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.