Robert Beardsley Goodyear was born on November 6, 1835, in New Haven County, Connecticut, to Bela Goodyear and Delia Gill. His father was a farmer and custom house inspector. Goodyear attended school in New Haven County before beginning work as a teacher.

 

He enlisted in the Union army in 1862 and mustered in as a sergeant in the 27^th Connecticut Infantry. He took part in the Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. He was reportedly captured sometime in 1863 and taken to a prisoner of war camp in Richmond, Virginia. He was released soon afterward, and he mustered out later in 1863. He remained devoted to the Union, praying in February 1863 that “our great Government may be preserved from treason and anarchy.” The Union, he observed, had cost “our fore-fathers long years of blood and toil,” and if it failed, “all the hope and confidence of the world in the capacity of men for Self Government will be lost.”

 

Goodyear entered Yale Medical School in 1864, and he was appointed resident physician at the state hospital in New Haven the following year. He married Jane Lyman on May 19, 1869, and they had two children: Anna and Robert. Jane passed away in March 1878, and Goodyear married Ellen Hotchkiss on June 26, 1884. He joined the Republican Party and the Grand Army of the Republic, and he was an active member of his local school board for more than thirty years. He died in New Haven County on February 21, 1923.

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