to him,
offered to sell it to the company. The agent was impressed with the
improvement, but instead of buying it, told the inventor the real state
of the india-rubber business of the country, then on the verge of a
collapse. He urged Goodyear to exert his inventive skill in discovering
some means of imparting durability to india-rubber goods, and assured
him that if he could find a process to effect that end, he could sell it
at his own price. He explained the processes then in use and their
imperfections.
Goodyear forgot all about his disappointment in failing to sell his
valve, and went home intent upon experiments to make gum-elastic
durable. From that time until the close of his life he devoted himself
solely to this work. He was thirty-five years old, feeble in health, a
bankrupt in business, and had a young family depending upon him. The
industry in which he now engaged was one in which thousands of persons
had found ruin. The firm of which he had been a member owed $30,000, and
upon his return to Philadelphia he was arrested for debt and compelled
to live within prison limits. He began his experiments at once. The
price of the gum had fallen to five cents per pound, so that he had no
difficulty in getting sufficient of it to begin work. By melting and
working it thoroughly and rolling it out upon a stone table, he
succeeded in producing sheets of india-rubber that seemed to him to
possess new properties. A friend loaned him enough money to manufacture
a number of shoes which at first seemed to be all that could be desired.
Fearful, however, of coming trouble, Goodyear put his shoes away until
the following summer, when the warm weather reduced them to a mass of so
offensive an odor that he was glad to throw them away. His friend was so
thoroughly disheartened by this failure as to refuse to have anything
more to do with Goodyear's scheme. The inventor, nevertheless, kept on.
It occurred to him that there must be some substance which, mixed with
the gum, would render it durable, and he began to experiment with almost
every substance that he could lay his hands on. All proved total
failures with the exception of magnesia. By mixing half a pound of
magnesia with a pound of the gum he produced a substance whiter than the
pure gum, which was at first as firm and flexible as leather, and out of
which he made beautiful book-covers and piano-covers. It looked as if he
had solved the problem; but in a month his pretty product was ruined.
Heat caused it to soften; fermentation then set in, and finally it
became as hard and brittle as thin glass. His stock of money was now
exhausted. He was forced to pawn all his own valuables and even the
trinkets of his wife. But he felt sure that he was on the road to
success and would eventually win both fame and fortune. He removed his
family to the country, and set out for New York, where he hoped to find
someone willing to aid him in carrying his experiments further. Here he
met two acquaintances, one of whom offered him the use of a room in Gold
Street as a workshop, and the other, a druggist, agreed to let him have
on credit such chemicals as he needed. He now boiled the gum, mixed with
magnesia, in quicklime and water, and as a result obtained firm, smooth
sheets that won him a medal at the fair of the American Institute in
1835. He seemed on the point of success, and easily sold all the sheets
he could manufacture, when, to his dismay, he discovered that a drop of
the weakest acid, such as the juice of an apple or diluted vinegar,
would reduce his new compound to the old sticky substance that had
baffled him so often.
His first important discovery on the road to real success was the result
of accident. He liked pretty things, and it was a constant effort with
him to make his productions as attractive to the eye as possible. Upon
one occasion, while bronzing a piece of rubber cloth, he applied aqua
fortis to it for the purpose of removing part of the bronze. It took
away the bronze, but it also destroyed the cloth to such a degree that
he supposed it ruined and threw it away. A day or two later, happening
to pick it up, he was astonished to find that the rubber had undergone a
remarkable change, and that the effect of the acid had been to harden it
to such an extent that it would now stand a degree of heat which would
have melted it before. Aqua fortis contained sulphuric acid. Goodyear
was thus on the threshold of his great discovery of vulcanizing rubber.
He called his new process the "curing" of india-rubber.
The "cured" india-rubber was subjected to many tests and passed through
them successfully, thus demonstrating its adaptability to many important
uses. Goodyear readily obtained a patent for his process, and a partner
with a large capital was found ready to aid him. He hired the old
india-rubber works on Staten Island and opened a salesroom in Broadway.
