CAR-BUILDING WORKS.
Modern improvement has a particular spite against the landmarks of antiquity. The railroad to Baltimore slices off a part of the Swedish graveyard—an institution much more ancient than the church which stands on it. And the rock by old Fort Christina, upon which Governor Stuyvesant—Irving's Stuyvesant—stood on his silver leg and took the surrender of the Swedish governor-general, is now quarried out and reconstructed into Delaware Breakwater.
RESIDENCE OF JOB JACKSON, ESQ.
Doubtless we dwell too fondly on the old memories, but it appears that the souvenirs of this region are somewhat remarkable for their contrast of nationalities. Perhaps the colonization of other spots would yield better romances than any we have to offer; yet we cannot help feeling that a better pen than ours would find brilliant matter for literary effects in the paradise revealed to good Elizabeth Shipley by her dream-guide.
Delawarean Wilmington is perhaps hardly known to the general public except through two of its products. Everybody buys Wilmington matches, and everybody knows that Du Pont's powder is made in the vicinity. Ignoring the foundries and shipyards, the popular imagination recognizes but these two commodities—the powder which could blow up the obstructions to all the American harbors, and the match which could touch off the train. A million dollars' worth of gunpowder and three hundred thousand dollars' worth of matches are the annual product.
CAR-WHEEL CASTING WORKS.
Eleuthère Irenée 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 Eleuthère 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.