Along Brandywine Creek

THE DU PONTS OF DELAWARE by William H. A. Carr. 368 pages. Dodd, Mead $6.95.

Every New Year's Day, the men of the Du Pont family gather in the mansions on the old home grounds hard by Brandywine Creek in northern Delaware. Once assembled, they band themselves into little troops and march off to the several family villas and chateaux in the area to pay their respects to the waiting Du Pont womenfolk. This is an admirable rite, steeped as it is in tradition, but it has its practical side as well: there are roughly 1,600 Du Ponts in the U.S. today, and some of them might never otherwise get a chance to meet their relatives.

Among the Du Ponts, the business of getting to know one another is a serious affair. While more than 150 other families have married into the clan over the years, the Du Ponts like to marry among themselves, often with first cousins. That is their way of keeping the name--and the money--in the family. It also helps to maintain the unique dynasty that runs one of the world's richest family businesses, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. Inc.

Heroes & Oddballs. The patriarch of the family was Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a French Huguenot who liked to kick around offbeat economic and political schemes with his great friend Thomas Jefferson. At least one of his notions paid off. Pierre is credited with swinging Jefferson over to the idea of making the Louisiana Purchase, which turned out to be good for business as well as the country.

Pierre's son Eleuthere Irenee was the first business brains of the family. He saw the need for good black powder for the huntsmen and the frontiersmen of the young and struggling U.S., and in 1802 set up his factory on the Brandywine; later he added a woolen mill. From those modest beginnings sprang the $3.3 billion empire that today spans much of the world with 117 factories employing 93,000 workers turning out 1,200 products. It has become the greatest chemical company in the world's history, a company that has spent apparently reckless millions on apparently useless laboratory research, and seen it pay off. Most of Du Pont's current products are things that never existed on land or sea until Du Pont research discovered or developed them: cellophane, nylon, Lucite and neoprene, tetraethyl (antiknock) lead for gasoline, Dacron and plastics. The latest product (not mentioned in the book) is known as Corfam, a scuff-resistant, water-repellent synthetic leather (TIME, April 3) that may in time revolutionize the shoe industry.

This multiple biography by William Carr, longtime New York Post reporter, conscientiously chronicles all this progress: the Powder Trust, the antitrust suits, the intra-clan squabbles over control of the business, the rise and fall of family leaders. It also flickers upon Du Pont oddballs, heroes and politicians.

Commander Samuel Francis du Pont helped set up the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845, and during the Civil War led the task force that took Port Royal, S.C., for the North. Artillery Major Henry Algernon du Pont got the Congressional Medal of Honor for distinguished gallantry in the Shenandoah Valley. Henry du Pont (1812-89) had a thing about fences; folks used to say that he would put up a $4,000 enclosure to fence in a $2,000 pasture. And then there was "Uncle Fred" (Alfred Victor du Pont II), who in 1893 was shot to death by an overwrought woman in a Louisville bordello.

Pensions & Pesticides. Another curious Du Pont was Alfred I, who was too busy running the company (in the early 1920s) to visit his children after he divorced his wife. After 14 years he was surprised to learn that his daughter had sat across the aisle from him on a train some years before; he had not recognized her. In the days before social security, Alfred pioneered in the field of old-age pensions, spent $350,000 of his own money in pension checks for Delaware's needy. His cousin and archenemy Pierre shelled out $4,000,000 of his fortune to replace more than 100 rundown public schools in the state. Today, hardly any Du Pont activity surprises anybody, including other Du Ponts. One (Ethel) even married a Roosevelt (Franklin D. Jr.); they got divorced in 1949. Current Du Pont maverick is Mrs. Colgate W. Darden Jr., great-great-granddaughter of the founder. Mrs. Darden is a leader in the fight against indiscriminate use of pesticide chemicals. Her husband, onetime Governor of Virginia, is a board director of a Du Pont company that manufactures pesticides.

Author Carr plainly started with the notion that any clan with a history and a fortune like the Du Ponts deserves a biography. He is not the first to attempt it (three more or less forgettable Du Pont chronicles have been turned out in the last 30 years), but he is the first to get full family cooperation. While Carr produces nothing that is startlingly perceptive or especially exciting, he does deserve credit for pursuing the rocky, incredible history of the dynasty with scrupulous objectivity. The Du Ponts are all there: warts, splendor and all.

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