Alfred I. Du Pont - Divorce and Remarriage

Divorce and Remarriage

During this period, du Pont was involved in a hunting accident that would eventually cost him an eye. The same year, 1906, he divorced his first wife, Bessie. The couple's marriage had never been a happy one, and although du Pont supported his family financially, with $24,000 a year in support, he cut off contact with all but his eldest child, Madeleine du Pont. With a week's eviction notice, he removed them from the family home at Swamp Hall and had it destroyed. This, coupled with du Pont's remarriage to a divorced second cousin in 1907, seriously strained relations between du Pont and other members of his family.

Du Pont's relationship with his second wife, Mary (Alicia) Heyward Bradford (1875–1920), had already been the subject of family scandal, as family members had remarked on the close relationship of the two even before Alicia Bradford's marriage to Du Pont's secretary, George Amory Maddox. Maddox and his wife lived close to du Pont and were frequently visited by him; du Pont and Bradford, who had borne a daughter in the meantime, left their spouses at around the same time and were married two weeks after Bradford's divorce was final. Du Pont's adoption of Bradford's daughter, Alicia Maddox, brought fresh gossip to the family, who largely rallied in support of his first wife, which in turn inspired du Pont to file several lawsuits against family members and friends for slander, all of which were dropped in due time.

Du Pont gave Bradford a new home built on 300 acres (1.2 km2) in Wilmington, Delaware. Construction of the Nemours Mansion and Gardens occurred between 1909 and 1910. The mansion is a five story, 77-room, 47,000 sq ft (4,400 m2) structure that was designed by renowned architects, Carrère and Hastings, who also designed the New York Public Library, New York City's Frick Mansion, and Whitehall, the Henry Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida. The building looks like a French château and the architectural style is Louis XVI. The estate was named after the French town affiliated with his ancestor, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours.

Within short time of the marriage, Bradford bore two children for du Pont, neither of whom long survived.