The goal might be an attic room or shed to live in rent free, or a few dollars for a barrel of flour for the family and a barrel of rubber for himself, or permission to use a factory's ovens after hours and to hang his rubber over the steam valves while work went on.

From Woburn in 1839, the year of his great discovery, he went to Lynn, from Lynn back to the deserted factory at Roxbury.

Again to Woburn, to Boston, to Northampton, to Springfield, to Naugatuck; in five years as many removes.

When he lacked boat or railway fare, and he generally did, he walked through winds and rains and drifting snow, begging shelter at some cottage or farm where a window lamp gleamed kindly.
Goodyear took out his patent in 1844.

The process he invented has been changed little, if at all, from that day to this.