(Times Tribune District Bureau)
Detroit, Jan. 24, 1927 - The "Who's Who" of the original stockholders of the Ford Motor Co. at the time of the incorporation on June 14, 1903, contained the names of two mechanics, two machinists, two bookkeepers, two lawyers, a real estate agent, a building contractor, a coal dealer and a grocer - bank president - the latter two the only ones in any sense ranked as capitalists. The thirteenth potential stockholder, a young woman back in Canada, occupation spinster, whose one share interest was carried in her brothers name at the time, was not present when the roster of subscribers to the infant company was called in a room in the old Russell House that sweltering June evening.
Here is the roster as it stood then and, so far as can be ascertained, as it stands today.
The one mechanic was Henry Ford, of whom nothing more need be said. The second was Charles H. Bennett, now president of the Daisy Air Rifle company, in Plymouth, Mich. When Alex Y. Malcomson, Mr. Ford's original partner, was requested by the board of directors to retire from the company because he had interested himself in production of a competing automobile, Mr. Bennett, who had become interested through Mr. Malcomson, chose to retire too and sold his $3,000 worth of stock, par value for $25,000.
No Comparison
It is of interest to note that Mr. Bennett's original subscription had been in the form of a three months note for that amount, also that the air rifle company, in which he subsequently invested part of the proceeds from the sale of his stock, has never returned profits to compare with those of the concern which he was originally interested.
The two machinists were John and Horace Dodge, who took $10,000 worth of stock between them in part payment on their contact to manufacture motors for the first cars produced by the company. They started their own automobile company about ten years after, sold out their Ford stock to Mr. Ford in 1919 after a court fight over dividend policy which split the Ford company wide open, and died several years ago, heads of a business which sold for the largest amount ever figuring in an American business transaction.
The two bookkeepers were James Couzens, then working for $100 a month, now United States senator from Michigan and one of the country's richest men, and Charles J. Woodall, who worked in the Malcomson coal business and was induced by Mr. Malcomson to put in his note for $1,000 in payment for ten shares of stock. He too lost confidence in the new company when Mr. Malcomson was forced out and sold his ten shares to Mr. Ford for $5,000. Mr. Couzens held on until 1919, having charge of the finances of the company under Mr. Ford, and then sold out his holdings, for approximately $29,500,000. His original 24 shares for which he paid $900 in cash and a note for $2,500, had in the meantime increased to 2,180 through the purchase of 85 shares from colleagues who retired and through the twentyfold watering of the stock of the company in 1908.
Retired on Fortune
The two lawyers were Horace Rackham and John W. Anderson, law partners in the firm which attended to Mr. Malcomson's local business and were induced by him to invest each in $5,000 worth of stock of the new company. They are retired lawyers now, enjoying fortunes of millions built up exclusively on the proceeds of their $5,000 investments. Mr. Anderson raised his money by borrowing through his father from a bank in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Rackham borrowed $3,500 on real estate which he owned, then very suburban but now part of built up Detroit, and covered the remainder of $1,500 by his "open account" for legal services.
The real estate agent was Vernon C. Fry, cash investor to the extent of $3,000 and subscriber to $2,000 more in stock "on tick," covered by his note of hand. He too sold out at the time of the Malcomson clean out of stockholders in 1906, getting $25,000 for his fifty shares. He continued his faith in the Ford enterprise to the extent of investing heavily in the Ford Motor Company of Canada, and is now owner of a large block of stock in that company.
The building contractor was Albert Strelow, "paper" investor of $3,000 in Ford stock, which he covered by his note later redeemed from the early profits of the company. Mr. Strelow got the gold mining fever, disregarded the lessons of the celebrated lecture on "Acres of Diamonds" all around us, and sold his stock to Couzens for $25,000 which he sank in a gold mine in British Columbia. It is one of the legends of the automobile Bagdad that a few years ago Mr. Strelow suggested, perhaps ruefully, perhaps wishfully, that he wished to go to work for the Ford company.
The coal dealer - was Alex Y. Malcomson, who financed Mr. Ford with the $7,000 that enabled him to build his first experimental machines and who was an equal partner, under the "Ford Partnership Agreement Limited" drafted in August, 1902. In all the rights, profits and emoluments arising from the development of the Ford automobile. This share and share alike partnership agreement was still in force when the Ford Motor Co., was incorporated the next year and thereafter, down to the time of Mr. Malcomson's forced retirement from the company. Under it the two partners held jointly 51 per cent of the stock of the company, representing the Ford patents, machinery and contracts. Mr. Malcomson is dead; his sons continue to run one of the large Detroit coal concerns, which, however does not return profits on the Ford scale.
The banker was John S. Gray, president of the German-American State bank, who with true banker caution agreed to finance the new company to the extent of $10,500 in stock only if Mr. Malcomson would personally guarantee him against any loss on the investment. Mr. Gray died before Henry Ford bought out the remaining stockholders in the company in 1919. Three sons and a daughter sold out his holdings, then grown to 2,100 shares and divided the proceeds equally among themselves.
Below, investors with Henry Ford at Lake St. Clair for Fords world record mile run in 1904: