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.