The Vagabonds

by Jeff Guinn

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  The friendship between Thomas Edison and Henry Ford was relatively new, though Ford’s personal attachment to the inventor went back almost eighteen years. As a young engineer working for one of Edison’s Detroit companies, in 1896 Ford was introduced to the man he previously admired from afar at a corporate banquet in New York. Ford had dreams of building affordable cars powered by gasoline engines and worked tirelessly on designing one during off-work hours. Recently he’d street-tested his first prototype called “the Quadricycle,” a light wagon mounted on four bicycle wheels and powered by a small gas engine. As Ford gingerly steered the contraption around a few city blocks, a friend on a bicycle rode ahead to move aside pedestrians. Ford used this moment with Edison to describe his fledgling achievement. The older man, as was his custom with all would-be innovators, was encouraging, even though he himself believed that electric- rather than gasoline-powered cars would be the wave of the future. One of Edison’s areas of post-incandescent-bulb research was the attempted development of a car battery that could hold sufficient electrical charge to propel a vehicle more than a few miles.

  Over the years, as Ford founded and failed with two auto manufacturing companies before succeeding with his third, he endlessly reminisced about the meeting and Edison’s words of encouragement: “Young man, that’s the thing. You have it. Keep at it.” Sometimes Ford described even more than that—he’d spent a long time at the banquet, talking with Edison; the two of them sketched things on napkins and shared a short train ride afterward. Ford was almost certainly exaggerating. But no matter how brief or extended this initial contact, his admiration for Edison blossomed into virtual worship as a result. Throughout his own business successes, as his hard work and belief in himself culminated with the Model T and subsequent automobile industry dominance, Ford warmed himself with memories of that encounter with his hero.

  In April 1911, one of Edison’s business offices in Orange, New Jersey, received a letter from a high-level staffer for Henry Ford requesting, on Ford’s behalf, an autographed photo of Mr. Edison. At this point, Ford’s reputation as an innovator (if not inventor—though it wasn’t true, many assumed he’d actually invented the automobile) made him almost as well-known as Edison, and, because Ford was a cannier businessman than his hero, much wealthier. A few days later, one of Edison’s sales managers sent along a photo of Edison, which, besides a signature, included the inscription “To Henry Ford: One of a group of men who have helped to make [the] U.S.A. the most progressive nation in the world.” The sales manager added a note: “I assure you that Mr. Edison was only too glad to do this for Mr. Ford and he wished me to write you expressing his pleasure in doing so, and also inviting you and Mr. Ford to come to Orange at your convenience as he would be very much pleased to meet Mr. Ford.” To Ford, his interaction with Edison in 1896 was inspirational and life-changing. To Edison, it had been a brief encounter with an ambitious fan, not at all unique and instantly forgotten.

  It took some time to arrange a date suitable to Edison’s schedule, but in January 1912 Henry Ford and Thomas Edison met in New Jersey. Ford relished the opportunity to once again trade shop talk. Edison, impressed with Ford’s booming car sales and resulting wealth, had an additional agenda. Though he was far from broke, Edison suffered financial setbacks on some of his own recent endeavors, notably in mining and a plan to build inexpensive houses made entirely of concrete. He now envisioned a monetary comeback by allocating enormous resources to the development of a storage battery so efficient that it would power electric cars up to the distances enjoyed by gas-burners. Edison charmed Ford as he would any potential investor, but at another level he found that he simply enjoyed the automaker’s company. Edison had few close friends; he always suspected that anyone seeking friendship had ulterior motives. But Ford was already far richer than Edison, and almost as famous. There were other things in common—during this visit, they found themselves in complete agreement about the evils of Wall Street and the crass men there who cared only for profit and not for the public. Both were poor boys who made good. Ford was the son of a farmer. Edison left school and went to work on the railroad at age twelve. Neither had a college degree, and both were disdainful of those who believed classroom education was superior to hands-on work experience and common sense. When Edison shared his plans to develop a better storage battery for electric cars, Ford was impressed and willing to partner in the effort. His belief in the ongoing dominance of his gas-powered Model T was strong enough that he didn’t fear competition from manufacturers of electric vehicles.

