Alfred Irà © nà © e du Pont (May 12, 1864 - April 28, 1935) was an influential American industrialist, financial expert, philanthropist and Du Pont family member.
Alfred du Pont was first noted for his work at the family-based gunpowder factory in Delaware, EI du Pont de Nemours and Company (now known as DuPont), where for many years he served as director of the board and Vice President of operations.
After a fierce and brief departure in personal wealth, he started his own business, investing in land and banking in Florida. He died multimillionaires, with most of his wealth defending Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust.
Video Alfred I. du Pont
Initial years
Du Pont was born in the Brandywine Valley, Delaware, where his great-grandfather, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, immigrated with his sons after the French Revolution. Son ÃÆ' â € ° leuthÃÆ'¨re IrÃÆ'Â © nÃÆ'Â © e du Pont II, a partner in the DuPont family's gun business, and Charlotte Shepard Henderson, she has two older sisters and two younger brothers. When the du Pont was 13 years old, his mother, who had a history of mental illness, was committed to asylum after an episode of hysteria. Within a week, he died. Children du Pont became orphaned one month later when ÃÆ' â € ° leuthÃÆ'¨re followed him, a victim of tuberculosis.
The Du Pont family intends to separate children and sell their family home, Swamp Hall, but are persuaded otherwise by ferocious children's resistance. The girls remained at home, but du Pont was sent to boarding school: first, to the religious Shinn Academy in New Jersey and then, two years later, the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. After graduation, he enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with his cousin T. Coleman du Pont.
Maps Alfred I. du Pont
Family business
In 1884, after just two years at MIT, he went to work at a family-gun factory at the Brandywine factory. Although he started in a low position, he was finally known, according to Alfred I. du Pont Foundation, as "one of the top men in the country." Most of the more than 200 patents he lists related to this work.
Du Pont married his cousin Bessie Gardner (1864-1949) in 1887, and she was the mother of her first four children. In 1889, the manufacturing plant forwarded to the management of Eugène du Pont, at the time was reorganized and renamed to E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, and du Pont became limited partners. Beyond that, Eugène du Pont and other family members largely ignore du Pont, excluding him from the company board.
In 1902, following the death of Eugène du Pont, three senior partners were deemed to sell the company to competitors Laflin & Rand Powder Company. Du Pont proposed to keep the company in the family, and the senior partners agreed on the condition that du Pont would join in this venture by T. Coleman du Pont, who would become president, and Pierre S. du Pont. They had no money, but the cousins ​​could convince other family members to exchange their company's shares with non-cash promissory notes, plus shares in reorganized companies. According to the Trust organization, the company was purchased "for $ 15.4 million - $ 12 million in notes and 33,000 reorganized DuPont shares", with partners retaining shares of $ 8.6 million (86,400). The actual amount of money that the partners have to pay is $ 2,100, $ 700 each for attorneys' fees.
Pierre du Pont was named Treasurer and Executive Vice President of the company, while Alfred du Pont served as vice president for operations and took over the manufacture of black powder and sat on the Executive Committee. Alfred is directly involved with the company and makes major changes to its operations resulting in greater efficiency and security, leading to a boom in business.
Divorce and remarriage
During this period, du Pont was involved in a hunting accident which eventually made him lose his eyes. That same year, 1906, she divorced her first wife, Bessie. The couple's marriage was never happy, and although du Pont supported his family financially, with $ 24,000 a year, he broke with all but his eldest son, Madeleine du Pont. With notices of eviction a week, he moved them from the family home in Swamp Hall and destroyed it. This, coupled with the du Pont marriage to a second divorced cousin in 1907, a very tense relationship between du Pont and other members of his family.
Du Pont's relationship with his second wife, Mary (Alicia) Heyward Bradford (1875-1920), has been the subject of a family scandal, as family members have commented on their close relationship even before Alicia Bradford's marriage to du Pont secretary George Amory Maddox. Maddox and his wife live close to the du Pont and are frequented by him; du Pont and Bradford, who had given birth to a princess in the meantime, left their spouses at about the same time and married two weeks after the Bradford divorce was final. Du Pont adopted Bradford's daughter, Alicia Maddox, bringing new gossip to the family, most of whom supported her first wife, who in turn inspired du Pont to file several lawsuits against family members and friends for slander, all of which were dropped. in time.
Du Pont gave Bradford a new house built on 300 acres (1.2 km 2 ) in Wilmington, Delaware. The construction of the Nemours Mansion and Gardens took place between 1909 and 1910. The Mansion is a five-story, 77-room, 47,000 sqÃ, ft (4,400 m 2 ) structure designed by renowned architects, CarrÃÆ'¨re and Hastings, who also designed the New York Public Library, Frick Mansion of New York City, and Whitehall, Henry Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida. The building looks like a Korean style and its architectural style is Louis XVI. The plantation is named after the French city affiliated with its ancestor, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours.
In a short time marriage, Bradford gave birth to two children to du Pont, both did not last long.
Claim and departure from E.I. du Pont de Nemours
Through the early 1910s, Alfred du Pont was involved in a heated debate about the future of the family business with Coleman and Pierre du Pont, whose support for the du Pont's first wife had been expanded to build him and his sons a house after their expulsion from Swamp Hall. The struggle became bitter after Coleman du Pont decided to leave the company because of health problems in 1914.
When he left, sick and needed money for other business transactions, Coleman du Pont decided to sell 20,000 shares in the company to the employees of the main company, but when Alfred du Pont and Pierre du Pont disagreed about the price and the proper handling of the transaction, more shares (more than 77,000 shares of common and preferred stock) to Pierre du Pont and five partners, who have formed the DuPont Securities Company. This secret and quick transaction gave Pierre du Pont, a 60 percent stake in DuPont Securities, great control over the family business. While stock value greatly increased because of the success of the company during World War I, Alfred du Pont and other minority shareholders launched a lawsuit against Pierre du Pont, alleging that he had acted as agent of E.I. du Pont de Nemours, which must be a legitimate shareholder.
