Eleuthère Irénée du Pont
de Nemours (June 24, 1771 - October 31,
1834) was a French chemist who
came to the United States in 1800, and
founded what is now the E.I. du Pont de Nemours
Company -- Du Pont -- one of the oldest
corporations in the United States.
Irénée was born in Nemours,
south of Paris, the son of the French
economist and political writer
Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and Nicole
Marie Louis le Deé. He took an
interest in chemistry due to his father's
associate, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, who
shared the leftist political leanings of his
father. Lavoisier was a chemist who ran
the French government's powder works at
Essone, and the younger du Pont was
apprenticed to him in 1787.
Irénée was eventually promoted
to first assistant in Lavoisier's laboratory.
However, both Lavoisier and the elder du
Pont were caught up in
the French Revolution. Lavoisier had
made enemies among some of those in power
during the revolution, and he was beheaded
in 1794, in a purge of French scientists and
intellectuals of the ancien régime. Earlier,
when Lavoisier was
removed from his position at the gunpowder
works in 1791, Irénée was fired along with
him, and took up work at the elder du Pont's printing
house. Samuel du Pont was a proponent of
constitutional monarchy, and was attacked as
a counterrevolutionary by the
Jacobins for his views.
Irénée's older brother
Victor was the French Consul General and
frequently visited the United States on
diplomatic matters; he had a good opinion
of the new republic, so Samuel and the
entire du Pont family eventually fled to the
United States in 1799, arriving on
New Year's Day, 1800.
The family settled temporarily in New Jersey,
and while there, Irénée
found that American gunpowder was very
expensive and of low quality while hunting with
friends. This sparked
his interest in starting his
own powder mill, using what he had learned from
Lavoisier in France. He acquired land along
the Brandywine River in northern Delaware,
where he founded his first black powder mill --
the Eleutherian Mills -- in 1802. The
Brandywine River (more the size of a large creek)
was not navigable, but due to the number of natural
falls throughout that region, was an ideal location
to set up a millworks. It was also very close to
the ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia.
The du Pont mills produced their first powder
in 1804, and soon orders for powder skyrocketed,
driven by domestic demand, particularly by the new
nation's military. Eventually, du Pont became
the largest gunpowder supplier in the United States,
particularly during the War of 1812. The company
started out deeply in debt due to the large capital
outlays required for mill construction and technical
improvements, and was threatened with liquidation
by Irénée's French creditors.
However, Irénée eventually made
the company profitable, and ran it until his death
in 1834 in Philadelphia. He had seven children:
sons Alfred, Henry, and Alexis, and daughters
Victorine, Evelina, Eleuthera, and Sophie. All
seven children inherited part ownership in
the company, though only the sons ran it.
The family continues as one of the more
important political and economic "dynasties"
in the US.
The Brandywine mills still exist, though
production stopped in 1921. The mills
and nearby estate now make up the
Hagley Museum north of Wilmington --
many of the old du Pont estates (including
Winterthur) were converted to museums and
public parks over the years. The modern day
du Pont company headquarters and the du Pont
Experimental Station lie on a plateau on the
opposite side of the Brandywine River, less
than a mile from the old mills.
Sources: Personal experience -- I grew up in
Wilmington, and visited the Hagley Museum on
many school field trips. It is not far from
where I used to live, and is a good place for
hiking. More factual info taken from an excellent
bio at http://www.chemheritage.org/HistoricalServices/eminentchemists/EIduPont/eidupont.htm,
du Pont's website at http://www.dupont.com/corp/overview/history.index.html,
and the Columbia Encyclopedia at http://www.bartleby.com/65/du/DuPont-E.html