[1][2] Early advertising included catchy phrases such as "Utility is the Basis for Beauty" and "Built for Business" and the famous "Silent Northern".

King, who had an engineering degree from Cornell and had moved to Detroit in 1891, was the chief designer at Oldsmobile but left the company after the 1901 fire at the plant.

[4] The first Northern roadsters produced strongly resembled the curved dash Oldsmobile that both Maxwell and King helped to design.

[4][3] In 1903, Maxwell was lured away by Benjamin Briscoe, and the Maxwell-Briscoe Motor Company in Tarrytown, New York, was formed.

[3] To support the growth, a second plant was opened to build the two-cylinder cars in Port Huron, MI.