DU PONT DE NEMOURS, EleuthIre Irenee, American manufacturer : b. Paris, 24 June 1771; d. Philadelphia, 31 Oct. 1834; son of the French political economist, Pierre Sam uel Du Pont de Nemours. He was a pupil of Lavoisier and entered the royal powder mills at Essonne to familiarize himself with the manu facture of gunpowder with a view to succeed Lavoisier as superintendent of the government powder mills, but subsequently abandoned this in 1791 to take charge of the printing and pub lishing house established by his father in Paris. Being a supporter of King Louis XVI, he was in the utmost peril after 10 Aug. 1792, and after being three times imprisoned and having his printing house sacked and destroyed, he emi grated with his father's family to the United States in 1799, arriving at New London, Conn., 1 Jan. 1800. Not long after his arrival attention was called to the poor quality of gunpowder then made in this country and he determined to enter into powder manufacture here. With this in view he returned to France, January 1801, to procure at Essonne plans and models of improved machinery, returning to the United States in August with some of the machinery. Thomas Jefferson, who was deeply interested in this development, urged that the works be built in Virginia, but owing to his views regard ing slavery and its effect on the white race Du Pont was unwilling to make his venture either in Virginia or Maryland. In June 1802 he
bought a tract of land with a fine water-power on the Brandywine River, near Wilmington, Del. On 19 July he arrived there with his family and began operations which were so suc cessful that, at the time of his sudden death by cholera, his works were the largest of their kind in the country. Since his death they have been carried on by his sons and grandsons and are still among the largest gunpowder works in this country, while they are the centre of the industrial combination in this industry. He found time also to join every movement tending to promote agricultural and industrial enter prises, and earnestly supported every measure looking toward local improvement. For some time he served as a director of the Bank of the United States; he took a prominent part in the work of the American Colonization Society, and also found time for other philanthropic labors and innumerable private benevolences.