Spring weather means wonderful things for the Hagley Museum and Library grounds ...

Spring weather means wonderful things for the Hagley Museum and Library grounds, so this week's post is for all the gardeners, grounds crew, and green thumbs here at Hagley. This ca. 1880s glass negative shows a woman, likely to be Elise Wigfall du Pont  (1849-1919), the wife of Francis Gurney du Pont (1850-1904) wielding a shovel in a greenhouse conservatory. 

Elise was born in Charleston, South Carolina to John Hume Simons (1818-1876) and Eliza Moore Wigfall (1823-1897). In 1871, Simons married Francis Gurney du Pont, the the youngest son of Alexis Irénée du Pont (1816-1857) and a grandson of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834), founder of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.

Soon after, Elise and Francis relocated to a family-owned property once owned by Jacob Broom, a signer of the U.S. Constitution. The home on Christchurch Road was a short distance from the E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company's Brandywine Works gunpowder mills, also known as Eleutherian Mills, where Francis and other members of the family worked as executives and chemists.

Beginning in 1879, Francis and Elise undertook a project to make substantial renovations to the home, including the addition of a conservatory, possibly the one pictured here. In 1887, the house became one of the first electrified homes in the state. The couple raised ten children in the home. After Francis' death in 1904, the home remained a company and family asset, and continues to be a private residence.

This item is part of Hagley Library's Edmond Rhett du Pont photograph collection (Accession 1972.238). Edmund du Pont (1906-1996) was the son of Francis Irénée du Pont (1873-1942), the eldest child of Elise and Francis.

This collection features photographs, lantern slides, and negatives mostly documenting Du Pont Company buildings and worksites, du Pont family members, and family homes. Other slides include a number of astronomical photographs dating from the 1850s to the 1870s, slides of an engine used in a study, commercially produced travel views, a few hand-drawn lantern slides of birds, and four slip-slide animated lantern slides.

To view a selection of images from this collection online now, click here to visit it in our Digital Archives.