Eleutherian Mills - History

History

Jacob Broom built a cotton mill on the site in 1795. The mill burned down in 1797 and in 1802 he sold the site, complete with a working dam and millrace to Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, who paid $6,740 for the 95 acres (380,000 m2).

The first domestic supplies of high-quality gunpowder were made in the USA by E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. The company was founded in 1802 by E.I. du Pont, two years after he and his family left France to escape the French Revolution.

They set up the Eleutherian gunpowder mill on the Brandywine Creek just north of Wilmington, Delaware, based on gunpowder machinery bought from France and site plans for a gunpowder mill supplied by the French Government. They also built housing for 30 workers.

Starting, initially, by reworking damaged gunpowder and refining saltpetre for the US Government they quickly moved into gunpowder manufacture.

Saltpetre was refined in an area between the house and the mills that now is occupied by a formal garden. Charcoal was produced from the willow trees that lined the Brandywine.

By the end of 1804, DuPont had sold 39,000 pounds of powder; the following year sales tripled. The Federal government and John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company became regular customers. In 1813 the Hagley property, just downstream from the original mills, was purchased, doubling the size and capacity of the mills. Sales grew during the Mexican-American War and the Crimean War. During the American Civil War, the firm sold 4,000,000 barrels of powder to the Federal government.

A major explosion killed 33 people in 1818. Another major explosion occurred on the site in 1847. In 1854 three gunpowder wagons exploded in the city of Wilmington.