Charles Goodyear patented vulcanized rubber, spent the profits in court, and died $200,000 in debt on the way to his dying daughter

Charles Goodyear spent years trying to make rubber that would not melt or crack. He funded the work by going into debt, and his family lost everything in the panic of 1837. He sold the household furniture and his children's schoolbooks. He was jailed for debt and mixed chemicals in his wife's kitchen and in a debtors' prison. He patented vulcanization in 1844 as US patent 3,633 and licensed it to manufacturers. Others copied the process, and he spent most of his time and money in court. He hired Daniel Webster to defend the patent, and Webster's fees exceeded what Goodyear earned from it. In Britain, Thomas Hancock had patented the process a few months before Goodyear applied. Goodyear sued for sole ownership and lost. He lost his European patents on technicalities and spent two weeks in a French debtors' prison before Napoleon III gave him the Legion of Honour. In 1860 he travelled to see his dying daughter in New Haven and died in New York on 1 July, about $200,000 in debt. After his death his widow and children earned enough from the royalties to live well. In 1898 a new company in Akron, Ohio, took his name: Goodyear Tire & Rubber. It had no connection to him or his family.