CHARLES GOODYEAR.
In the year 1735, a party of astronomers, sent by the French Government
to Peru for purposes of scientific investigation, discovered a curious
tree growing in that country, the like of which no European had ever
seen before. It grew to a considerable size, and yielded a peculiar sap
or gum. It was the custom of the natives to make several incisions in
each tree with an ax, in the morning, and to place under each incision a
cup or jar made of soft clay. Late in the afternoon, the fluid thus
obtained was collected in a large clay vessel, each incision yielding
about a gill of sap per day. This process was repeated for several days
in succession, until the tree had been thoroughly drained. This sap was
simply a species of liquid gum, which, though clear and colorless in its
native state, had the property of becoming hard and tough when exposed
to the sun or artificial heat. It was used by the natives for the
manufacture of a few rude and simple articles, by a process similar to
that by which the old-fashioned "tallow-dip" candles were made. It was
poured over a pattern of clay or a wooden mold or last covered with
clay, and successive coatings were applied as fast as the former ones
dried, until the article had attained the desired thickness, the whole
taking the shape of the mold over which the gum was poured. As the
layers were applied, their drying was hastened by exposure to the heat
and smoke of a fire, the latter giving to the gum a dark-black hue.
Dried without exposure to the smoke, or by the sun alone, the gum became
white within and yellowish-brown without. The drying process required
several days, and during its progress the gum was ornamented with
characters or lines made with a stick. When it was completed, the clay
mold was broken to pieces and shaken out of the opening. The natives in
this manner made a species of rough, clumsy shoe, and an equally rough
bottle. In some parts of South America, the natives make it a rule to
present their guests with one of these bottles, furnished with a hollow
stern, which serves as a syringe for squirting water into the mouth in
order to cleanse it after eating. The articles thus made were liable to
become stiff and unmanageable in cold weather, and soft and sticky in
warm. The French astronomers, upon their return to their own country,
were quick to call attention to this remarkable gum, which was afterward
discovered in Cayenne by Trismau, in 1751. At present it is found in
large quantities in various parts of South America, but the chief
supplies used in commerce are produced in the province of Para, which
lies south of the equator, in Brazil. It is also grown largely in the
East Indies, vast and inexhaustible forests of the trees which yield it
being found in Assam, beyond the Ganges, although the quality can not
compare with that of the South American article.
This substance, variously known as cachuchu, caoutchouc, gum elastic,
and India-rubber, was first introduced into Europe in 1730, where it was
regarded merely as a curiosity, useful for erasing pencil marks, but
valueless for any practical use. Ships from South America brought it
over as ballast, but it was not until ninety years after its first
appearance in Europe that any effort was made to utilize it. 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 materials used in
weaving those articles. It was also used in blacking and varnish, and
some years later, Mackintosh brought it into prominent notice by using
it in his famous water-proof coats, which were made by spreading a layer
of the gum between two pieces of cloth. The gum was thus protected from
the air, and preserved from injury.
Up to this time, it was almost an unknown article in the United States,
but in 1820 a pair of India-rubber shoes were exhibited in Boston. Even
then they were regarded as merely a curiosity, and were covered with
gilt foil to hide their natural ugliness. In 1823, a merchant, engaged
in the South American trade, imported five hundred pairs from the Para
district. He had no difficulty in disposing of them; and so great was
the favor with which they were received, that in a few years the annual
importation of India-rubber shoes amounted to five hundred thousand
pairs. It had become a matter of fashion to wear these shoes, and no
person's toilet was complete in wet weather unless the feet were incased
in them; yet they were terribly rough and clumsy. They had scarcely any
shape to them, and were not to be depended on in winter or summer. In
the cold season they froze 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; and if, during the thawing process, they were
placed too near the fire, there was danger that they would melt into a
shapeless and useless mass. They cost from three to five dollars per
pair, which was very high for an article so perishable in its nature.
