May 13, 1876
Dear Papa
Mama is going to take us up to Philadelphia on Monday and we are going to ask Aunt Bet to take us to the Centennial. goodbye
your son Pierre S. du Pont
I love moments in the archives when historical figures feel human.
Here in the library at Hagley, the name "Pierre S. du Pont" is ubiquitous. He began our library, and his portrait hangs on the wall near the entrance. He ran the DuPont Company, built Longwood Gardens, and his business papers occupy a large footprint on Hagley's shelves. (He even found time to raise a prize herd of Guernsey dairy cattle).
The formidable Pierre was also once a kid (pictured, right). In 1876, he was six years old and enamored by the festivities going on to celebrate one hundred years of American independence. Most exciting was the prospect of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, a short trip away from his family's home near the du Pont gunpowder yards in Delaware. The exhibition opened on May 10, featuring more than two hundred buildings, stunning architecture, and new inventions like the typewriter and telephone. Almost ten million people visited the fair, including young Pierre.
I smiled when I stumbled across a letter (quoted above) in the papers of his father, Lammot du Pont, Sr. Pierre wrote it three days after the Centennial Exposition had opened. A typical letter from a six-year-old, Pierre does not elaborate about his thoughts on the fair – but his penmanship is commendable. Later in life, however, he wrote about the experience in an autobiographical essay begun in 1935, giving insight into his young feelings with the benefit of an adult's vocabulary.
We do not know if "Mama" (Mary Belin du Pont) and young Pierre convinced "Aunt Bet" to take them that Monday, but we do know that Pierre went to the fair twice. He recalled the first time going with both his parents, so either he misremembered after nearly sixty years or indeed Aunt Bet was unavailable. However he got to the fair, the six-year-old was suitably impressed.
He found the giant Corliss Engine in Machinery Hall, the largest steam engine in the world at the time and the most advertised attraction at the exposition, to be "awe-inspiring." However, behind the Corliss, the future engineer and fountain builder halted in his small tracks at the artificial waterfall and grand water display at the Cataract (see below). He wrote: "As a child I was always delighted to behold flowing water, and I confess to still feel a thrill at the sight of clear water running freely from a faucett (sic). But the basin in Machinery Hall was captivating beyond description with its jets of all kinds and spurting like mad and without cease...I could have remained all day beside this pool in Machinery Hall."
Once his parents tore Pierre away from the mesmeric Cataract, they explored the rest of the exhibition. Pierre loved snacking on popcorn balls, felt underwhelmed by the height of the tree ferns in the Horticultural Hall (I guess he had high standards for flora even as a six-year-old!), and expressed disappointment that the one-rail railroad he rode between buildings "did not run off the track as I had felt sure it would." Overall, the Centennial Exposition made a significant impression on young Pierre S. du Pont. He attended other expositions throughout his life and incorporated grand architectural elements and water technology from the fairs into his estate and gardens at Longwood, Pennsylvania.
His father, Lammot, kept his son's letter among his business and personal papers until his premature death in a nitroglycerin explosion in 1884. Later generations of the family subsequently saved Lammot's papers, until they acquired a permanent home in the archives of the Hagley Museum and Library.
Do you have treasured keepsakes from your own family's history?
We want to help you preserve them. As we observe another American milestone with this year's 250th anniversary, Hagley will be hosting a Community Digitization Day on Thursday, July 16, 2026. Bring photos, documents, letters, and other memories. Our staff will use our professional digitization equipment to create digital copies for your personal safekeeping. We would love to preserve additional copies in a special community collection in the Hagley Digital Archives, if you wish to do so.
More information and registration details are available here.
Angela Schad is the Head of the Reference Department at the Hagley Library