Henry Bourne Joy
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Henry Bourne Joy (November 23, 1864 in Detroit, Michigan - November 6, 1936) was President of the Packard Motor Car Company.
Joy's father was involved with the great railroad push to Missouri, and hired Abraham Lincoln to assist him with mergers. Joy graduated from Yale University in 1892, and began his career as an office boy with Peninsular Car Company. His involvement with Packard came about when he bought one of its cars. Impressed by its reliability, he visited James Ward Packard at his Warren, Ohio headquarters. Packard told him he and his brother William Dowd Packard needed more capital. Joy enlisted a group of investors that included his brother-in-law, Truman Handy Newberry. On October 2, 1902, the Ohio Automobile Company became Packard Motor Car Company, with James as president, and was moved to Detroit. Joy became general manager and later chairman of the board.
His belief that the national prohibition of alcohol would lead to a safer, healthier and better society led him to be very active in the Anti-Saloon League. However, after the social experiment was implemented he saw first-hand some of its negative cosequences. For example, Treasury agents twice came onto his land and destroyed the property of his elderly watchman looking for illegal alcohol. Then a fisherman boating near Joy's house was fatally shot by an agent because he couldn't hear over the noise of his motor the demand of the agent that he stop and be searched for contraband beverage. Joy's testimony to the United States Congress contributed to the success of the movement for the repeal of prohibition in 1933.
A monument to Joy along the Lincoln Highway at the Continental Divide was dedicated on July 2, 1939. His great-grandson, Henry Bourne Joy IV, is a film maker and drives on the PRO-Rally circuit.
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[edit] Source
- Kyvig, David Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