The great popularity of India-rubber induced Mr. E.M. Chaflee, of
Boston, the foreman of a patent leather factory in that city, to attempt
to apply the new substance to some of the uses to which patent leather
was then put. His hope was that, by spreading the liquid gum upon cloth,
he could produce an article which, while possessing the durability and
flexibility of patent leather, would also be water-proof. His
experiments extended over a period of several months, during which time
he kept his plan a secret. He dissolved a pound of the gum in three
quarts of spirits of turpentine, and added to the mixture enough
lamp-black to produce a bright black color, and was so well satisfied
with his compound, that he felt sure that the only thing necessary to
his entire success was a machine for spreading it properly on the cloth.
Like a true son of New England, he soon overcame this difficulty by
inventing the desired machine. His compound was spread on the cloth, and
dried in the sun, producing a hard, smooth surface, and one sufficiently
flexible to be twisted into any shape without cracking. Mr. Chaffee was
now sure that he had mastered the difficulty. Taking a few capitalists
into his confidence, he succeeded so well in convincing them of the
excellence of his invention, that in February, 1833, a company, called
the "Roxbury India-rubber Company," was organized, with a capital of
thirty thousand dollars. In three years this sum was increased to four
hundred thousand dollars. The new company manufactured India-rubber
cloth according to Mr. Chaffee's process, and from it made wagon-covers,
piano-covers, caps, coats, and a few other articles, and, in a little
while, added to their list of products shoes without fiber. They had no
difficulty in disposing of their stock. Every body had taken the
"India-rubber fever," as the excitement caused by Mr. Chaffee's
discovery was called; and so high were the hopes of the public raised by
it, that buyers were found in abundance whenever the bonds of the
numerous India-rubber companies were offered for sale. The extraordinary
success of the Roxbury Company led to the establishment of similar
enterprises at Boston, Framingham, Salem, Lynn, Chelsea, Troy, and
Staten Island. The Roxbury Company could not supply the demand for its
articles, and the others appeared to have as much business as they could
attend to. Apparently, they were all on the high road to wealth.
Their prosperity was only fictitious, however, and a day of fearful
disaster was pending over them. The bulk of the goods produced in 1833
and 1834 had been manufactured in the cold weather, and the greater part
of them had succumbed to the heat of the ensuing summer. The shoes had
melted to a soft mass, and the caps, wagon-covers, and coats had become
sticky and useless in summer, and rigid in the cold of winter. In some
cases the articles had borne the test of one year's use, but the second
summer had ruined them. To make the matter worse, they emitted an odor
so offensive that it was necessary to bury them in the ground to get rid
of the smell. Twenty thousand dollars' worth were thrown back on the
hands of the Roxbury Company alone, and the directors were appalled by
the ruin which threatened them. It was useless for them to go on
manufacturing goods which might prove worthless at any moment; and, as
their capital was already taxed to its utmost, it was plain that unless
a better process should be speedily discovered, they must become
involved in irretrievable disaster. Their efforts were unavailing,
however. No better process was found, and the disgust of the public with
their goods was soon general and unmitigable. India-rubber stock fell
rapidly, and by the end of the year 1836 there was not a solvent company
in the Union. The loss of the stockholders was complete, and amounted in
the aggregate to two millions of dollars. People came to detest the
very name of India-rubber, since it reminded them only of blighted hopes
and heavy losses.
Before the final disaster, however, it chanced that a bankrupt merchant
of Philadelphia, being one day in New York on business, was led by
curiosity to visit the salesroom of the agency of the Roxbury Company in
that city. His visit resulted in the purchase of a life-preserver, which
he took home with him for the purpose of examining it. Subjecting it to
a careful investigation, he discovered a defect in the valve used for
inflating it, and promptly devised a simpler and better apparatus.
This man, afterward so famous in the history of India-rubber
manufacture, was CHARLES GOODYEAR. He was born at New Haven,
Connecticut, on the 29th of December, 1800. He attended a public school
during his boyhood, thus acquiring a limited education. When quite a
youth, he removed with his family to Philadelphia, where his father
entered into the hardware business. Upon coming of age, he was admitted
to partnership with his father and one of his brothers, the style of the
firm being A. Goodyear & Sons. The house was extensively engaged in the
manufacture of hardware, and among the other articles which they
introduced was a light hay-fork, made of spring steel, which gradually
took the place of the heavy wrought iron implement formerly in general
use among the farmers. It required a large outlay and a great deal of
time to introduce this fork, but, once in use, it rapidly drove the old
one out of the market, and proved a source of considerable profit to its
inventor. The prosperity of the house, however, soon began to wane, and
it was brought to bankruptcy by the crisis of 1836.
