The Vagabonds
Page 29
24 The highlight of the Vagabonds’ visit with Calvin Coolidge at his summer home in New Hampshire came when Coolidge (second from left) presented Ford with an antique bucket that was a family heirloom. The president, Ford, Edison, and Firestone all autographed the artifact.
25 Stung by Coolidge’s dismissal of them after an hour’s visit at the president’s summer retreat, the Vagabonds ate an impromptu lunch at the luxurious Woodstock Inn in Vermont. They signed the inn’s guest book with their usual flourishes.
26 For many years, Ford Motor Company’s print advertisements for the Model T spoke directly to consumer demands for dependability and affordability. But by 1924, the public had tired of lookalike Model Ts.
27 Ford dismantled his friend Edison’s laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida, and painstakingly reassembled it in Dearborn, Michigan. Mina Edison never forgave Ford for what she considered an imposition on her husband’s generous nature.
Acknowledgments
Jim Donovan, my agent, continues to have my back. I very much appreciate the ongoing support I enjoy at Simon & Schuster from Bob Bender, Johanna Li, Jon Karp, Stephen Bedford, and Elizabeth Gay, as well as elite copyeditor Fred Chase. The unmatched research team of Andrea Koos, Jim Fuquay, Anne E. Collier, and photographer Ralph Lauer remains intact, assisted this time around by Clara Herrera. In Dearborn, Michigan, I was aided by the student team of Ryan Brim, Paul Oliver, and Brian Aldaco, the latter two representing the amazing LEAP (Center for Law, Engagement and Politics) program at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. Paul Oliver also helped with online newspaper archival research. Special thanks to Mike Yawn, who supervises LEAP. Carlton Stowers and James Ward Lee once again volunteered to read along as I wrote, making critical suggestions throughout.
I was fortunate to be granted interviews and ongoing support from both institutional staff members and area historians all along the Vagabonds’ various routes. It began at the Henry Ford Museum and its Benson Ford Research Center with Matthew G. Anderson, J. Marc Greuther, Melanie Bazil, Nardina Main, Ryan Jelso, Cuong T. Nguyen, and many other helpful staff members, as well as retired staffer/historian Robert Casey. From there, the list includes Robert Kreipke of the Ford Motor Company; Leonard DeGraaf of the Thomas Edison National Historical Park; Paul Israel, director and general editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers, Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences; Brent Newman, curator at Edison and Ford Winter Estates, Fort Myers, Florida; Brian Butko, director of publications for the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh; Glenn Miller, Genevieve Bowen, Ralph Ireland, Randy Briggs, Helen Farrell, Woody Hansen, and Pat Mann of the Southwest Florida Historical Society in Fort Myers; Rebecca Baker at the Luther Burbank Home & Gardens in Santa Rosa, California; Marie Silva and many other staff members at the California Historical Society in San Francisco; Amanda Voithofer of the Summit Inn; Anna R. Cueto, archivist and curator at the Washington County Historical Society in Hagerstown, Maryland; Joseph H. Weaver, executive vice president of the Alleghany Museum in Cumberland, Tennessee, along with local historians Albert Feldstein and Champ Zumbrun; Dr. Terry Mullins in Tazewell, Virginia; Ron Ripley and Craig Mohler in various parts of West Virginia; Nancy Sorrels of the Augusta County Historical Society in Staunton, Virginia; John A. Cuthbert, director of West Virginia University’s West Virginia & Regional History Center; Richard Candee, architectural historian of the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Athenaeum; Matthew Powers, director of the Woodstock (Vermont) Historical Society; William Jenney, regional historic site administrator at the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site in Plymouth, Vermont; Fredda Hankes of the Mecosta County Historical Society Museum in Big Rapids, Michigan; and Jim Chapman, Dave Basch, and Janet Clark in Green Charter Township, Michigan. In every instance, their comments and insights were helpful. Even those not specifically cited in individual chapter notes added to my overall understanding of the places visited by the Vagabonds.
