Hagley Museum (7/29/2023)

Saturday, July 29, 2023
On the way to begin our adventure with the grandsons, we stopped at a Tyler Arboretum reciprocal museum in Wilmington, DE - Hagley Museum. The museum is the site of the original gunpowder works founded by Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours in 1802, and the ancestral home and garden of the du Pont family.

The Hagley Museum Visitor Center is in the
former Cotton Spinning Mill (1814), part of
the Hagley Yard acquired in 1812 by du Pont

We had time to see the special exhibit: Nation of Inventors,
displaying patent models created between 1833 and 1886,
including this Bissell Carpet Sweeper (minus its
extended handle), before taking a shuttle to the house

The gunpowder works were located along Brandywine River

The shuttle bus is the only way to access the house and gardens. We first had an orientation about the extended du Pont family. É I du Pont was born in France, and came to the United States in 1800 with his father, Pierre, and brother's family. In 1803, É I was joined by his wife, Sophie, and eight children.

The É I du Pont Garden was essentially the kitchen garden

Espalier peach trees

Peaches

Eleutherian Mills: the du Pont Family Home (1802-1803,
with later additions, in Georgian style)

The marble steps of the original 1803 house

The Morning Room, the interior was last
decorated by Louise du Pont Crowninshield,
the great-granddaughter of É I du Pont

Dining Room; Louise was interested in historic preservation,
and collected antiques and decorative arts

Louise added the grand staircase

The downstairs reception room with a
couple of hooked rugs collected by Louise

Upstairs parlor with original du Pont furniture

The library with items from travels to Asia

Rocking horse carved by Joseph Charles Dalmas, brother
of É I's wife, Sophie, and uncle to their children

The original four-poster bed (1807, by
Joseph Barry, Philadelphia) in what was
the bedroom of É I and Sophie du Pont

Toys in the nursemaid's room

Duncan Phyfe sewing/worktable (c 1813)
that belonged to É I's daughter, Victorine

Coolerator ice box in the kitchen

Okay... our guide said Louise wanted to create a country
kitchen in the style of Provence, France, which was
authenticated by the admiration of a French visitor;
however, the Hagley Museum website states that
Louise collected Colonial Revival style furniture
as seen in a photo of this Terrace Room...

The door of a newer wing with a date stone
marked É I du Pont 1802, H du Pont 1850,
and H A du Pont 1923

Henry du Pont was the second son of É I and Sophie. He graduated from West Point, but later joined the family business. During the Civil War, Henry du Pont refused to sell gunpowder to the Confederacy.

Henry Algernon du Pont was the son of Henry, and thus the grandson of É I. Henry Algernon also attended West Point and served with the Union Army during the Civil War. After his military career, he became president and general manager of the Wilmington and Northern Railroad Company.

Potted plant holder

É I du Pont managed the gunpowder works from
an office in the house, but his son Henry, built this
First Office in 1837; the stone for these buildings
were quarried from the property and included
metamorphic gneiss called blue rock

The Wilmington Minor League Baseball Team recognizes the importance of this rock to the area, and has the name of the Blue Rocks.

A sit-stand bookkeeper's desk in the First Office

Hagley Museum Barn

Side view of the barn in order to see the eagle weathervane

A Conestoga Wagon like those that transported kegs of
gunpowder from the powder yards to the port in Wilmington

Collection of weathervanes

The Maclura pomifera/Osage Orange tree was felled
by a storm in 2020; because the tree is a native of the
lower Midwest, it is speculated that the origin may be
from cuttings or seeds brought back by Lewis and Clark

The du Pont patriarch, Pierre, was friends with Thomas Jefferson, when Jefferson was the Minister to France in 1784-89. É I du Pont also corresponded with then President Jefferson.

Bronze plaque (1952) depicting the founder of the
DuPont Company, Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours,
to commemorate the 150th anniversary of
the founding of the company

Gate allowing water from Brandywine River into the millrace

Between the two gunpowder mills is a barrel-like
wooden water wheel

Crowninshield Garden is named for its designers: Louise du Pont Crowninshield and her
husband, Francis “Frank” Boardman Crowninshield, and is currently a "ruin of a
1920s ruins garden" with Italianate "ruins" on terraces; it is in the process of being restored (KSS)

Gibbons House (1846), the foreman's residence,
on Workers' Hill, a community for employees

The millrace had multiple gates to release water to
power the gunpowder mills along the river

Power from the river, and later a steam engine
was transferred up the hill via rotating
pipes and gear wheels (KSS)

Next: The Delaware Contemporary.