ANNIVERSARY OF BIRTH OF HENRY FORD

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30145, 31 May 1963, Page 9

ANNIVERSARY OF BIRTH OF HENRY FORD

’THE hundredth anniversary at the birth of Henry Ford will be celebrated this year.

The founder of the Ford Motor Company was bom in Springswells township, Wayne County, Michigan, on July 30. 1863, * son of William and Mary Ford. He was the eldest in a family of four boys and two girls. His father

was a native of Bandon. County Cork, who came to America in 1847 and settled on a Wayne County farm. . . . . . Ford showed an early and £'* rest “ mechanics From the age of 12 he spent mo< * °f his spare time m a small machine shop which he had equipped. There, at 15, he constructed his first steam

Later, he became a machanwt** apprentice in Detroit in the shops of Janies F. Flower and Bros, and in the plant of the Detroit Dry Dock Company. Accompliahat amateur watch repairing he ooce formulated a f or manufacture of f r .„ v ™. ns ,; vp watches on a his apprenticeship in 1882, he spent a year setting up and repairing Westinghouse steam engines in Southern Michigan. In July, 1891, he was employed as an engineer by the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit He became its chief engineer on November 1, 1893. He was married to Clara J. Bryant of Greenfield, Michigan, on April 11, 1888. Mrs Ford, the daughter of Melvin Bryant, a Wayne County farmer, died on September 29, 1950, at the age of 84. They had one son, Edsel Bryant Ford, born on November 6, 1893.

Mr Ford’s career as a builder of cars dated from the winter of when his interest in internal combustion engines led him to construct a small one-cylinder petrol model. This first Ford engine sputtered its way into history on a wooden table in the kitchen of the Ford home in Detroit. From that, he designed an engine which, mounted on a frame fitted with four bicycle wheels, became his first car. This first Ford car was completed in June, 1896.

The first Ford was built in a shed behind his house, and was known as the Quadricycle. After it was completed. Ford had to knock bricks out of the wall of the shed in order to get the machine on to the street for its trial run. At first, the Quadricycle chassis was nearly all of wood but, later in its life, Ford strengthened much of it with ipetal parts. The car had ,a four horsepower twocylinder engine, rubbertyred bicycle wheels and a 45-inch wheelbase. It created such a sensation in the streets of Detroit that Ford had to chain it to lamp posts whenever he left it. On August 19, 1899, he resigned from the Edison Illuminating Company and, with others, organised the Detroit Automobile Company, taking one-sixth of its

stock and becoming its Chief engineer. The company was forced into bankruptcy a year and a half later. Meanwhile, he designed and built several racing cars, with one of which he beat Alexander Winton in a notable race on the Grosse Pointe track, Michigan, on October 10, 1901. In another car. the famous 999, he established a world record for the mile, covering the distance in 39.4 sec. on January 12, 1904, on the winter ice of Lake St Clair.

On June 16, 1903, he helped organise Ford Motor Company. The first car built by the company was sold on July 23, 1903. Henry Ford owned 25i per cent, of the stock in the new organisation. He became president and controlling owner in 1906. Then, in 1919, Mr Ford and his son, Edsel, acquired the interest of all minority stockholders for 105,568,858 dollars thus becoming sole owners of the company. Edsel, who succeeded his father as president earlier that year, continued to oc-

cupy that position until his death in 1943, at which time Henry Ford returned to the active direction of the company. The Ford Motor Company’s first manufacturing plant, where Ford’s first production car was built, was on Mack avenue in Detroit.

The company’s entire working force numbered only 40, but in the first 15 months after the company was formed it made and sold 1700 cars.

The first car was produced in 1903, but by 1904 the old Mack avenue factory was too small. Late in 1904, the company moved to a new plant in Piquette avenue which was *lO times the size of the Mack avenue factory. At this time, the building of the cars was still a primitive operation. Engines, frames, and bodies were assembled separately, brought together and set on wooden horses where individual cars were completed. Only 10 or 15 such jobs went on at the same time in the Piquette plant

(To be continued)