  Later, Edison followed up the meeting with a letter to Ford. Usually he had business correspondence typed, but this time he wrote in his own flowing, even elegant hand:

  Friend Ford . . . [thank you for] doing a little gambling with me on the future of the Storage Battery. Nothing would please me more than having you join in, it looks as if it had a large future. Of course I could go to Wall Street, but my experience over there is as sad as Chopins Funeral March, [so] I keep away. Yours, Edison

  Ford’s gamble was far from little—some estimates pegged it at anywhere from $750,000 to $1.2 million. In the end, nothing came of it. Edison never perfected a storage battery that fully energized electric cars or created market demand for them, and Ford’s investment was lost. Ford wasn’t upset. He considered it an honor to partner with Edison professionally, and even more to count the inventor as a friend. Like Edison, he didn’t have many. Ford was a prickly man and also a complicated one, burning to make the world better for humanity as a whole while not enjoying personal contact with most individuals. Ford realized that no one other than Edison carried a comparable or even greater burden of public attention and expectation. They understood each other and the pressures on them in a way that no one else could, even their wives.

  The friendship between Edison and Ford blossomed. Though business obligations made it difficult, they were able to occasionally make time to meet in person, usually the Fords dropping in on the Edisons while on trips to the East Coast. On one such occasion in January 1914, Ford and Edison granted a dual interview to a reporter from the New York Times. Ford announced that he and Edison were collaborating on plans for an electric car that should enter production within a year. (It didn’t.) Edison hinted at additional wonders to come from the new partnership, unidentified machinery that would allow workers to accomplish as much in hours as they currently did over several days. “The time is passing when human beings will be used as motors,” he said. The normally reticent Ford concluded the interview with an uncharacteristically effusive tribute to his new, dear friend: “I think Mr. Edison is the greatest man in the world, and I guess everyone does.”

  Mina Edison and Clara Ford got on well, too. Both were fiercely protective of their husbands, and aware of their own presence in the public eye. It was natural, after a year or so of building the relationship, that the Edisons suggested the Fords should join them for a visit in early 1914 at their quaint retreat in Florida. Ford was pleased to accept. He even brought along another of his few close friends.

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  Unlike the near-immediate bond between Ford and Edison in Orange, Ford’s friendship with John Burroughs took considerable time to form. The elderly, opinionated naturalist despised modern technology, cars especially. In speeches and in print, Burroughs predicted that automobiles and their drivers would eventually “seek out even the most secluded nook or corner of the forest and befoul it with noise and smoke.” To him, the popularity of the Model T was the beginning of the end. He described Ford’s brainchild vehicle as “a demon on wheels.” Ford never doubted his own beliefs and decisions, forbidding disagreement from employees and ignoring any from outsiders. But he made an exception for John Burroughs. In general, Ford’s hobby was work. He devoted almost every waking minute to it. But Ford loved birds all of his life and whenever possible set aside time to observe them—the sprawling grounds of his Michigan home included hundreds of birdhouses. Burroughs’s
evocative writings about feathered creatures enthralled him, a rarity for the reading-averse Ford.

  In 1912, aware of the old man’s contempt for cars in general and the Model T in particular, Ford wrote Burroughs a letter. In it he thanked Burroughs for all the pleasure his books had given him, and in return offered to send along a shiny Model T. Perhaps driving one himself would give Burroughs a different perspective. Burroughs grudgingly accepted, with the understanding that his ownership of the car would not be used for any publicity purposes. He initially insisted that his grown son Julian drive him about in it, then after a few weeks took the wheel himself. Burroughs had constant trouble maintaining control of the vehicle. Once he rammed the car into a barn, and Ford sent mechanics to make repairs. But if driving ultimately didn’t suit Burroughs, Henry Ford did. Once the two men met, Burroughs was impressed by Ford’s sincere interest in ornithology and, in fact, most things about nature. Ford, in turn, was starstruck by another person he’d previously admired from afar. They took nature hikes together, with Burroughs acting as all-knowing instructor and Ford proving an eager student.