Thanks to Cash, who, as usual, was at my side throughout the writing and editing process.
Everything I write is always for Nora, Adam, Grant, and Harrison.
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About the Author
PHOTOGRAPH BY JILL JOHNSON
JEFF GUINN is an award-winning former investigative journalist and the bestselling author of numerous books, including Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde; The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral—And How It Changed the American West; Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson; and The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. A member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, Guinn lives in Fort Worth, Texas.
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Notes
As a point of general information, from fall 2016 through summer 2018 I drove every surviving road followed by the Vagabonds during their trips. Where those roads no longer existed, I used the modern ones that most closely paralleled them. In every instance, the scenery was spectacular, and if you decide you’d like to spend some vacation days traveling where the Vagabonds did, I’m sure you’ll have a good time. I certainly did.
PROLOGUE: PARIS, MICHIGAN—MID-AUGUST 1923
The date of this prologue is deliberately vague. Newspaper accounts of the Vagabonds’ visit to Jep Bisbee in Paris, Michigan, began appearing on August 18 (in the Battle Creek Enquirer) and then in other newspapers around the country for about two more weeks. Most of the papers ran the same story, which was written by a correspondent for the Associated Press. The August 18 story in the Battle Creek paper makes it likely that Ford and Edison’s Paris stop came on August 17. And in his privately published There to Breathe the Beauty, which includes the only extensive record of where the Vagabonds drove and stopped on every night of their numerous summer trips, Norman Brauer has them visiting Jep in Paris on that date. But Brauer also places Jep and Paris in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, well removed from the actual town in Mecosta County far to the southeast on the other side of Lake Michigan. If they were in the Upper Peninsula on the 17th then they couldn’t have seen Jep on the same day, road conditions and driving times being what they were. That would suggest they were in Paris on August 16. In the grand scheme of things, the date isn’t really that important—what matters is that they met Jep Bisbee and made dazzling promises to him. But given the uncertainty of the date, I’m describing it as “mid-August.”
Much of my description of 1923 Paris comes from on-site interviews with local officials Jim Chapman, Dave Basch, and Janet Clark. The town remains unincorporated.
Unseasonably cool temperatures combined with near-constant rain: Newspaper accounts of the Vagabonds’ 1923 trip all cite this inclement weather.
If most of Michigan eerily resembled a palm-down left hand: I’m aware it can also be compared to a palm-up right hand. Either way, the “lowest joint of the ring finger” still applies.
In only two decades, the number of automobiles in Americas had swelled: Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, Ho
ratio’s Drive, pp. 15–16.
Lincolns and Cadillacs and two other vehicles: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 10, 1923.
from them emerged strapping young men outfitted in matching khaki uniforms: Most of this scene is based on the Battle Creek Enquirer story published August 18, 1923. I also gleaned information from Norman Brauer, There to Breathe the Beauty, p. 197.
Town newspapers throughout the region were full of wishful speculation: An August 10, 1923, article in the Green Bay Press-Gazette is a good example.
he was in the early stages of a nasty cold: Associated Press wire story first published on August 18, 1923.
Firestone and his family, traveling in yet another fine car: Brauer, pp. 192–93.
eighty-one-year-old Jep was the closest thing tiny Paris had: In the Winter 2004–2005 edition of The Old-Time Herald: A Magazine Dedicated to Old-Time Music, Paul Gifford contributes an absolutely delightful story titled “Jasper E. ‘Jep’ Bisbee—Old-Time Michigan Dance Fiddler” that tells all about Jep’s background and briefly describes his August 1923 visit with the Fords and Edisons. I relied on some of that information here, and also on the Associated Press article that ran in newspapers all over the country.
It was well-known among Ford associates: Henry Ford loathed “modern” music, especially jazz. He also detested dances like the Charleston, which he considered lewd. Ford thought such things corrupted America’s youth. Martin Gilbert, A History of the Twentieth Century, Vol. I, 1900–1993, p. 699; Bill Bryson, One Summer: America 1927, p. 239; James Newton, Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh, p. 103.