Mr. Goodyear's attention had for some time been attracted to the
wonderful apparent success of the India-rubber companies of the country,
and he was hopeful that his improvement in the inflating apparatus of
the life-preserver would bring him the means of partially extricating
himself from his difficulties. Repairing to New York, he called on the
agent of the Roxbury Company, and explaining his invention to him,
offered to sell it to the company. The agent was struck with the skill
displayed in the improvement of Mr. Goodyear, but, instead of offering
to buy it, astounded the inventor by informing him of the real state of
the India-rubber trade of the country. He urged Mr. Goodyear to exert
his inventive skill to discover some means of imparting durability to
India-rubber goods, and assured him that if he could discover a process
which would secure that end, the various companies of the United States
would eagerly buy it at his own price. He explained to him the process
then in use, and pointed out its imperfections. Mr. Goodyear listened
carefully to his statements, forgot all about his disappointment in
failing to sell his improved inflating apparatus, and went home firmly
convinced that he had found his true mission in life. In after years,
when success had crowned his labors, he modestly referred to this period
of his career in language the substance of which is thus recorded:
"From the time that his attention was first given to the subject, a
strong and abiding impression was made upon his mind that an object so
desirable and important, and so necessary to man's comfort, as the
making of gum elastic available to his use was most certainly placed
within his reach. Having this presentiment, of which he could not divest
himself under the most trying adversity, he was stimulated with the
hope, of ultimately attaining this object. Beyond this, he would refer
the whole to the great Creator, who directs the operations of the mind
to the development of properties of matter, in his own way, at the time
when they are specially needed, influencing some mind for every work or
calling."
There was something sublime in the attitude of this one man, now feeble
in health, the only dependence of a young family, a bankrupt in
business, starting out to seek success in a field in which so many had
found only ruin. He was convinced in his own mind that he would master
the secret, while his friends were equally sure that he would but
increase his difficulties. The firm of which he had been a member had
surrendered all their property to their creditors; but they still owed
thirty thousand dollars, and immediately upon his return from New York,
after his visit to the agent of the Roxbury Company, he was arrested for
debt, and though not actually thrown in jail, was compelled to take up
his residence within prison limits.
Strong in the conviction before named, that he was the man of all others
to discover the secret of controlling India-rubber, he at once began his
experiments. This was in the winter of 1834-35. The gum had fallen in
price to five cents per pound, and, poor as he was, he had no difficulty
in procuring a sufficient quantity to begin with. By melting and working
the gum thoroughly, and by rolling it upon a stone table with a
rolling-pin, he succeeded in producing sheets of India-rubber which
seemed to him to possess the properties which those of Mr. Chaffee had
lacked. He explained his process to a friend, who, becoming interested
in it, loaned him the money to manufacture a number of shoes, which at
first seemed all that could be desired. Fearful, however, of meeting the
fate which had befallen the Roxbury Company, Mr. Goodyear put his shoes
away until the next summer, to ascertain whether they would bear the
heat. His doubts were more than realized. The warm weather completely
ruined them, reducing them to a mass of so offensive an odor that he was
glad to throw them away.
The friend of the inventor was thoroughly disheartened by this failure,
and refused to have any thing more to do with Goodyear's schemes; but
the latter, though much disappointed, did not despair. He set to work to
discover the cause of his failure, and traced it, as he supposed, to the
mixing of the gum with the turpentine and lamp-black. Having procured
some barrels of the gum in its native liquid state, he spread it on
cloth without smoking it or mixing it with any thing else. He succeeded
in producing a very handsome white rubber cloth, but it was one that
became soft and sticky as quickly as the other had done.
