Henry Ford

            -Henry Ford Henry Ford's parents left Ireland during the potato famine and settled in the Detroit area in the 1840s. Henry Ford, born July 30, 1863, was the first of William and Mary Ford's six children. He grew up on a prosperous family farm in what is today Dearborn, Michigan. Henry enjoyed a childhood typical of the rural nineteenth century, spending days in a one-room school and doing farm chores. At an early age, he showed an interest in mechanical things and a dislike for farm work. He had an intelligent, inquisitive nature and was energized by the huge growth of industry occurring in the Detroit area. He was also an avid experimenter. Once, in order to prove the power of steam, he plugged up the spout of a teakettle full of boiling water and it blew apart! As he grew up his father allowed him to "tinker" with many of the tools on the farm. Ford's mother called him a "born mechanic" and provided him with darning needles and corset stays to make into tools for his watch repair work. Probably the most dramatic event in Henry Ford's life happened in 1876 when he was thirteen years old. While riding with his father in a wagon, they saw a steam engine traveling along the road under its own power! Ford jumped off the wagon and excitedly began to question the driver about this remarkable engine. Used for stationary purposes such as sawing wood, the engine had been mounted on wheels to propel itself. The engineer explained all about the machine and even let Ford fire the engine and run it. Ford later said, "That showed me that I was by instinct an engineer." The seed was planted that there could be a self-propelled vehicle and that thought would haunt his imagination for years. Although he yearned to go to Detroit and work in the machine shops, Ford stayed on the farm helping the family until he was seventeen. Then, with his father's blessing, he moved to Detroit and started working at the Michigan Car Company for $1.