Hagley Water Wheel

Dissatisfied with the quality of gun powder then available in America, E.I. du Pont build his own powder mills in 1802 along the Brandywine Creek in Wilmington, Delaware. The powder produced there was to such high standards that by mid-century Dupont was the largest supplier of powder to the U.S military. The powder mills and the 235 acres on which the ancestral house and gardens of the Dupont family sit comprise the Hagley Museum.

The water wheel, which LCTF was commissioned to replace, had itself been replaced a number of times over its more than 200-year history, The replacement wheel is sixteen feet in diameter and rotates on a shaft fashioned from #1 grade 24” x 24” x 24’ kiln dried and pressure-treated Southern yellow pine timber. Over 400 pieces of kiln-dried white oak were employed to fabricate the wheel segments and the paddles. Twenty-nine complex metal castings and welded fabrications with hundreds of fasteners were used to join it together.