SKETCH OF CHARLES GOODYEAR. 699 



years, I should have given up in despair if I had not read a sketch of 

 vour father's life." 



In 1853 he published, for friends and private circulation, and 

 made entirely of rubber. Gum Elastic and its Varieties, with a De- 

 tailed Account of its Application and Uses, and of the Discovery of 

 Vulcanization, copies of which, we are informed, are still in exist- 

 ence. With better instincts for business and willingness to stop and 

 gather the fruits of his labors, as friends often urged, Goodyear might 

 have realized an immense fortune. But almost every^vhere he was 

 unfortunate in protecting his rights. Hancock had to admit that he 

 saw the first sample of vulcanized rubber in the hands of Goodyear's 

 agent; yet, both in England and France (where Hancock's process 

 had been introduced), rights were lost through technical difSculties, 

 He spent thirty thousand dollars on his beautiful exhibit at the 

 London Exposition in 1851, and obtained a medal. In 1852 he 

 went with his family to Europe to establish his patents and improve 

 and introduce articles manufactured under them. His wife died in 

 a foreign land, and in 1854 he married Fanny Wardell, of London. 

 Foreseeing the importance of hard rubber, he was the more easily in- 

 duced to make a lavish display at the Paris Exposition in 1855, 

 where, at an expense of fifty thousand dollars, he exhibited inlaid 

 rubber furniture, jewelry, ornaments, carved caskets, painted panels, 

 etc., obtaining a grand medal, and later a ribbon of the Legion of 

 Honor. 



The exposition and his agents' mismanagement abroad and dis- 

 honesty at home drew him into gTcater financial difiiculties, and he 

 was imprisoned in Paris for debt. Lack of experienced workmen 

 and necessary heavy machinery in Vienna, the reversal of a favorable 

 decision by a French court, failures in the United States affecting 

 European houses, and a decline in rubber manufacture, all con- 

 tributing to embarrass his condition, he was obliged to renew his 

 loans on ruinous terms. From April, 1856, to May, 1858, he resided 

 at Bath, worried by debts, a prey, even then, of the pawnbroker, tor- 

 mented by the gout, yet still experimenting with life-saving appli- 

 ances. He would have been extremely poor had not his patent been 

 extended for seven years soon after. By the winter of 1859, besides 

 his home in IsTew Haven, he had a residence in Washington fitted 

 with a large bath for trying the life-saving boats and apparatus upon 

 whose perfection he was so intent. Thus, when he might at last have 

 rested, he could not, as his mind was constantly dwelling on the needs 

 and perils of mankind. It is curious that he should have been last 

 employed with a life-preserver, the subject which had engaged his 

 attention at the outset. With a friend he started for Connecticut to 

 see his dying daughter, going by steamer, on account of his delicate 



