ABSTRACT
Du Pont is one of the oldest names in American industry. The Du Ponts, who accent the Pont, are perhaps the only group who may be properly described as an industrial dynasty. A company to make powder was far from the original idea of the head of the family, who was Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a Huguenot born at Paris in 1739 and sixty years of age when he and a numerous company of relatives arrived in America on the first day of 1800. Included in the group were Pierre's sons, Victor Marie and Eleuthere Irenee, their wives and children. Young Du Pont devised a method of treating sodium nitrate that not only removed the difficulty but resulted in greatly increased explosive force. On May 19, 1857, the United States granted a patent to Du Pont for "an improved gunpowder.".
