Madame Marie-Therese Cadillac (1671-1740)

In the fall of 1701, Madame Marie-Therese Cadillac’s canoe landed near here. She, her young son and Madame de Tonty had come to help her husband convince both the French and the native people that Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit could be a settlement, not just a fort.

She helped run the settlement, including serving as a nurse to the 200 people who lived at the fort and the 4,000 native people who lived nearby.

Did You Know?

More facts about Madame Marie-Therese Cadillac:
– Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac arrived two months before his wife. He commanded 25 canoes that brought 50 soldiers, 50 workmen, 2 priests and his nine-year-old son to Detroit.
– On February 2, 1704, the first baptism recorded in the books of Ste. Anne’s Church is the daughter of the Cadillacs, Marie Therese.
– Later, French setters established long narrow ribbon farms all along the river.

Henry Ford (1863-1947)

In his late teens, Ford worked in this building as a machinist assistant for the Dry Dock Engine Works, which built marine steam engines and related equipment and machinery. Later he got interested in horseless carriages. He did not invent the automobile or the assembly line. But as founder of the Ford Motor Company, he used the assembly line to mass-produce automobiles, making them affordable for many people.

Did You Know?

More about Henry Ford:

• Ford won his first and only car race on October 10, 1901. He said,
“Boy, I’ll never do that again… I was scared to death!”

– In 1941, Ford unveiled a plastic-bodied car. Soybeans were used in making the plastic. Ford was looking for a way to use agriculture in automobile manufacturing.
– George Washington Carver, head of the agriculture department of the Tuskegee Institute, and ford often shared ideas on using plants for plastics, paint, fuel and even a substitute for rubber.
– In Kingsford, Michigan, Ford used scrap wood from auto parts to make “Ford Charcoal Briquets.” In 1951, investors bought the operation and renamed it “Kingsford Charcoal Briquets.