The lawsuit was well publicized and sharp. In 1916, shortly after the company's shareholders chose to remove Alfred du Pont from the board of directors, the US District Court found that Pierre du Pont had been operating in bad faith, ordering shareholder voting to determine whether shareholders (other than those who have disputed shares) want to buy disputed shares. With a share ratio of 33:13, shareholders did not, and, therefore, in 1918, the court rejected the action. Alfred du Pont filed an appeal that ended unsuccessfully in March 1919.
No longer involved in running E.I. du Pont de Nemours, the du Pont even began to invest in newspapers, as the publisher successfully opposed the offer of T. Coleman du Pont for the presidency and the third Henry A. du Pont for the Senate. According to du Pont Trust, he also "founded the investment firm Nemours Trading Corporation, and import-export business in New York" and acquired a majority stake in the Delaware Trust Company.
Widows and third marriage
Poor business transactions had made him almost bankrupt when, in January 1920, his second wife died. Missing eyes since the previous accident, he is now also almost deaf. But his life will change with his third marriage.
Du Pont has been in contact with Jessie Ball, 20 years younger, since their meeting in 1898 when she was 14 years old. In 1920, Ball was an assistant principal at an elementary school in San Diego, California, and du Pont began dating him, at the same time releasing him from assets and reducing expenses. He married Ball on January 22, 1921, and the couple returned to the East coast to settle in Nemours. The couple have no children of their own, but Ball du Pont accepts young Denise, a son of du Pont who was nurtured with his second wife, as his own wife. He also helped fix the split between the du Pont and the alienated children from his first marriage.
Ball du Pont proved very helpful to him in his work, just like his brother. Edward Ball and du Pont beat him and Edward Ball began working for his brother-in-law in 1923, moving to Delaware where he was publicly named manager of the Clean Food Products Company. Personally, he is Du Pont's secret business partner and becomes an astute financier and caretaker of the estate estate du Pont de Nemours.
Relocation and next life
Du Pont and his third wife had made several trips to Florida on their motorboat, Nenemoosha, when Pierre du Pont was named the Delaware Tax Commissioner in 1925. Heading hard on his cousin Alfred du Pont and Jessie Ball du Pont moved to Jacksonville, Florida in 1926, where they established a permanent residence. There, du Pont bought an area of ​​58 acres (230,000 m 2 ) on the St. Johns and built a large house with 25 rooms and landscaped grounds, as well as a berth for the couple's motorboats. Ball du Pont named the Epping Forest plantation, after the Virginia plantation of Mary Ball Washington, George Washington's mother and brother Ball du Pont. Edward Ball, too, moved to Florida, to continue working with the du Pont.
In Florida, du Pont made a small real estate investment at first, genuinely afraid of a drop in real estate values, before turning his attention to getting interest in the bank. He acquired interest in Florida National Bank (FNB) Jacksonville, depositing it solvent during the 1929 bank by putting $ 15 million of his own money into account. During the early 1930s, six other Florida National Banks opened across Florida, including Lakeland and Bartow.
During this time, du Pont expanded its philanthropic activities. He personally funded an elderly pension plan in Delaware in 1929 and turned his attention to revitalizing Florida after the devastation of a storm in 1926 and the Great Depression.
Other activities
In addition to his interest in business, du Pont is an accomplished violinist and composer. Using friends and factory workers from E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, he formed an orchestra called Tankopanicum Musical Club . According to du Pont Trust, du Pont "published nine pieces of music [during his lifetime], eight marches and one gavotte , a French peasant dance, performed at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington in 1907." John Philip Sousa , who was a friend, did one of the parades.
Death and inheritance
When du Pont died in 1935 in Jacksonville, Florida at the age of 70, his property was worth over $ 56 million, which, after a property tax of $ 30 million, left $ 26 million.
Much of his fortune was left in the belief of the trial with Jessie being called the primary guardian with full discretion regarding the use of any money, but in reality, she postponed a business decision to her brother, who took over the assets, which included Florida's large landholdings from St. Company Joe and industrial interests, including the East Coast Railway of Florida. Jessie prefers to handle philanthropic activities of trust while Edward concentrates on making money. Fortune did not become a charity trust until Jessie's death in 1970, which explains why $ 30 million in land tax was paid in 1935. The only charity charity beneficiary of Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust is the Nemours Foundation, which runs a children's medical facility at Delaware and Florida.
The trust was priced at $ 72.5 million in 1939; $ 2 billion in 1981; $ 4.5 billion in 2006.
Unlike most of his family members, du Pont is not buried in the Du Pont de Nemours family cemetery. He was buried, together with his wife and brother-in-law, in a large mausoleum in Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, one of the first projects he made with his faith.
Both Nemours and Epping Forest have been restored to its original splendor. The public school in Jacksonville, Alfred I. duPont Middle School, is located not far from its Epping Forest area.
Alfred du Pont was appointed as the Great Floridian by the Florida Department of State in the Great Floridians 2000 Program. A plaque that proves that honor is located at the entrance to the Epping Forest estate in Jacksonville.
References
External links
- Nemours Mansion and Gardens: The video of Alfred I. du Pont's life
- Alfred I. du Pont in the Search of the Mausoleum
- DuPont Heritage: 1902, New Owner
- Eugene du Pont's paper at the Hagley Museum and Library. Correspondence Alfred I. du Pont from 1906-1909 on company matters
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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