Henry Ford On July 30, 1863, Mary (Litogot) and William Ford gave birth to Company in Springwells Township, Wayne County, Michigan. In a family of four boys and two girls, he was the eldest of six children. His father was an Irish immigrant from County Cork who moved to Wayne County in 1847.

Henry Ford was fascinated by mechanics from a young age. By the age of 12, he was spending most of his free time in a tiny machine shop that he had set up himself. His first steam engine was built there when he was 15 years old.

Later, in Detroit, he worked as a machinist’s apprentice at the shops of James F. Flower and Brothers and the Detroit Dry Dock Company’s plant. He spent a year putting up and fixing Westinghouse steam engines in southern Michigan after completing his apprenticeship in 1882. He joined the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit as an engineer in July 1891. On November 6, 1893, he became chief engineer. Henry Ford would consider Thomas Edison to be a longtime friend and mentor.

He left the Edison Illuminating Company on August 19, 1899, and formed the Detroit Automobile Company with others, which went bankrupt 18 months later. Henry Ford, on the other hand, designed and manufactured several race cars. On October 10, 1901, he defeated Alexander Winton in one of them, the Sweepstakes, at a racetrack in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. On January 12, 1904, he set a world record for the mile in another of his racing vehicles, the 999, when he completed the distance in 39.4 seconds.

Following a cerebral haemorrhage, Henry Ford died at his Dearborn home, Fair Lane Estate, at 11:40 p.m. on Monday, April 7, 1947. He had died at the age of 83 years. Clara Ford and their home workers sat by his bedside. Flooding on the Rouge River, which runs through Fair Lane’s grounds, had knocked out electricity at the time of his death.