It now occurred to him that there must be some mineral 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 these
proved total failures, with the exception of magnesia. By mixing half a
pound of magnesia with a pound of the gum, he produced a compound much
whiter than the pure gum, and one which was at first as firm and
flexible as leather. He made book-covers and piano-covers out of it, and
for a time it seemed that he had discovered the longed-for secret; but
in a month his pretty product was ruined. The heat caused it to soften;
then fermentation set in, and, finally, it became as hard and brittle as
thin glass.
His friends, who had aided him at first, now turned from him coldly,
regarding him as a dreamer; and his own stock of money was exhausted. In
his extremity he was forced to pawn all his own valuables, and even some
of the trinkets of his wife. In spite of this, he felt sure that he was
on the road to success, and that he would very soon be enabled to rise
above his present difficulties, and win both fame and fortune. He was
obliged for the time, however, to remove his family to the country,
depositing with his landlord, as security for the payment of the first
quarter's rent, some linen which had been spun by his wife, and which he
was never able to redeem. Having settled his family in the country, he
set out for New York, where he hoped to find some one willing to aid him
in extending his researches still further.
Arrived in the great city, he found two old acquaintances, to whom he
stated his plans and his hopes. One of them offered him the use of a
room in Gold Street, as a laboratory, and the other, who was a druggist,
agreed to let him have such chemicals as he needed on credit. He now
proceeded to boil the gum, mixed with magnesia, in quicklime and water,
and, as the result, obtained sheets of his compound whose firmness and
smoothness of surface won them a medal at the fair of the American
Institute in 1835. He seemed now on the point of success, and readily
disposed of all the sheets he could manufacture. The newspapers spoke
highly of his invention, for which he obtained a patent; and he was
about to endeavor to enlist some persons of means in its manufacture on
a large scale, when, to his dismay, he discovered that a single drop of
the weakest acid, such as the juice of an apple, or diluted vinegar,
would utterly destroy the influence of the lime in the compound, and
reduce it to the old sticky substance that had baffled him so often.
His next step was to mix quicklime with the gum. In order to work the
compound thoroughly, he used to carry the vessel containing it, on his
shoulder, to a place three miles distant from his laboratory, where he
had the use of horse power. The lime, however, utterly destroyed the
gum, and nothing came of this experiment.
The discovery which followed was the result of accident, and brought him
on the very threshold of success, yet did not entirely conquer his
difficulties. He was an ardent lover of the beautiful, and it was a
constant effort with him to render 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 the
bronze from a certain part. It took away the bronze as he had designed,
but it also discolored the cloth to such a degree that he supposed it
ruined, and threw it away. A day or two later, he chanced to remember
that he had not examined very closely into the effect of the aqua fortis
upon the rubber, and thereupon instituted a search for it. He was
fortunate enough to find it, and was overjoyed to discover that the
rubber had undergone a remarkable change, and that the effect of the
acid was to harden it to such an extent that it would now stand a degree
of heat which would have melted it before. When the reader remembers
that aqua fortis is a compound two-fifths of which is sulphuric acid, he
will understand that Mr. Goodyear had almost mastered the secret of
vulcanizing rubber. He does not appear, however, to have known the true
nature of aqua fortis, and called his process the "curing" of
India-rubber by the use of that acid.
The "cured" India-rubber was subjected to many tests, and passed through
them successfully, thus demonstrating its adaptability to many important
uses. Mr. 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 commence the manufacture of his goods on a large scale, the
terrible commercial crisis of 1836 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 enough 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 fifteen dollars 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 individual during the year; and thus, one by one, the
relics of his better days disappeared. Another friend loaned him one
hundred dollars, 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 as 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, they 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 any thing 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, an India-rubber cap, and in
his pocket an India-rubber purse, with not a cent in it, that is
Goodyear."
In September, 1836, 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 such a fearful crash, Mr. Chaffee, the inventor of the process
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 Mr. Goodyear cordially, and allowed him to use the abandoned
works of the company for his experiments. The result was that Goodyear
succeeded in making slides 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.
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, they said, 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 now 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 lie 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, 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 on 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 sulphur, the
principal difference between them being that Hayward's goods were dried
by the sun, and Goodyear's with nitric acid. Hay ward set so small a
value upon his discovery that he had readily sold it to his new
employer.