He was thrown back for six weeks at this important time by an accident
which happened to him while experimenting with his fabrics and which
came near causing his death. Just as he was recovering and preparing to
begin the manufacture of his goods on a large scale the terrible
commercial crisis of 1837 swept over the country, and by destroying his
partner's fortune at one blow, reduced Goodyear to absolute beggary. His
family had joined him in New York, and he was entirely without the means
of supporting them. As the only resource at hand he decided to pawn an
article of value--one of the few which he possessed--in order to raise
money to procure one day's supply of provisions. At the very door of the
pawnbroker's shop he met one of his creditors, who kindly asked if he
could be of any further assistance to him. Weak with hunger and overcome
by the generosity of his friend the poor man burst into tears and
replied that, as his family was on the point of starvation, a loan of
$15 would greatly oblige him. The money was given him on the spot and
the necessity for visiting the pawnbroker averted for several days
longer. Still he was a frequent visitor to that person during the year,
and one by one the relics of his better days disappeared. Another friend
loaned him $100, which enabled him to remove his family to Staten
Island, in the neighborhood of the abandoned rubber works, which the
owners gave him permission to use so far as he could. He contrived in
this way to manufacture enough of his "cured" cloth, which sold readily,
to enable him to keep his family from starvation. He made repeated
efforts to induce capitalists to come to the factory and see his samples
and the process by which they were made, but no one would venture near
him. There had been money enough lost in such experiments, these
acquaintances said, and they were determined to risk no more.
Indeed, in all the broad land there was but one man who had the
slightest hope of accomplishing anything with india-rubber, and that one
was Charles Goodyear. His friends regarded him as a monomaniac. He not
only manufactured his cloth, but even dressed in clothes made of it,
wearing it for the purpose of testing its durability, as well as of
advertising it. He was certainly an odd figure, and in his appearance
justified the remark of one of his friends, who, upon being asked how
Mr. Goodyear could be recognized, replied: "If you see a man with an
india-rubber coat on, india-rubber shoes, and india-rubber cap, and in
his pocket an india-rubber purse with not a cent in it, that is
Goodyear."
In September, 1837, a new gleam of hope lit up his pathway. A friend
having loaned him a small sum of money he went to Roxbury, taking with
him some of his best specimens. Although the Roxbury Company had gone
down with a fearful crash, Mr. Chaffee, the inventor of the first
process of making rubber goods in this country, was still firm in his
faith that india-rubber would at some future time justify the
expectations of its earliest friends. He welcomed Goodyear cordially and
allowed him to use the abandoned works of the company for his
experiments. The result was that Goodyear succeeded in making shoes and
cloths of india-rubber of a quality so much better than any that had yet
been seen in America that the hopes of the friends of india-rubber were
raised to a high point. Offers to purchase rights for certain portions
of the country came in rapidly, and by the sale of them Goodyear
realized between four and five thousand dollars. He was now able to
bring his family to Roxbury, and for the time fortune seemed to smile
upon him.
[Illustration: Calenders Heated Internally by Steam, for Spreading India
Rubber into Sheets or upon Cloth, called the "Chaffee Machine."]
His success was but temporary, however. He obtained an order from the
general Government for one hundred and fifty india-rubber mail-bags,
which he succeeded in producing, and as they came out smooth, highly
polished, hard, well shaped, and entirely impervious to moisture, he
was delighted and summoned his friends to inspect and admire them. All
who saw them pronounced them a perfect success, but alas! in a single
month they began to soften and ferment, and finally became useless. Poor
Goodyear's hopes were dashed to the ground. It was found that the aqua
fortis merely "cured" the surface of the material, and that only very
thin cloth made in this way was durable. His other goods began to prove
worthless and his promising business came to a sudden and disastrous
end. All his possessions were seized and sold for debt, and once more he
was reduced to poverty. His position was even worse than before, for his
family had increased in size and his aged father also had become
dependent upon him for support.
Friends, relatives, and even his wife, all demanded that he should
abandon his empty dreams and turn his attention to something that would
yield a support to his family. Four years of constant failure, added to
the unfortunate experience of those who had preceded him, ought to
convince him, they said, that he was hoping against hope. Hitherto his
conduct, certainly had been absurd, though they admitted that he was to
some extent excused for it by his partial success; but to persist in it
would be criminal. The inventor was driven to despair, and being a man
of tender feelings and ardently devoted to his family, might have
yielded to them had he not felt that he was nearer than ever to the
discovery of the secret that had eluded him so long.