  In September 1913, Ford convinced Burroughs to take a car trip with him, from the naturalist’s part-time home near Poughkeepsie, New York, to Concord, Massachusetts. Burroughs had introduced Ford to the philosophies (if not the printed words) of Emerson and Thoreau. Now the automaker wanted to see where these New England–based philosophers once lived and worked. Before they left, Ford invited Edison to join them, but the inventor was unable to break away from work in his laboratory. Burroughs, who’d previously roughed it on a well-documented wilderness camping trip in Yellowstone with then-president Theodore Roosevelt, expected more of the same. But Ford arrived with a fleet of cars loaded with servants and equipment. At their camping stops on the way there and back, they slept in large individual tents set up by staffers, enjoyed electric light from portable storage batteries, ate delicious meals prepared by a chef, and dressed each morning in freshly ironed clothes. They made frequent daily stops so Burroughs could point out interesting flowers, plants, and wildlife. Ford was enthralled.

  Burroughs had a fine time, too. Afterward, each man got additional confirmation of how advantageous it was to be friends with the other. Simply by being seen out driving with Burroughs, or having newspapers take note of the outings, Ford sent a message to America. If old-fashioned John Burroughs loved to ride in them, how much more might younger, more progressive individuals savor the kind of outdoor adventures made possible by car ownership? As for Burroughs, he’d learned years earlier during his tramps with Roosevelt that having a famous patron greatly expanded audiences for his books and public lectures. There was more. Burroughs confided to Ford that he feared losing the family farm in Roxbury, New York, where he was raised. Relatives living there struggled to meet hefty mortgage payments. Ford bought the property outright and deeded it to Burroughs. Ford’s generosity toward his few close friends was boundless.

  Edison knew Burroughs only through Ford, but he was pleased to host the naturalist in Fort Myers. Edison used some of his acreage to cultivate fruits and flowers. Burroughs, expert in matters of soil and weather conditions and appropriate care of growing things, made useful suggestions about gardening. Edison was also a budding ornithologist. Prior to departing for Fort Myers, he told the New York Times that while in Florida he expected to join Ford and Burroughs in studying bird life in the Everglades.

  Ford and Burroughs believed that this outing was the main purpose of the trip. All eleven thousand square miles of the Everglades, comprising marshes, sloughs, ponds, and forests, offered tantalizing glimpses of indigenous plants and flowers, along with a varied bird population and innumerable animals and reptiles. The plan, it seemed to them, was to organize an immediate excursion after their Fort Myers arrival into the seldom-explored heart of the Everglades, with Burroughs pointing out and explaining much of what they discovered. They were vaguely aware of certain drawbacks. There were dangerous creatures lurking in the wet and wild, principally alligators and snakes. But if they brought along a few hardy local guides and a gun or two, that threat would be neutralized. Also, there were no roads of any sort plunging even partway into the Everglades, let alone cutting across the whole thing. But Ford was proud of his cars—he’d had several Model Ts shipped to Fort Myers for this very purpose—and felt certain that they could handle the potentially treacherous terrain. Camp conditions would fall far short of those he and Burroughs had enjoyed on their recent New England trip. Ford servants wouldn’t be on hand to cook, clean, and set up and operate storage battery systems for electric lights. Since Model Ts were built with little storage space, equipment would either have to be strapped to the sides or loaded in beside passengers. But the prospect of actually roughing it, sharing some of the same limited road resources as the growing number of humbler Americans setting off on camping trips in their Model Ts or other cars, had its own appeal. Ford, Edison, and Burroughs would be three aging but still physically capable men reveling in real, rugged adventure.

