In July 1847 Goodyear visited with the first Mormon company traveling west on the Bear River west of Fort Bridger, and he tried to entice them to settle on the Weber River. He was unsuccessful, but in November 1847 James Brown was authorized by the Mormon High Council of Great Salt Lake City to purchase Fort Buenaventura. Brown and Goodyear agreed on a price of $1,950, and the fort, the outbuildings, and all of the animals except Goodyear's horses became Mormon property. The settlement was soon called Brownsville and, later, Ogden.

During the next two years, Goodyear was engaged in horse-trading and gold mining in California. He acquired land at Benecia and made a rich discovery of gold on the Yuba River at "Goodyear's Bar." At the age of thirty-two he became ill and died in the Sierra Nevada on 12 November 1849. He was buried at Benecia, California.

See: Charles Kelly and Maurice L. Howe, Miles Goodyear (1937); Dale Morgan, "Miles Goodyear and the Founding of Ogden," Utah Historical Quarterly 21 (July 1953); William Critchlow III and Richard W. Sadler, Miles Goodyear's Fort Buenaventura (1978).

Richard W. Sadler