Chapter IV 

 A, Cardan and Company^ l8lj—l826^^' 



"He will be a satisfactory tanner and in twenty years 

 from now very wealthy; the only way to be respected 

 in this English country." — dii Pont de Nemours^ 1815 



The construction of the du Pont gunpowder mills along the 

 Brandywine was well underway in the spring of 1803 when E. I. 

 du Pont wrote to his father requesting all the information available 

 concerning "Seguin's new process of tanning. "^'^'^ Knowing that 

 this new method had shortened the time required to tan sole 

 leather from two years to several months, du Pont had mentioned 

 it to a neighboring Delaware tanner and was told that "his fortune 

 would be made if he could do the tanning by so prompt a method." 

 He continued: 



Please tell me what this discovery amounts to in France; whether it is used 

 on a large scale; whether it has been improved; whether it is really as econom- 

 ical as Seguin asserts; and whether he appears to have made a fortune by it. 

 I wrote to Seguin about it when I was last in France, but he did not answer 

 as I expected and contented himself with referring me to the various de- 

 scriptions of it that had been published. I have here the accounts by Le 

 Lievre and Pelletier which were in the Annales de Chimie. I cannot find 

 one by Fourcroi, which we printed, that by Chaussier, which was published 

 in the Journal de VEcole Polytechnique^ nor the one by ^'ouquelin, which 

 was in the Lycee des Arts}^^ 



The accounts read by du Pont were not detailed enough to satisfy 

 him. All were termed "too vague and superficial to be of any use 

 for establishing the process." ^^° 



By 1807, however, E. L du Pont was again considering entering 

 the tanning business provided, of course, that Seguin's process 

 was as superior as it was said to be. Characteristically, du Pont 

 was convinced that "we must learn his methods thoroughly 

 before we can put them to practical use." ^'^'" 



But why the renewed interest in establishing a tannery ? Primarily, 

 it was to find a satisfactory occupation for Victor du Pont, whose 



^'- This chapter, in slightly different form, first appeared in Delaware History, the journal of the 

 Historical Society of Delaware, and is reproduced here through the courtesy ot the Society. 



13' E. I. du Pont to du Pont de Nemours, April 28, 1803, in B. G. du Pont, ed.. Life nf E. I. 

 du Pont . . ., vol. 5, p. 212. 



131 Ibid. "5 Ibid. is-i B. G. du Pont, op. cit., vol. 7, p. 298. 



51 



