Early History of Fordson Tractors

Reader Contribution by Sam Moore
Published on October 15, 2018
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One hundred and one years ago, on Oct. 8, 1917, the first of 739,977 Fordson tractors that were to be built there over the next 10 years rolled off the assembly line at the Henry Ford and Son company plant on Brady Street in Dearborn, Michigan. Due to Great Britain’s critical need for tractors to increase food production to ease the threat of starvation caused by the German U-boat blockade during the First World War, the first several thousand of these were sent to the British Ministry of Munitions (MOM) for distribution to farmers. Most of these were without the cast-in Fordson logo on the radiator top tank and were known in England as “MOM” tractors.

After domestic sales began in June of 1918, American farmers, hungry for a lightweight, inexpensive tractor, flocked to Ford dealers to buy Fordsons, with 34,167 being made during the rest of 1918.

Some Fordson owners cursed their new purchases, but many others were quite satisfied with their tractors – one wag said the machines “could do everything except milk a cow, climb a tree, or make love to the hired girl.” A Mississippi farmer wrote to Henry Ford in 1927 and said the Fordson “defeated all competition in that region and would do anything any sensible man or fool wanted done.”

A few Fordson owners even took pen in hand to write a few lines of poetry praising the little Fordson. One of these gems was:
The Fordson on the farm arose before the dawn at four.
It drove the cows and washed the clothes and finished every chore.

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