[Illustration: AN AMAZING REVELATION.]
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; but to the Great Eye that reads all hearts, how different
did this man appear! It saw the anguish that wrung the heart of Charles
Goodyear, and knew the more than heroic firmness with which, in the
midst of his poverty and suffering, he agonized for the great discovery.
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 was striving for the good of his fellow-men, and
ambitious of becoming a benefactor of the race. He felt that he had a
mission to fulfill, and 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 that this revelation came to him, and in the following
manner: Standing before a stove in a store at Woburn, Massachusetts, 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 cloths 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 shriveled, 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 certain time, would not melt or even 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 degree of cold. The
difficulty now consisted in finding out the exact degree of heat
necessary for the perfection of the rubber, and the exact length of time
required for the heating.
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 debtor's 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. His poverty was a greater drawback to him than ever before. 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 as far as it
would go. When this failed, he would go 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 mason's 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
declared with equal emphasis that, at that time, they never expected to
witness his success. He was yellow and shriveled 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.
The winter of 1839-40 was long and severe. At the opening of the season,
Mr. Goodyear received a letter from a house in Paris, making him a
handsome offer for the use of his process of curing India-rubber with
aqua fortis. Here was a chance for him to rise out of his misery. A year
before he would have closed with the offer, but since then he had
discovered the effects of sulphur and heat on his compound, and had
passed far beyond the aqua fortis stage. Disappointment and want had not
warped his honesty, and he at once declined to enter into any
arrangements with the French house, informing them that although the
process they desired to purchase was a valuable one, it was about to be
entirely replaced by another which he was then on the point of
perfecting, and which he would gladly sell them as soon as he had
completed it. His friends declared that he was mad to refuse such an
offer; but he replied that nothing would induce him to sell a process
which he knew was about to be rendered worthless by still greater
discoveries.
A few weeks later, a terrible snow-storm passed over the land, one of
the worst that New England has ever known, and in the midst of it
Goodyear made the appalling discovery that he had not a particle of fuel
or a mouthful of food in the house. He was ill enough to be in bed
himself, and his purse was entirely empty. It was a terrible position,
made worse, too, by the fact that his friends who had formerly aided him
had turned from him, vexed with his pertinacity, and abandoned him to
his fate. In his despair, he bethought him of a mere acquaintance who
lived several miles from his cottage, and who but a few days before had
spoken to him with more of kindness than he had received of late. This
gentleman, he thought, would aid him in his distress, if he could but
reach his house, but in such a snow the journey seemed hopeless to a man
in his feeble health. Still the effort must be made. Nerved by despair,
he set out, and pushed his way resolutely through the heavy drifts. The
way was long, and it seemed to him that he would never accomplish it.
Often he fell prostrate on the snow, almost fainting with fatigue and
hunger, and again he would sit down wearily in the road, feeling that he
would gladly die if his discovery were but completed. At length,
however, he reached the end of his journey, and fortunately found his
acquaintance at home. To this gentleman he told the story of his
discovery, his hopes, his struggles, and his present sufferings, and
implored him to aid him. Mr. Coolidge[A]--for such was the gentleman's
name--listened to him kindly, and after expressing the warmest sympathy
for him, loaned him money enough to support his family during the severe
weather, and to enable him to continue his experiments.
[Footnote A: O.B. Coolidge, of Woburn.]
"Seeing no prospect of success in Massachusetts, he now resolved to make
a desperate effort to get to New York, feeling confident that the
specimens he could take with him would convince some one of the
superiority of his new method. He was beginning to understand the causes
of his many failures, but he saw clearly that his compound could not be
worked with certainty without expensive apparatus. It was a very
delicate operation, requiring exactness and promptitude. The conditions
upon which success depended were numerous, and the failure of one
spoiled all.... It cost him thousands of failures to learn that a little
acid in his sulphur caused the blistering; that his compound must be
heated almost immediately after being mixed, or it would never
vulcanize; that a portion of white lead in the compound greatly
facilitated the operation and improved the result; and when he had
learned these facts, it still required costly and laborious experiments
to devise the best methods of compounding his ingredients, the best
proportions, the best mode of heating, the proper duration of the
heating, and the various useful effects that could be produced by
varying the proportions and the degree of heat. He tells us that many
times when, by exhausting every resource, he had prepared a quantity of
his compound for heating, it was spoiled because he could not, with his
inadequate apparatus, apply the heat soon enough.
