Charles Irénée du Pont (1797-1869) operated a woolen factory at Louviers, near Wilmington, Delaware, from 1815 until his retirement in 1856. He was the eldest son of Gabrielle Joséphine de La Fite de Pelleport (1770-1837) and Victor Marie du Pont (1767-1827), a French diplomat. His family immigrated to the United States in 1800, when his father established a trading company, Victor du Pont de Nemours & Co., which went out of business in 1808. This collection consists of Charles I. du Pont's papers; five of his children's papers; and his father-in-law Nicholas Van Dyke's (1769-1826) papers regarding his first wife, Dorcas Montgomery Van Dyke (1806-1838).