Ford himself enjoyed sawing away: David L. Lewis, The Public Image of Henry Ford: An American Folk Hero and His Company, p. 227.
Charlie Montague couldn’t stop crowing: Battle Creek Enquirer, August 18, 1923.
CHAPTER ONE: 1914
Most of the studies of the Vagabonds present their epic car trips as beginning in 1915 in California. I believe that’s because this was the year that newspapers began reporting on their stops along the way, entertaining readers with accounts and photos of the nation’s greatest men picking their way along rugged roads and camping by streams just as many rank-and-file American car owners had begun to do. But Edison, Ford, and Burroughs took automobile vacations well before that—Edison and his family toured Europe and New England by car, and Ford and Burroughs took their 1913 driving trip to New England. I cite the abbreviated 1914 Everglades excursion as the first Vagabonds trip because Ford, Edison, and Burroughs were on it together, with the intent of seeing interesting sights without a specific daily agenda. No reporters went along, which was just as well, since Ford and Edison would not have appreciated the rest of the U.S. learning how they looked half-drowned in swamp water. But Ford, Edison, and Burroughs thought, all in all, that it had been fun despite all that went wrong. In the future they’d factor in weather, proper camp locations, the necessity of at least rudimentary roads, and places to replenish supplies or buy necessities they either forgot to bring or learned that they would need along the way. Nineteen fourteen in the Everglades was the time where the soon-to-be-dubbed Vagabonds learned all the things not to do on their subsequent car trips.
It was especially challenging to research this chapter. In all other years, the Vagabonds’ excursions were extensively covered by the press—accounts that appeared on national newswires and stories by local reporters and made it relatively easy to track day-to-day progress. There are no such helpful articles describing the two-day debacle in the Everglades.
Fortunately, there were other sources. Staff at the Benson Ford Research Center (part of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan), Paul Israel at Rutgers University, Leonard DeGraaf at Thomas Edison National Historical Park, and Brent Newman of the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers were all exceptionally well-informed and immensely helpful. I also enjoyed a lengthy visit with members of the Southwest Florida Historical Society in Fort Myers—Glenn Miller, Genevieve Bowen, Ralph Ireland, Randy Briggs, Helen Farrell, Woody Hansen, and Pat Mann. (For brevity’s sake, in specific notes their contributions will be collectively cited as “SWFLHS.”) The 1914 plat map in the society’s library made it possible to gauge almost exactly where the five-car Vagabonds caravan entered the Everglades, and to follow their swampy route toward Big Lake. Over a century later, it was still hard going, and there were plenty of opportunities to observe alligators at uncomfortably close range.
Finally, four books contain excellent descriptions of Fort Myers in 1914 and the Vagabonds’ adventures there and in the Everglades that year. If you want every conceivable detail, I recommend The Story of Fort Myers by Karl H. Grismer, Edison and Ford in Florida by Mike Cosden, Brent Newman, and Chris Pendleton, and, most of all, The Florida Life of Thomas Edison by Michele Wehrwein Albion and The Edisons of Fort Myers: Discoveries of the Heart by Tom Smoot.
two thousand people swarmed around the train depot: Michele Wehrwein Albion, The Florida Life of Thomas Edison, pp. 74–75.
An Oldsmobile Model S tipped the scales: Christopher Wells, Car Country: An Environmental History, pp. 46–48.
Fort Myers itself was mostly populated: My description of the town, and of Edison’s arrival and property purchase there, is derived from several sources. Tom Smoot, The Edisons of Fort Myers: Discoveries of the Heart, pp. 1–27; Mike Cosden, Brent Newman, and Chris Pendleton, Edison and Ford in Florida, pp. 7–35; Karl H. Grismer, The Story of Fort Myers, p. 114; Albion, The Florida Life of Thomas Edison, p. xvii; Brent Newman interview; SWFLHS interviews.
