History
In 1802 a French immigrant, Eleuthere Irenee du Pont, chose the banks of Brandywine Creek to start his black powder mills. He chose the location because of the natural energy that the water provided; the availability of timber and willow trees (used to produce quality charcoal required for superior black powder); the proximity to the Delaware River (on which other ingredients of the powder – sulfur and saltpeter – could be shipped); and the quarries of gneiss which would provide building materials for the mills. The E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company's black powder manufactory became the largest in the world. In 1921 the mills along the Brandywine closed and parcels of the property were sold. It was on the occasion of the DuPont Company's 150th anniversary in 1952,that plans for a museum were established. Of course this is the site that began the DuPont legacy and it is located at the midpoint of the DuPont Historic Corridor.
Read more about this topic: Hagley Museum And Library
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
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“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)