THE E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS POWDER Co
Eleuthere Irenee du Pont de Nemours, founder
of the great industry which, as a tribute to his
memory and enterprise, was in 1903 one hundred
and three years afterwards renamed after him, hav-
ing made good his escape from France, reached this
country in the year 1800, then occupied in its own re-
making. He landed at Bergen Point, New Jersey.
Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, the father, Vic-
tor, his elder brother, and the respective families of
each accompanied him.
At the time of their advent here, Thomas Jeffer-
son was President of the United States. The country
was practically without means within itself of sup-
plying gunpowder and explosives. It had no mills
or manufactories organized for the purpose of mak-
ing them, and the little that was made was on a hand-
to-mouth principle, just in the same way that people
used to make their own leaden bullets in their own
homes.
On looking around, the du Ponts saw the magnifi-
cent opportunity afforded to them of manufacturing
explosives of a character and quality entirely un-
known to the people here, far ahead of anything of
the kind that had been produced. Though greatly
lessened in fortunes, strangers in a strange land, the
possibilities of this great and somewhat crude and
untutored country were apparent to them all, and
their indomitable courage and enterprise came to
their aid. Without loss of time, the du Ponts opened
negotiations with Thomas Jefferson, General John
Mason and John Hancock, for the purpose of estab-
lishing a plant in this country which would standard-
ize the products and supply them in sufficient quan-
tities, and of a grade that would make them the lead-
ing ones of their kind.
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