Just before the failure of his mail-bags had brought ruin upon him, he
had taken into his employ a man named Nathaniel Hayward, who had been
the foreman of the old Roxbury works, and who was still in charge of
them when Goodyear came to Roxbury, and was making a few rubber articles
on his own account. He hardened his compound by mixing a little powdered
sulphur with the gum, or by sprinkling sulphur over the rubber cloth and
drying it in the sun. He declared that the process had been revealed to
him in a dream, but could give no further account of it. Goodyear was
astonished to find that the sulphur cured the india-rubber as thoroughly
as the aqua fortis, the principal objection being that the sulphurous
odor of the goods was frightful in hot weather. Hayward's process was
really the same as that employed by Goodyear, the "curing" of the
india-rubber being due in each case to the agency of the sulphur, the
principal difference between them being that Hayward's goods were dried
by the sun and Goodyear's with nitric acid. Hayward set so small a value
upon his discovery that he readily sold it to his new employer.
Goodyear felt that he had now all but conquered his difficulties. It was
plain that sulphur was the great controller of india-rubber, for he had
proved that when applied to thin cloth it would render it available for
most purposes. The problem that now remained was how to mix sulphur and
the gum in a mass, so that every part of the rubber should be subjected
to the agency of the sulphur. He experimented for weeks and months with
the most intense eagerness, but the mystery completely baffled him. His
friends urged him to go to work to do something for his family, but he
could not turn back. The goal was almost in sight, and he felt that he
would be false to his mission were he to abandon his labors now. To the
world he seemed a crack-brained dreamer, and some there were who, seeing
the distress of his family, did not hesitate to apply still harsher
names to him. Had it been merely wealth that he was working for,
doubtless he would have turned back and sought some other means of
obtaining it; but he sought more. He felt that he had a mission to
fulfil, and that no one else could perform it.
He was right. A still greater success was about to crown his labors, but
in a manner far different from his expectations. His experiments had
developed nothing; chance was to make the revelation. It was in the
spring of 1839, and in the following manner: Standing before a stove in
a store at Woburn, Mass., he was explaining to some acquaintances the
properties of a piece of sulphur-cured india-rubber which he held in his
hand. They listened to him good-naturedly, but with evident incredulity,
when suddenly he dropped the rubber on the stove, which was red hot. His
old clothes would have melted instantly from contact with such heat;
but, to his surprise, this piece underwent no such change. In amazement
he examined it, and found that while it had charred or shrivelled like
leather, it had not softened at all. The bystanders attached no
importance to this phenomenon, but to him it was a revelation. He
renewed his experiments with enthusiasm, and in a little while
established the facts that india-rubber, when mixed with sulphur and
exposed to a certain degree of heat for a specified time, would not melt
or soften at any degree of heat; that it would only char at two hundred
and eighty degrees, and that it would not stiffen from exposure to any
extent of cold. The difficulty now consisted in finding out the exact
degree of heat necessary for the perfecting of the rubber and the exact
length of time required for the heating.
[Illustration: Charles Goodyear's Exhibition of Hard India Rubber Goods
at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, England. (From a print published at the
time.)]
He made this discovery in his darkest days, when, in fact, he was in
constant danger of arrest for debt, having already been a frequent
inmate of the debtors' prison. He was in the depths of bitter poverty
and in such feeble health that he was constantly haunted by the fear of
dying before he had perfected his discovery--before he had fulfilled his
mission. He needed an apparatus for producing a high and uniform heat
for his experiments, and he was unable to obtain it. He used to bake his
compound in his wife's bread-oven and steam it over the spout of her
tea-kettle, and to press the kitchen fire into his service so far as it
would go. When this failed, he would go down to the shops in the
vicinity of Woburn and beg to be allowed to use the ovens and boilers
after working hours were over. The workmen regarded him as a lunatic,
but were too good-natured to deny him the request. Finally he induced
a bricklayer to make him an oven, and paid him in masons' aprons of
india-rubber. The oven was a failure. Sometimes it would turn out pieces
of perfectly vulcanized cloth, and again the goods would be charred and
ruined. Goodyear was in despair.
All this time he lived on the charity of his friends. His neighbors
pretended to lend him money, but in reality gave him the means of
keeping his family from starvation. He has declared that all the while
he felt sure he would, before long, be able to pay them back, but they
have declared with equal emphasis that, at that time, they never
expected to witness his success. He was yellow and shrivelled in face,
with a gaunt, lean figure, and his habit of wearing an india-rubber
coat, which was charred and blackened from his frequent experiments with
it, gave him a wild and singular appearance. People shook their heads
solemnly when they saw him, and said that the mad-house was the proper
place for him.