History of Ford Car 1

“I, will build a motorcar, for the great multitude... it will be so low in price that no man will be unable to own one,” -Henry Ford.

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.

In 1879, sixteen-year-old Ford left home for the nearby city of Detroit to work as an apprentice machinist, although he did occasionally return to help on the farm. He remained an apprentice for three years and then returned to Dearborn. During the next few years, Henry divided his time between operating or repairing steam engines, finding occasional work in a Detroit factory, and over-hauling his father's farm implements, as well as lending a reluctant hand with other farm work. Upon his marriage to Clara Bryant in 1888, Henry supported himself and his wife by running a sawmill.High ideals…. such motives are usually trodden down in the course of one’s life, as a lot of us would have experienced. Thankfully for all of us, Henry Ford’s vision still stands proud, after a whole century has, passed, and allows the whole world to travel in comfort, and in, total privacy. The automobile has take; the world by storm in the years: since Ford's inception, so much so that if aliens ever do land on our planet, they are liable to mistake the car as the dominant life-form within any of our cities. The Fords first emigrated to the New World in 1832, with Samuel and George Ford arriving in Dearborn Township, Michigan from Ballenascarthy village, County Coik, Ireland, leaving their widowed mother and brother John to maintain their land. Like the rest of the pioneering families in the New World, they started hewing out ,a home from the forests. After the death of Samuel Ford, his sons along with George Ford carried on the business and were quite established by 1847. Michigan had also grown along-side, with Detroit housing 20,000 people On hearing about the ever-increasing prosperity in America, the remnants of their family in Ireland sailed down on a particularly tragic voyage. John Ford’s wife died enroute, and he decided to stay,

back in Canada. The rest continued on to Dearborn. William met Mary Litogot here, the attractive adopted daughter of, the Aherns, and. They married on April 25, 1861. The newlyweds shifted into the Aherns’ log house, and William meanwhile constructed a newer, larger house to be occupied by both families, This was ready by 1861, and the whole family moved into this large, 7-room house. William Ford was now an important member of society, and was named justice of the peace, member of the school board and a deacon of the church.

Henry Ford was born into this prosperous family on July 30, 1863. He had a near-perfect upbringing with lessons in the appreciation of nature, and was made to appreciate the value of labour as well. In 1873,

he took a pot of water, tied down the lid, put it to boil and watched for what would happen. As one would expect in our enlightened age, it exploded, in the process scalding the boy. After reaping the benefits of his experimentation in the form of a severe reprimand by his mother, he shifted to slightly more controlled experiments, the first of those being a steam engine made from a can of baking powder, using a watch wheel as the flywheel. This inspired him to experiment with a larger steam engine which he attempted with his classmates at the Miller School (where he was presently enrolled), but it resulted in a boiler explosion, which also partially burned down the fence of the school. He then shifted to more complacent mechanical pursuits, in the form of tinkering with watches with improvised tools he had crafted himself. But the first hint of things automotive was with a steam engine that a Fred Reden had brought into Dearborn. He was allowed to run the engine, and he obviously enjoyed the experience deliriously. Later in the year, he saw a portable steam engine, running on its own power, and promptly jumped off his father’s wagon and set about examining it. This is arguably the moment when the notion of a ‘horseless carriage’ first occured to the young Henry Ford. At the age of 16, he left his father’s farm, not entirely with his approval, and traveled to Detroit to become a machinist’s apprentice and learn about mechanics so that he could get closer to his dreams.