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Henry Ford

Early years

Ford was born on July 30, 1863 in a farm next to a rural town west of Detroit, (the area is now part of Dearborn, Michigan). His parents were from distant English descent but had lived in County Cork, Ireland. His siblings include: Margaret Ford (1867-1868); Jane Ford (c1868-1945);
William Ford (1871-1917) and Robert Ford (1873-1934).

Henry took this passion about mechanics into his home. His father had given him a pocket watch in his early teens. At fifteen, he had a reputation as a watch repairman, having dismantled and reassembled timepieces of friends and neighbors dozens of times.[1]

His mother died in 1876. It was a blow that devastated young Henry. His father expected Henry to eventually take over the family farm, but Henry despised farm work.[citation needed] And with his mother dead, Henry Ford, 1888 little remained to keep him on the farm. He later said, "I never had any particular love for the farm. It was the mother on the farm I loved."[2]

In 1879, he left home for the nearby city of Detroit to work as an apprentice machinist, first with James F. Flower & Bros., and later with the Detroit Dry Dock Co. In 1882, he returned to Dearborn to work on the family farm and became adept at operating the Westinghouse portable steam engine. This led to his being hired by Westinghouse company to service their steam engines.
Upon his marriage to Clara Bryant in 1888, Ford supported himself by farming and running a saw mill. They had a single child: Edsel Bryant Ford (1893-1943).

In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company, and after his promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893, he had enough time and money to devote attention to his personal experiments on gasoline engines. These experiments culminated in 1896 with the completion of his own self-propelled vehicle named the Quadricycle, which he test-drove on June 4 of that year. After various test-drives, Henry Ford brainstormed ways to improve the...