Du Pont was born in Paris, son of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont and Sophie Madeleine Dalmas du Pont. He came to the United States in 1800 as an infant and grew up around the gunpowder mills founded by his father on the Brandywine Creek in Delaware.
Later he attended Mount Airy College, in Germantown, Pennsylvania and then studied chemistry at Dickinson College.
He later became Cooper"s assistant at the University of Pennsylvania. Du Pont married American Margaretta Elizabeth "Molly" Louisiana Motte (or Lammot) in 1824. They had seven children.
In 1818, du Pont returned home to help his father rebuild the gunpowder company after a disastrous explosion that killed 33 people and injured his mother.
He worked closely with the men in the mills and was particularly interested in researching new gunpowder chemical developments. The laboratory was his home.
lieutenant was a difficult role for him, and after leading the company through a recovery from a disastrous mill explosion in 1847, he retired in poor health in 1850. Alfred du Pont died October 4, 1856 at Eleutherian Mills, near Greenville, Delaware, and is buried in the du Pont de Nemours Cemetery near Greenville.