Edison soon made an announcement: Brent Newman and SWFLHS interviews; Albion, pp. 42–50; Smoot, p. 41; Grismer, pp. 115–16.
Edison pledged to buy the trees: Smoot, pp. 81–86; Albion, pp. 67–69; SWFLHS interviews.
The train was late: Smoot, pp. 112–14; Albion, pp. 74–77.
In April 1911, one of Edison’s business offices: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 2; Robert Conot, Thomas A. Edison: A Streak of Luck, pp. 381–83; Randall Stross, The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World, pp. 235–38, 250–53; Neil Baldwin, Edison: Inventing the Century, pp. 321–23.
Later, Edison followed up the meeting: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 3.
Ford announced that he and Edison were collaborating: New York Times, 1/11/1914.
Ford’s friendship with John Burroughs: Robert Casey interview; Robert Kreipke interview; Edward Renehan Jr., John Burroughs: An American Naturalist, pp. 23–27; Ford R. Bryan, Friends, Families & Forays: Scenes from the Life and Times of Henry Ford, pp. 44–46; Shannon Wianecki, “When America’s Titans of Industry and Innovation Went Road-Tripping Together,” Smithsonian Magazine, January 2016.
Ford convinced Burroughs to take a car trip: Renehan, p. 273.
he told the New York Times: New York Times, 1/22/1914.
he’d suffered a breakdown: Conot, p. 406.
Edison lounged inside, listening to music: New York Times, 3/7/1914.
It wasn’t that simple: SWFLHS and Brent Newman interviews.
Mina Edison was an educated, opinionated woman: Brent Newman and SWFLHS interviews.
Early on Saturday morning: Photographer Ralph Lauer and I, aided by a 1914 plat map, approximately followed the Vagabonds’ trail from Fort Myers into the Everglades. With the exception of some decent roads in (though not along some of the Vagabonds’ route!) and areas cordoned off by park services, conditions are essentially unchanged. So some of the physical descriptions of the Everglades in this chapter come from firsthand observation. Otherwise, everything I write about the two-day trip in February 1914 comes from interviews with Brent Newman, the SWFLHS, and, above all, the excellent books by Mike Cosden, Brent Newman, and Chris Pendleton (pp. 62–64); Michele Wehrwein Albion (pp. 74–81); and Tom Smoot (pp. 116–27). If you’re intrigued by this chapter, I urge you to track down and read their work. Publishing information for all three books
can be found in the bibliography here.
Only Charles Edison and Burroughs wanted to stay: As will be demonstrated in subsequent chapters, John Burroughs was a world-class griper on the Vagabonds’ trips. In camps far more luxurious than the soggy stop in the Everglades, Burroughs whined about everything from the mattress on his cot to the chilliness of summer winds everyone else found warm and soothing. There is absolutely no way he was a good sport and willing to stay soaked in the Everglades. I suspect that, among all the campers on this trip, Burroughs was the most determined to get back to Fort Myers at all possible speed, and that he voted along with Charles Edison to stick it out only after he was certain the majority would vote to leave. Of course, he was quite elderly by 1914. One imagines that he was tougher in his younger years.
Ford also had a request: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 3; New York Times, 5/11/1914; Smoot, pp. 127–28; Stross, pp. 239–41; Steven Watts, The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century, pp. 327–28; New York Times, 5/12/14.
An advertising agent employed by Philip Morris Cigarettes: Pittsburgh Leader, 7/9/1914, courtesy of the Edison collection at Rutgers University.
Edison routinely employed smokers: Stross, p. 240.
Then, in early December: Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, p. 432; Leonard DeGraaf, Edison and the Rise of Innovation, p. 195; Newton, 16; Stross, p. 231; Watts, pp. 335–36. It’s important to note that although James Newton writes that he was personally told by Edison that Ford’s on-the-spot loan was $750,000, other historians believe it to have been $100,000. Since Ford was estimated to have a personal fortune of $100 million (approximately $1.8 billion in modern-day dollars), he could easily have afforded either sum.