Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours
| Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Pierre Samuel du Pont December 14, 1739 Paris, France |
| Died | August 7, 1817 (aged 77) Greenville, Delaware, US |
| Spouse(s) |
Nicole-Charlotte Marie-Louise le Dée de Rencourt (m. 1766; her death 1784) Marie Françoise Robin de Poivre (m. 1795) |
| Children |
Victor Marie du Pont Eleuthère Irénée du Pont |
| Residence | Chevannes, Burgundy; Nemours, France |
Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (14 December 1739 – 7 August 1817) was a French writer, economist, publisher and government official. During the French Revolution, he, his two sons and their families immigrated to the United States.
His son Éleuthère Irénée du Pont was the founder of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. He was the patriarch and progenitor of one of the United States' most successful and wealthiest business dynasties of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Pierre du Pont was born December 14, 1739, the son of Samuel du Pont and Anne Alexandrine de Montchanin. His father was a watchmaker and French Protestant, or Huguenot. His mother was a descendant of an impoverished minor noble family from Burgundy.
Du Pont married Nicole-Charlotte Marie-Louise le Dée de Rencourt in 1766, also of a minor noble family. They had three sons: Victor Marie (1767–1827), a manufacturer and politician; Paul François (December 1769–January 1770); and Éleuthère Irénée (1771–1834), the founder of E.I. duPont de Nemours and Company in the United States. Nicole-Charlotte died 3 September 1784 of typhoid.
With a lively intelligence and high ambition, Pierre became estranged from his father, who wanted him to be a watchmaker. The younger man developed a wide range of acquaintances with access to the French court. Eventually he became the protégé of Dr. François Quesnay, the personal physician of Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Quesnay was the leader of a faction known as the économistes, a group of liberals at the court dedicated to economic and agricultural reforms. By the early 1760s du Pont's writings on the national economy had drawn the attention of intellectuals such as Voltaire and Turgot. His 1768 book on physiocracy (Physiocratie, Ou Constitution Naturelle du Gouvernement le Plus Avantageux au Genre Humain) advocated low tariffs and free trade among nations, deeply influenced Adam Smith of Scotland.
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