"To New York, then, he directed his thoughts. Merely to get there cost
him a severer and a longer effort than men in general are capable of
making. First he walked to Boston, ten miles distant, where he hoped to
borrow from an old acquaintance fifty dollars, with which to provide for
his family and pay his fare to New York. He not only failed in this, but
he was arrested for debt and thrown into prison. Even in prison, while
his father was negotiating to procure his release, he labored to
interest men of capital in his discovery, and made proposals for
founding a factory in Boston. Having obtained his liberty, he went to a
hotel, and spent a week in vain efforts to effect a small loan. Saturday
night came, and with it his hotel bill, which he had no means of
discharging. In an agony of shame and anxiety, he went to a friend and
entreated the sum of five dollars to enable him to return home. He was
met with a point blank refusal. In the deepest dejection, he walked the
streets till late in the night, and strayed at length, almost beside
himself, to Cambridge, where he ventured to call upon a friend and ask
shelter for the night. He was hospitably entertained, and the next
morning walked wearily home, penniless and despairing. At the door of
his house a member of his family met him with the news that his youngest
child, two years old, whom he had left in perfect health, was dying. In
a few hours he had in his house a dead child, but not the means of
burying it, and five living dependents without a morsel of food to give
them. A storekeeper near by had promised to supply the family, but,
discouraged by the unforeseen length of the father's absence, he had
that day refused to trust them further. In these terrible circumstances,
he applied to a friend upon whose generosity he knew he could rely, one
who never failed him. He received in reply a letter of severe and
cutting reproach, inclosing seven dollars, which his friend explained
was given only out of pity for his innocent and suffering family. A
stranger who chanced to be present when this letter arrived sent them a
barrel of flour--a timely and blessed relief. The next day the family
followed on foot the remains of the little child to the grave."
He had now reached the lowest ebb of his misery, and a brighter day was
in store for him. Obtaining fifty dollars from a relative, he went to
New York, where he succeeded in interesting in his discovery two
brothers, William and Emory Rider. They agreed to advance him a certain
sum to support his family and continue his experiments. By means of this
aid he was enabled to keep his family from want in the future, and from
that time his experiments never flagged. Before entire success crowned
his efforts, the brothers Rider failed; but he had advanced his
experiments so greatly that his brother-in-law, William De Forrest, a
rich woolen manufacturer, came to his support, and supplied him with the
means to go on with his labors. Mr. De Forrest's total advances amounted
to forty-six thousand dollars, from which fact the reader may gain some
idea of the obstacles overcome by Goodyear in this last stage of his
invention.
The prize for which he had labored so long and so heroically was secured
at last, and in 1844, ten years after the commencement of his
experiments, he was able to produce perfectly vulcanized India-rubber
with expedition and economy, and, above all, with certainty. He had won
a success which added a new material to art and commerce, and one which
could be applied in a thousand different ways, and all of them useful to
man. But great as his success was, he was not satisfied with it. To the
end of his life his constant effort was to improve his invention, and
apply it to new uses. He had an unlimited faith in its adaptability,
believing that there was scarcely any article of general use that could
not be made of it. Upon one occasion he read in a newspaper that twenty
persons perished every hour by drowning. The statement impressed him
deeply, and his wife noticed that for several nights he scarcely slept
at all. "Try to compose yourself, and sleep," she said to him. "Sleep!"
he exclaimed, "how can I sleep when twenty human beings are drowning
every hour, and I am the man that can save them?" And at this time it
was his constant endeavor to invent some article of India-rubber which
could be easily carried by travelers, and which would render it
impossible for them to sink in water.
