Henry Ford Industrialist and Founder of the Ford Motor Company

Ford Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan

A Surprising Encounter with Henry Ford

On a walk down a busy thoroughfare, just across from a mobile home park, I came upon something entirely unexpected: a small, meticulously maintained plot of land that turned out to be the final resting place of none other than Henry Ford.

Yes—that Henry Ford. The founder of the Ford Motor Company, one of the most transformative figures of the 20th century, buried in a spot so unassuming you might pass it by without a second glance.

The cemetery shares its grounds with a modest Episcopalian church. As I wandered through, I noticed several other Ford family graves scattered nearby. Eventually, I found Henry and Clara Ford’s burial site. Their plot was bordered with neatly trimmed boxwoods and, most curiously, enclosed by what looked like an ornate metal cage.

Later, I learned this structure is called a mort safe—a device invented in 19th-century Scotland to deter grave robbers. Back then, body snatchers would dig up the newly buried under cover of night and sell the corpses to medical schools for dissection. While it’s unlikely that the Ford family feared such a fate for Henry, the symbolism makes sense. Even in death, the legacy of such a towering figure needed safeguarding.

A British mort safe. 

Henry Ford died in Dearborn, Michigan on April 7, 1947. He was 83.

1863-1947