Copied from The Life of Miles Goodyear, by Wayne LeRoy Venable, Master of Science Thesis for U of U, 1966.

Pg 2 – In 1805, Andrew [Goodyear] married Patty Bradley.  Six children resulted from this union.  William, the eldest, was followed by Eliza, Titus, Polly, Miles Morris, and Andrew.  Miles^6 was born in Hamden on February 24, 1817.  Two years after Miles was born, Andrew died.  His death, on October 16, 1819, was three months before his wife gave birth to their last child.  Patty passed away on April 17, 1821, two years following the tragic death of her husband.  William was only fourteen years of age at the time.  Miles was three years old, and Andrew was an infant of fifteen months.^7

                        6. Throughout his life he was known as Miles or Mr. Miles by most of his associates.

                       7. Grace Goodyear Kirkman, Genealogy of the Goodyear Family (San Francisco: Cubery & Co., 1899), p. 182.  This is the most authoritative work on the early life of the Goodyear family.  However, some of the dates are in error.

Pg 3 – The orphaned children were divided among relatives and families who could afford to keep them. Miles lived in this manner for six years.  At age ten, he was indentured to the family of Ward Peck, a prosperous farmer in North Haven.  His articles of indenture, ending at age sixteen, were summed up as “board and clothes, schooling and physic, and a suit when dismissed.”^8

            Life was tolerable, but seldom enjoyed by the bound boys.  They were scoffed at and abused by their peers, adopted siblings, and overseers, who were often brutal in their dealings.  Being an outsider in a family generally brought the unpleasant chores and the tasks not favored by the regular members of the family.

            “Good year’s schooling was little, indeed; probably less than any of the other obligations farmer Peck was holden for.  Such as it was came from the historic old red house on North Haven green.”^9  Miles, however, took his lessens at school seriously, developing a liking for poetry and geography.  Books on exploration and discovery suited his adventurous spirit.  These books listed the vast area in the heart of the North American Continent as the Great American Desert.^10  “This unknown area became the [EOP]

                        8. Ibid, p. 189

                        9. Ibid.

                       10. The first American geography schoolbook to indicate the existence of the Great American Desert appeared in 1824, and showed it extending from the Mississippi Valley to the eastern slope of the Rockies.   As the area became more fully settled and explorers and travelers better acquainted with other parts of the West, the region marked “Desert” retreated westwardly.  W. Eugene Hollon, The Great American Desert: Then and Now (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 11.

Pg 4 – pole about which his entire thoughts circled.”^11 Out of his thoughts and studies developed an intense desire to visit the unexplored west.

            Miles listened to the news as tales of western adventure began to spread.  He read all he could about the trails and travels of those who had been there.  “The names of Bridger, Ashley, Smith, the Sublette brothers, Fitzpatrick, and many others, had become well known to the people of New England through the newspapers and magazines.”^12  He began to plan for the day he would be free to venture into this little known domain.

                       11. Kirkman, loc. Cit.

                       12. Milton R. Hunter, Beneath Ben Lomond’s Peak (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1944), p. 42