Henry Algernon du Pont, a Republican Senator from Delaware (1906-1917), was born at Eleutherean Mills, New Castle County, Delaware, on July 30, 1838. During the Civil War he served in the Union Army, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was president and general manger of the Wilmington Northern Railroad Company from 1879-1899. Du Pont died at Winterthur on December 31, 1926.
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay (accessed January 2008).
D. Heber (David Heber) Plank, a Berks County (Pennsylvania) physician, was born in Caernarvon township, Pennsylvania, on November 12, 1842. He received his M. D. in 1867 from the Univerity of Pennsylvania. Plank maintained a medical practice in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, and was a member of the Pathological Society of Berks County. Dr. Plank died on January 4, 1906.
College of Physicians, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, D. Heber Plank Financial papers. http://www.collphyphil.org/FIND_AID/histdhp1.htm (accessed January 2008).
Consists of the late 19th-century business correspondence regarding the Wilmington & Northern Railroad between company president Henry A. du Pont and David Heber Plank.
The nine letters exchanged by Henry A. du Pont and David Heber Plank also regard the Wilmington and Northern Railroad Company's predecessor, the Wilmington & Reading Railroad Company. The three letters from du Pont and six letters from Plank also discuss the creation of the Morgantown & Conestoga Valley Railroad Company, of which Plank was to be director and cooperation between the two railroad companies.