Eleuthere Irenee Du Pont, a French gentleman of honorable family, appeared in Wilmington in 1802. The town had at that time hardly three thousand inhabitants. He amazed all the quidnuncs by buying, for fifty thousand dollars, Rumford Dawes' old tract of rocks on the Brandywine, which everybody knew was perfectly useless. The stranger was pitied as he began to blast away the stone. Out of a single rock, separated into fragments, he built a cottage: it was a lonely spot, and the snakes from the fissures were in the habit of sharing the contents of his well-bucket. Such was the beginning of the Eleuthere Powder-works. M. Du Pont, who died some forty years ago, was much beloved for his benevolence and probity. In 1825, La Fayette, during his celebrated visit of reminiscence, was the guest of the brave old Frenchman for several days, during which he examined the battle-ground of Brandywine. He here received the ball with which he got his wound in that battle, from the hands of Bell McClosky, a kind of camp-follower and nurse, who had extracted the bullet with her scissors and preserved it. The general wrote in the album of Mademoiselle Du Pont the following graceful sentiment: "After having seen, nearly half a century ago, the bank of the Brandywine a scene of bloody fighting, I am happy now to find it the seat of industry, beauty and mutual friendship. "LA FAYETTE. "JULY 25, 1825." While on a Revolutionary topic we may mention that among a great many relics of '76 preserved in the town is the sword of General Wayne--"Mad Anthony"--a straight, light blade in leather scabbard, possessed by Mr. W. H. Naff. [Illustration: JESSUP & MOORE'S PAPER-MILLS.]