  Ford and Burroughs were eager to set out and assumed that Edison shared their enthusiasm. They were dismayed when their host informed them that he wanted to rest a while first. Edison needed it—a few months earlier, worn down by business stress and his own night-owl work habits, he’d suffered a breakdown. Mina Edison made certain that this was known only to the immediate family. Even Ford may not have been aware of it. Now for several days in Fort Myers, Ford and Burroughs prowled restlessly around the inventor’s estate while Edison lounged inside, listening to music recorded by one of his companies and played on a phonograph manufactured by another. He also leafed through some of the hundreds of books in his Fort Myers library. Edison finally pronounced himself sufficiently refreshed. Ford and Burroughs were ready to leap into the cars.

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  It wasn’t that simple. First, local guides were engaged, and all three—Frank Carson, Les Hibble, and Sam Thompson—warned that the planned ramble was far riskier than the Northern men realized, even before the campers reached the massive Everglades. The region between Fort Myers and the ’Glades was prowled by panthers and bears. The panthers lurked in the brush and made sounds like babies crying. If you were fooled and went to look, you would be attacked. Once in the Everglades, you entered an entirely different world, where the customs and rules of civilization had no meaning. Outsiders had no idea how many gators and snakes really were submerged in pools or out of sight behind brush or tree stumps. In many places the trees and moss were so dense that it was easy to get turned around and lose any sense of direction. Even those familiar with the Everglades occasionally died in there. This was going to be difficult and dangerous.

  Ford, Edison, and Burroughs believed themselves up to it. The guides might be exaggerating, trying to throw a scare into perceived Yankee rubes. Burroughs in particular had dared all kinds of wilderness, from the mountains of Yellowstone to those of New York state, and there were plenty of bears and other fanged, clawed menaces in both places. If you stayed alert, you were fine. They’d come to Florida to explore the Everglades, and that was what they would do.

  At some point, it was determined that Edsel Ford and Charles and Theodore Edison should come along, too. Neither father was especially close to his offspring, and both considered their sons to be somewhat spoiled and unworldly. Edsel was twenty-one, Charles twenty-three, and Theodore sixteen—a rough-and-tumble trip might be just the thing to toughen them up. The young men were enthusiastic at the prospect. Theodore Edison, in particular, loved nature and even kept occasional baby alligators as pets. After some discussion, an area in the ’Glades known as Deep Lake was designated as the trip destination. It lay some sixty miles southeast of Fort Myers. The guides suggested driving about forty miles east to the town of LaBelle, then turning south into the Everglades itself. They’d camp for several days at Deep Lake, studying flowers and fauna by day and warming themselves by a campfire at night. It wasn’t official hunting season in Florida, but in th
e isolated Everglades they could watch for deer and other edible game. Fresh meat for dinner was a pleasant possibility. This latter prospect wasn’t mentioned to Theodore Edison, who was notoriously soft-hearted about four-legged creatures. With everything apparently decided, they prepared to depart. Then came a complication.

  Mina Edison was an educated, opinionated woman. At forty-seven she was twenty years younger than her husband, and while devoted to him and his career, she also respected her own abilities and place in the world. Mina never allowed herself to be described as a “housewife”—women staying at home to raise children and provide support to their husbands were doing important jobs, too. She insisted on being called a “home executive,” and expected to be consulted by her spouse on all important nonlaboratory matters and included in anything she deemed interesting and appropriate. The Everglades trip qualified. It was a romp, not in any sense inventing or manufacturing work. Women deserved the opportunity to enjoy nature and learn about things from Mr. Burroughs just as much as men. Edison and Ford weren’t pleased—part of their incentive for the trip was to temporarily escape the domestic scene. But Mina Edison didn’t waver—the men could argue all they liked, but the ladies were coming, too. Daughter Madeleine Edison was thrilled at the prospect, Ford’s wife, Clara, less so. She was deathly afraid of snakes. But Mina overruled any reptile-related objection—they would have fun. Further, possibly with the intent to drive home the point of female equality to her husband and his male companions, she invited her friend Lucy Bogue and Madeleine’s chum Bessie Krup to come along, as well. They were pleased to accept—going on an outing with the Fords and Edisons was such a privilege. All their friends would surely be jealous.