He, however, had no mind to stop here in his experiments, but, selling his furniture and placing his family in a quiet boarding place, he went to New York, and there, in an attic, helped by a friendly druggist, continued his experiments.  His next step in this line was to compound the rubber with magnesia and then boil it in quicklime and water.  This appeared to really solve the problem, and he made some beautiful goods.  At once it was noised abroad that India rubber had been so treated that it lost its stickiness, and he received medals and testimonials and seemed on the high road to success, till one day he noticed that a drop of weak acid, falling on the cloth, neutralized the alkali, and immediately the rubber was soft again.  To see this, with his knowledge of what rubber should do, proved to him at once that his process was not a successful one.  He therefore continued experimenting, and after preparing his mixtures in his attic in New York, would walk three miles to the mill of a Mr. Pike, at Greenwich village, and there try various experiments.

In the line of these, he discovered that rubber, dipped in nitric acid, formed a surface cure, and he made a great many goods with this acid cure which were spoken of, and which even received a letter of commendation from Andrew Jackson.

The constant and varied experiments that Goodyear went through with affected his health more or less, and at one time he came very near being suffocated by gas generated in his laboratory.  That he did not die then everybody knows, but he was thrown then into a fever by the accident and came very near losing his life.

It was there that he formed an acquaintance with Dr. Bradshaw, who was very much pleased with the samples of rubber goods that he saw in Goodyear’s room, and when the doctor went to Europe he took them with him, where they attracted a great deal of attention, but beyond that nothing was done about them.  Now that he appeared to have success, he found no difficulty in obtaining a partner, and together the two gentlemen fitted up a factory and began to make clothing, life preservers, rubber shoes, and a great variety of rubber goods.  They also had a large factory, with special machinery, built at Staten Island, where he removed his family and again had a home of his own.  Just about this time, when everything looked bright, the great panic of 1836-1837 came, and swept away the entire fortune of his associate and left Goodyear without a cent, and no means of earning one.

His next move was to go to Boston, where he became acquainted with J. Haskins, of the Roxbury Rubber Company, and found in him a firm friend, who loaned him money and stood by him when no one would have anything to do with the visionary inventor.  Mr. Chaffee was also exceedingly kind and ever ready to lend a listening ear to his plans, and to also assist him in a pecuniary way.  It was about this time that it occurred to Mr. Chaffee that much of the trouble that they had experienced in working India rubber might come from the solvent that was used.  He therefore invented a huge machine for doing the mixing by mechanical means.  The goods that were made in this way were beautiful to look at, and it appeared, as it had before, that all difficulties were overcome.