Having brought his process to a successful completion in this country,
and obtained patents for it, he went to Europe to secure similar
protections in the principal countries of the Old World. "The French
laws require that the patentee shall put and keep his invention in
public use in France within two years from its date. Goodyear had, at
great inconvenience and expense, endeavored to comply with this and with
all other requirements of the French laws, and thought he had
effectually done so; but the courts of France decided that he had not in
every particular complied with the strict requisitions of the law, and
that, therefore, his patent in France had become void. In England he was
still more unfortunate. Having sent specimens of vulcanized fabrics to
Charles Mackintosh & Co., in 1842, and having opened with them a
negotiation for the sale of the secret of the invention or discovery,
one of the partners of that firm, named Thomas Hancock, availing
himself, as he admits, of the hints and opportunities thus presented to
him, rediscovered, as he affirms, the process of vulcanization, and
described it in a patent for England, which was enrolled on May 21,
1844, _about five weeks after_ the specification and publication of the
discovery to the world by Goodyear's patent for vulcanization in France.
And the patent of Hancock, held good according to a peculiarity of
English law, thus superseded Goodyear's English patent for
vulcanization, which bore date a few days later. Goodyear, however,
obtained the great council medal of the exhibition of all nations at
London, the grand medal of the world's exhibition at Paris, and the
ribbon of the Legion of Honor, presented by Napoleon III."
In his own country, Mr. Goodyear was scarcely less unfortunate. His
patents were infringed and violated by others, even after the decision
of the courts seemed to place his rights beyond question. He was too
thoroughly the inventor and too little the man of business to protect
himself from the robberies of the wretches who plundered him of the
profits of his invention. It is said that his inability to manage sharp
transactions made him the victim of many who held nominally fair
business relations with him. The United States Commissioner of Patents,
in 1858, thus spoke of his losses:
"No inventor, probably, has ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, so
plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the
parlance of the world, with no exaggeration of phrase, as 'pirates.' The
spoliation of their incessant guerrilla warfare upon his defenseless
rights have, unquestionably, amounted to millions."
Failing to accomplish any thing in Europe, Mr. Goodyear returned to this
country, and continued his labors. His health, never strong, gave way
under the continued strain, and he died in New York in July, 1860, in
the sixtieth year of his age, completely worn out. Notwithstanding his
great invention--an invention which has made millions for those engaged
in its manufacture--he died insolvent, and left his family heavily in
debt. A few years after his death an effort was made to procure from
Congress a further seven years' extension of his patent for
vulcanization, for the benefit of his family and his creditors. The men
who had trampled his rights under foot while living were resolved,
however, that he should not have justice done him in death; and, through
their influence, that august body, in strange contrast with its usual
lavish generosity in the matter of land grants and the like, coldly
declined to do any thing for the family of the man to whom civilization
owes so much, and the effort proved abortive.
But, though unfortunate in a pecuniary sense, though he died without
freeing himself from the embarrassments which haunted him through life,
there can be no question that Charles Goodyear richly merits the place
which we have given him in this gallery of "Our Self-made Men;" not only
on account of the great merit and usefulness of his discovery or
invention, but because that invention has been the source of many a
"great fortune" to others, as it might, indeed, have been to him, had
his rights been respected, or properly protected when infringed. It is
sad to reflect that he died poor who has given wealth to so many, and
accomplished results so beneficent to mankind. Yet he did not fail
entirely of his reward in life; he lived to see his invention give rise
to large factories in the United States, and in England, France, and
Germany, which employ sixty thousand operatives, and produce over five
hundred different kinds of articles, to the amount of eight millions of
dollars annually. He lived to see boots and shoes, clothing, caps, hats,
articles of commerce and of pleasure, mechanical, scientific, and
surgical instruments, toys, belting for machinery, packing for the
steam-engine, and many other articles now in common use, made of the
material, the discovery and perfection of which cost him long and
sorrowful years of toil. He lived to hear his name mentioned by millions
as one of their greatest benefactors; to know that he had conferred upon
the world benefits of which those who had robbed him could not deprive
his fellow-men; and to feel that he had at length accomplished his
mission--a mission which has been productive of good alone.
[Illustration: "THE MADHOUSE IS THE PROPER PLACE FOR HIM."]