Samuel Francis Du Pont - Early Life and Naval Career

Early Life and Naval Career

Du Pont was born at Goodstay, his family home in Bergen Point (now Bayonne), New Jersey, the fourth child and second son of Victor Marie du Pont and Gabrielle Joséphine de la Fite de Pelleport. His uncle was Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, the founder of E.I. du Pont de Nemours Company, which began as a gunpowder factory and today is a multinational chemical corporation. Du Pont spent his childhood at his father's home, Louviers, across the Brandywine Creek from his uncle's estate and gunpowder factory, Eleutherian Mills, just north of Wilmington, Delaware. He was enrolled at Mount Airy Academy in Germantown, Pennsylvania, at age 9. However, his father was unable to fund his education because of his failing wool mill, and he was encouraged to instead enlist in the U.S. Navy. His family's close connections with President Thomas Jefferson helped secure him an appointment as a midshipman by President James Madison at the age of 12, and he first set sail aboard the 74-gun ship of the line Franklin out of Delaware in December 1815.

As there was no naval academy at the time, Du Pont learned mathematics and navigation at sea and became an accomplished navigator by the time he took his next assignment aboard the frigate Constitution in 1821. He then served aboard the frigate Congress in the West Indies and off the coast of Brazil. Though still not yet a commissioned officer, he was promoted to sailing master during his service aboard the 74-gun North Carolina in 1825, which sailed on a mission to display American influence and power in the Mediterranean. Soon after his promotion to Lieutenant in 1826, he was ordered aboard the 12-gun schooner Porpoise, returned home for two years after his father's death in 1827, and then served aboard the 16-gun sloop Ontario in 1829. Despite the short period in which he had been an officer by this time, Du Pont had begun to openly criticize many of his senior officers, whom he believed were incompetent and had only received their commands through political influence.

After returning from the Ontario in June 1833, Du Pont married Sophie Madeleine du Pont (1810 – 88), his first cousin as the daughter of his uncle, Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. As he never kept an officer's journal, his voluminous correspondence with Sophie serves as the main documentation of his operations and observations throughout the rest of his naval career. From 1835 until 1838, he was the Executive Officer of the frigate Constellation and the sloop Warren, commanding both the latter and the schooner Grampus in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1838 he joined the ship Ohio in the Mediterranean until 1841. The following year he was promoted to Commander and set sail for China aboard the brig Perry, but was forced to return home and give up his command because of severe illness. He returned to service in 1845 as commander of the Congress, the flagship of Commodore Robert Stockton, reaching California by way of a cruise of the Hawaiian Islands by the time the Mexican-American War had begun.